"Is gun control about to be rolled back in Britain?" asks Brian Micklethwait. He argues that amid the outcry over recent murders, such as the savage double killing of two French students within the last few days, the public attitude to gun control is changing.
It is, but gun control is not about to be rolled back. The political bar to that happening is high, higher than for many other issues. My comment:
Politicians fear that if they do re-legalise then within the next year there will be a Dunblane or Hungerford-style spree killing using guns and they will be blamed.
For this reason I see restoration of the position as it stood before the 1997 Firearms Act, let alone the restoration of the right to armed self defence which was effectively abolished well before that, as politically impossible. The only way I see this changing is if there is a gun massacre under the present system, which would act to discredit it. (It may or may not head off malicious mis-readings of what I have just written to state that this does not mean that I desire such a massacre.)
A change of attitude concerning self defence against normal criminality almost certainly is occuring amid the public. But even if we imagine that this change becomes the new majority view, for it to translate into a change in the law a large number of MPs would have to (a) come to agree with the public (might happen, but remember MPs are more insulated from crime and have a preference for docile subjects) and (b) overcome their rational fear of bad consequences to them if their name is on any proposed law.
While I'm here, I agree with Patrick Crozier that welfare is a bigger factor in the rise in crime over the last half century than the lack of the right to self-defence, though both are factors.
Brian Micklethwait's post was partly inspired by one from Bishop Hill:
Is gun control behind our loss of civil liberties?
posted by Natalie at 9:49 AM
