LONDON — When police on a weapons raid swarmed a housing project after London’s 2011 riots, they seized a cache of arms that in the United States might be better suited to ‘‘Antiques Roadshow’’ than urban ganglands.
Inside plastic bags hidden in a trash collection room, officers uncovered two archaic flintlock pistols, retrofitted flare guns, and a Jesse James-style revolver. Now, that kind of antiquated firepower is about the baddest a gang member can get.
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Unfortunately any serious gun in the U.S., control comparable to England, is completely unrealistic when you consider the impediments, including constitutionality, an increasingly polarized and paranoid electorate, a powerful gun lobby and pandering politicians on both sides of the aisle. Apropos to the article, Winston Churchill said: The Americans will always do the right thing… after they've exhausted all the alternatives.
Yes, that darn constitution. Makes it really hard (although not impossible) for the liberal facists to take over...
Look at the crime rates in Engand. Massive hooliganism, property damage, assaults, etc.
Couple of decent armed citizens would help put that genie back in the bottle.
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The National Institute of Justice (a Department of Justice research arm) earlier this year issued a paper that concluded, “Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to U.S. gun homicide and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapons ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence. If coupled with a gun buyback and no exemptions then it could be effective." See http://www.nraila.org/media/10883516/nij-gun-policy-memo.pdf. (Sorry to refer you to an NRA website, but the National Institute of Justice does NOT have its own paper available on its own website, for some reason.) In any event, forget the British model. The President and Congress here will have to skirt around the Second Amendment and effect a compulsory buy-back program as to all assault weapons in civilians’ hands, in order to impact assault-weapons-related crime. Are we ready for such a draconian measure, where assault-weapons-related crime, although horrific, is infrequent? The terrible but intermittent horror of firearms-caused massacres must be compared and contrasted with the pervasive, constant horror we will all face if we are ever invaded and do not have a suitably armed civilian militia. A suitably armed civilian militia would in the case of invasion be needed to assist the Regular Military, the Reserves, and the National Guard (especially as our own Defense Budget is about to be drastically, drastically cut). The Roman Empire fell when the Romans hired mercenaries and would themselves no longer fight. Do you think that Roman tragedy could happen here?