UK gun license reform push a warning to Americans

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In the United Kingdom, if you want a firearm, you have to have a special license for it. There are tons of other rules you have to comply with as well as having a gun license, of course, but that’s a big part of things there.

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However, none of the UK’s gun laws stopped a mass shooting in Plymouth last year.

Now, though, some are claiming that the reason that shooting happened was that the system is broken and in dire need of reform.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, faces calls to overhaul gun licensing laws as campaigners warn a “broken” system is needlessly putting lives at risk.

Patel agreed last week to meet Plymouth residents about gun controls after Jake Davison, 22, a licensed gun holder, killed his mother and four passersby, including three-year-old Sophie Martyn, in an attack in the city last August.

Luke Pollard, the Labour MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, said: “The gun control system is broken and needs reform. What we’ve experienced has been so horrific and so awful that we do need to take steps to work out how this can be prevented from happening in the future.”

Britain has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world as a result of restrictions brought in after the killing of 16 people in Hungerford in August 1987 and the murder of 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane primary school in March 1996. Handguns are now banned in Britain for most purposes. There are, however, concerns about the licensing regime overseen by police forces. Both gun control campaigners and shooting groups agree that the system is badly under-resourced.

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So despite some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, a mass shooting still happened, so the gun grabbers there are claiming the system is broken, which just means they need more restrictions.

This should serve as a warning to Americans.

At no point in time will there ever be enough gun control to satisfy the anti-Second Amendment types. There’s no set of laws that can go into effect where they’ll collectively stand up and say, “That’s enough.”

No, they’ll keep demanding more and more.

Today, they want universal background checks and a ban on AR-15s, but tomorrow it’ll be requirements for gun licenses and restrictions on “sniper rifles.”

There will never be a line in the sand that gun control advocates will say they won’t go beyond. If you press a gun control advocate, they can’t tell you anything they oppose short of a total gun ban, if they’ll even say that. They’re always up for at least a few more restrictions until they get their Utopia.

It’s why we don’t budge anymore. We’re not interested in where this is heading.

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Plus, this is why we say any gun control advocate wants our guns. Oh, they may not be saying it right now–something the supposed fact-checkers keep pointing out–but we know where this road goes. We’re not interested in playing Charlie Brown to their football-holding Lucy. We know they’re going to move the ball, but unlike the cartoon character, we’re smart enough to know where this is going to go.

Gun licensing didn’t do much in the UK, but some still want it here in the United States. They want everything the UK has for gun control.

And it’s why some of us will never tolerate a gun licensing scheme.

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