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British Subjects Beginning
to Rethink Gun Control
Lessons on 10-year anniversary of L.A. riots
by Erich Pratt
GOA Director of Communications
April 3, 2002
Who would ever have thought that a British
paper would extol the virtues of private citizens bearing arms?
That is what readers of the London Daily Telegraph must have been asking
themselves recently when they read Simon Heffer's article entitled, "If the
state fails us, we must defend ourselves."
It turns out, the state has been failing British citizens in a big way.
Heffer documents several gruesome murders, the most recent involving a gang of
young thugs who repeatedly stabbed an unarmed, 82 year-old lady to death.
Crime has gotten so bad, Heffer says, that Brits like himself are beginning to
reexamine their long-held assumptions about the government's role in controlling
crime.
Heffer used to believe there was an implicit contract between law-abiding
citizens and the state. The people surrender certain freedoms to the
government, and officials would in turn use their power to control crime.
He says it is clear to all, however, that "the state has broken that
contract."
Now that crime rates are skyrocketing in England, Heffer believes it is time for
the British government to recognize a new right for denizens like himself �
the right to bear arms.
In one sense, Heffer is wrong. Bearing arms would not be a "new
right" for Englishmen, for the English Bill of Rights recognized this very
important freedom as far back as 1689.
But he is correct in another sense. The British government
consistently denies its people the ability to protect themselves with a firearm. England
enacted a draconian gun ban after the Dunblane massacre, yet that law has done
nothing to reduce crime, Heffer says.
In fact, things have only gotten worse. He longingly looks to America
where citizens can defend themselves with firearms, unlike the situation in
England where a homeowner used a gun in 1999 to kill a lifelong criminal and was
then sent to jail for life!
Heffer is correct in saying that the British government has definitely let the
people down.
But before Americans start gloating about our superior laws, we should admit
that we also know a thing or two about the state failing its citizens. Take
the Los Angeles riots, for example. This month will mark the ten-year
anniversary of these riots � an uprising that began after a jury acquitted two
cops of using excessive force against motorist Rodney King.
If you owned a TV in April of 1992, you will never forget the horrible images
that blared day and night after the jury verdict was announced.
For several days, Los Angeles was in complete turmoil as stores were looted and
burned. Motorists were dragged from their cars and beaten.
Further aggravating the situation, police were very slow in responding to the
crisis. Many Guardsmen, after being mobilized to the affected areas,
sat by and watched the violence because their rifles were low on ammunition.
Not surprisingly, hundreds of people were injured. More than a dozen
innocent citizens were killed.
But not everybody in Los Angeles suffered. In some of the hot spots,
Korean merchants were able to successfully protect their stores with
semi-automatic firearms.
"We went through hell," said supermarket owner Richard Rhee. "No
police, no National Guard. We called for help and they said we were
on our own."
As it turns out, they did just fine on their own. In areas where
armed citizens banded together for self-protection, their businesses were spared
while others (which were left unprotected) burned to the ground.
To be sure, the pictures of Korean merchants defending their stores left quite
an impression on one group of people living in Los Angeles: those who
had previously identified themselves as gun control advocates.
Press reports described how life-long gun control supporters were running to gun
stores to buy an item they never thought they would need � a gun. But
alas, they were surprised (and outraged!) to learn there was a 15-day waiting
period upon firearms.
The situation was truly outrageous. The state of California could not
protect these people, but in the same breath, it was not letting those same
citizens protect themselves.
Simon Heffer is right. English citizens should be allowed to protect
themselves. But lest we think that England has a monopoly on stupid
laws, let us never forget one of the most important lessons from the Los Angeles
riots: guns save lives, and gun control only encourages bad people to
prey upon disarmed victims.
Erich Pratt is the Director of
Communications for Gun Owners of America, a national gun lobby with over 300,000
members located at 8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at http://www.gunowners.org
on the web.
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