By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Remember, Save Jerseyans: we declared our independence from Great Britain for a reason.
There is no “no bill of rights” in the mother country, nor do they recognize a “right to bear arms” as we do here in the United States. Their entire conception of “rights” is radically different than our own. Consequently, in the United Kingdom, civilians are not permitted to possess semi automatic and automatic firearms including handguns. But has the UK’s uber-restrictive gun regulatory culture resulted in less gun violence?
Not really. The correlation has actually proven to be negative over the course of time, particularly since the European Council Directive of 18 June 1991 on Control of the Acquisition and Possession of Weapons went into effect (UK inner city crime increased 91% over the next four years); we had the nerve to point out this inconvenient truth here at Save Jersey shortly after the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting when, as I’m sure you’ll recall, our own Sen. Frank Lautenberg demanded sweeping new gun controls for the colonies.
Let’s look at a single example of how the UK gun experiment isn’t working as planned, like yesterday’s grizzly beheading of a British soldier by two assailants shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ as they reportedly did the deed with a machette.
Guess what these nut jobs had on’em? A gun, folks.
How?
Somehow. Apparently!
And they’re not alone; the gun crime rate rose by 35% last year in the UK. That’s a problematic situation for any city, state or nation, but particularly when (1) the law abiding citizens and most police don’t carry weapons, and (2) your population of radical Islamic immigrants is also soaring. It’s not pretty across the pond.
Liberals might be frustrated by the British gun problem because it seems counterintuitive. The government took guns away, and since government can and should do anything in their ideal universe, then liberals won’t be able to understand why confiscation didn’t work. It’s analogous to a child discovering his or her hero is actually fallible. Sad!
Those of us with a more mature appreciation of human nature and the true intent of the Second Amendment are also frustrated by what’s happening over there but for decidedly different reasons, specifically, over the fact that our liberal friends can’t grow up fast enough to figure all of this out before it’s too late for the rest of us on this side of the Atlantic.
