The United Kingdom has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world. While owning a gun is still technically possible, it's out of reach for a vast number of people who live there. The right to keep and bear arms still exists, no matter what many might claim, but it's not respected in any way and only exists simply because all men and women possess that right by virtue of being alive.
And how much good do those gun control laws actually do? Not a darn bit.
After all, if they worked, we wouldn't have news reports like this:
Britain has some of the tightest gun controls in the world, but violent gangs and drug dealers are increasingly converting blank weapons in basements, garden sheds and bedrooms across Britain.
Four people were killed and 17 seriously injured with makeshift weapons last year, when more converted guns (64) were fired than real handguns (42).
In the last four years, cops have recovered 800 guns converted to fire live ammunition - and experts warn it's young, reckless gang members who are the most likely to snap them up for use in trigger-happy shootings.
NCA deputy director Charles Yates told The Sun: “Your traditional organised criminal is probably going to think twice before using a firearm whereas your urban street gang is likely to more readily use them.”
Up until this year, the blank shooters could easily be bought by over-18s online or at fishing and shooting shops across Britain for just a few hundred pounds.
Criminal gangs make thousands converting them into live weapons by tampering with the blocked barrels of top-venting blanks bought mainly from Turkey, where gunfire is common at weddings and other celebrations.
Interesting, right?
First, let's talk about what Mr. Yates said: “Your traditional organised criminal is probably going to think twice before using a firearm whereas your urban street gang is likely to more readily use them.”
Now, that's interesting to me, in part because he doesn't seem to suggest that those organized criminals are less inclined to kill someone, only that they're unlikely to use a firearm to do it. In other words, the law doesn't negate violent behavior, it just means that criminals in the know are less likely to put themselves in a position to get caught with a gun.
Fair enough.
That doesn't make the UK safer, though.
Plus, there are plenty who are getting guns and aren't afraid to use them.
Despite the plethora of gun control laws on the books, these same street-level criminals are getting firearms. These aren't the result of organized smuggling operations--though I think you'll find that the larger criminal organizations have just as many guns, they're just not using them to settle petty disputes--but are the result of smaller operations.
Where there is a demand for firearms, there will be someone to meet that demand.
These gangs use 3D printing or convert non-firing replicas into functional firearms, then sell them to those who want them. The UK has already banned every step of that, and yet the criminals persist.
Yes, their "gun violence" numbers are lower than ours, but the truth of the matter is that they were always lower than ours. Their total homicide rate is lower than our non-gun homicide rate. It's not that their gun control laws work because, clearly, they don't.
They never will.
Criminals don't obey the law. This is just another example of how they'll break gun control laws because they don't care one little bit about keeping the peace or anything of the sort.
What they care about is the ability to use force against those who they want to use force against. That's it. You're not going to prevent that behavior unless you address that behavior.
The UK has utterly failed to do any such thing.
