Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
|
 You
don't have to wonder
Jim Butler, President, Sangamon County Rifle Association October 2007 GunNews For those who wonder what the United States would be like if we would ban handguns and severely restrict rifles and shotguns need only look at Britain. In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the trend to increase has continued. In 2001 from April to November, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent. And gun crime is only part of an increasingly lawless environment. Crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. Between 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chance of being mugged in London is six times greater than in New York. Too make matters worse, England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than in America. Burglaries where people are at home are 53 percent compared to 13 percent in the United States. Burglars in the U.S. are more afraid of an armed homeowner then they are of the police. In a 2002 July report, the United Nations study of 18 developed nations concluded that England and Wales led the Western world's crime league with nearly 53 crimes per 100 people. Crime, especially violent crime, has skyrocketed since gun banning has escalated in the United Kingdom. And why not? Unarmed victims only make the criminals bolder. A continuing parliamentary inquiry into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation - double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago - and the worst part is that British criminals are now more willing to use them. One in three criminals under the age 25 possess or has access to a firearm. The scale of gun crime in London has forced senior officers to set up a specialist unit to deal with shootings. All this crime after their well advertised gun ban efforts have only served to disarm law-abiding citizens. Comparing crime rates between America and Britain is flawed. In America, a gun crime is recorded as a gun crime. In Britain, a crime is only recorded when there is a final disposition, otherwise a conviction. All unsolved gun crimes in Britain are not reported as gun crimes, grossly under counting the amount of gun crime there. To make matters worse, British law enforcement has been exposed for falsifying criminal reports to create falsely lower crime figures, in part to preserve tourism. Daily Telegraph, April 1, 1996. Sir William Blackstone the brilliant British jurist and legal scholar (1723 - 1780), whose Commentaries on the Laws of England, was for more than a century the foundation of legal education in Great Britain and the United States. As such, his commentaries was one of the major influences upon the thinking of our Founding Fathers, most of whom were lawyers trained in the English common-law tradition. Blackstone endorsed the view that a free society must retain for its citizens the right to keep and bear arms both for self-defense and to restrain the violence of oppressive government. Unfortunately, it seems that the British people have already lost the right to defend themselves against criminals who are not afraid to use force. Do not let the same thing happen here in the United States. As I See it Index Return to SCRA Home Page |