They Refuse to Reason

Monday, November 01, 2004

I wish I could have been at a Pub, or wherever these people convene, to see the reactions from all the Britons who read the Telegraph this morning (emphasis added):

Britain's gun laws are aimed at the wrong target, curbing and criminalising legal ownership while failing to tackle huge rises in shooting offences over the past few years, according to an international firearms legislation expert.

Prof Gary Mauser said that Britain was making the same mistake as Canada and Australia in focusing on legal owners - a section of the law-abiding community where gun crimes, such as the Dunblane massacre, were aberrations.

The Home Office and police chiefs should instead tackle the possession of guns in criminal hands, said Prof Mauser, a member of the independent Fraser Institute in Canada. He has given evidence to select committees of the House of Commons and the Canadian Senate and predicted the escalation of gun crime on Britain's streets.

His warning comes as gun crime incidents are averaging about 29 a day in England and Wales, more than twice the level of when the Labour Government came to power in 1997. In the past two years, there have been cases of schoolchildren and a baby, killed or injured by guns.

"I believe that factors of political correctness are at work," he said. "Police crackdowns, Home Office initiatives and over-regulation of legally held weapons create froth and they may even fool the police themselves into believing they are doing something about gun crime."

Prof Mauser added: "The sad truth is that while the police officers are inspecting farmers' gun cabinets to see if they comply with regulations somewhere in the UK, someone, who has not filled in a firearms certificate form, will be smuggling a gun into the country or selling one to an inner city youth."

Recorded gun crime rose by three per cent to 10,590 incidents in the year to June. Two-thirds of gun crime takes place in London, Birmingham and Manchester.

It doesn't matter to these people that crime has skyrocketed since the irrational ban on private gun possession went into effect in Great Britain. Just as long as it's there, they feel safe.