British gun laws.

My take on gun control is similar to that on most regulation of objects:  in the absence of significant evidence of improved public safety, liberty should prevail.  Even when there is some evidence that regulation can improve safety, the bar should be set high in favor of liberty.  Especially when the supposedly dangerous object can contribute to safety in particular circumstances, so that the calculation of risks and benefits is highly individualized.

And there isn't much evidence of improved public safety from laws against guns.   So --- I've never thought that gun control was necessary, and I've generally been a supporter of (for example) concealed-carry laws.  But what I've been surprised to learn in the past couple of years, from news out of Britain, is that outlawing guns appears to be not just unhelpful, but dangerous, at least when coupled with other associated anti-self-defense laws.  Violent crime has erupted there since possession of handguns was all but forbidden a few years ago; tellingly, home invasions (i.e. forced entry into an occupied house) have risen particularly high.

David Kopel of The Volokh Conspiracy has a new review of a book by Joyce Malcolm called Guns and Violence:  The English Experience.  The book covers the entire history of firearms control in the British Isles; the review presents some of the data from the last few years and describes the laws.  Makes me wonder how the citizens of Britain ever agreed to this: 

British criminals have little expectation of confronting a victim who possesses a firearm. Even the small percentage of British homes which have a lawfully-owned gun would not be able to unlock the gun from one safe, and then unlock the ammunition from another safe, in time to use the gun against a home invader.  It should hardly be surprising, then, that Britain has a much higher rate of home invasion burglaries than does the United States.

Technically, self-defense is still legal in Great Britain, but in practice, any act of self-defense is subject to a prosecutor’s second-guessing of what is “reasonable.” For example, Brett Osborn is now serving a 5-year sentence for manslaughter.  In order to protect a friend, “He stabbed a blood-covered, drug-crazed intruder….” His prosecution stemmed from the fact that he failed to warn the criminal that he had access to a knife.

In 2004, despite popular demand, the British government refused to reform the laws regarding victim self-defense. Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart claimed that self-defense reform would be a “licence to kill with impunity."

I have to agree with Ms. Mactaggart there, but she and I depart ways when she implies that this is a bad thing.  Defending oneself against an intruder in one's own home, even to the point of deadly force, deserves impunity.   I think it's a reasonable assumption that such a person intends to do bodily harm, possibly extending to murder, either as an end in itself or as a means to it.

Coming to the aid of crime victims is strongly discouraged. British subjects are taught that, if they are attacked by a criminal, they should not yell “Help! Help!” because such cries might encourager a bystander to use physical force against the criminal. Rather, victims are supposed to yell, “Call the police.” Likewise, the government tells Britons that when they are attacked, they should not fight back, but should instead curl into a ball or take a similar defensive posture.

Good if you're an armadillo, tortoise or similar.   Not so good otherwise.  ("Here, criminal!  Have a crack at my kidneys!")

To be fair, the no-defending-yourself-by-any-means laws aren't a necessary component of the handgun bans, but are a spectacularly foolish add-on.  Still, in many ways they are a logical outgrowth of an attitude that necessarily accompanies the desire to ban weapons of any sort:  Beating the bad guys is always and everywhere the job of the state, not the private individual.  Response time be damned.

If a properly-behaved British bystander does “call the police,” the response may be lethally slow. Vicky Horgan and her sister Emma Walton were shot by Stuart Horgan on June 6, 2004.  A total of sixty calls to 999 (the US’s equivalent to 9-1-1) were made, but help did not arrive for over an hour. The Express explained that a major cause of the delay was police reluctance to confront an armed criminal.

There's some other good points, notably the fact that private security guards are allowed to carry weapons --- so if you're rich enough to have one, or to appear as though you may have one, your home is likely safer.   

There's also some fascinating data from the U. S. that appears to show that legal gun ownership makes a young male, even an at-risk one, much less likely to engage in crime.  (To be fair, I suspect that the young at-risk males who were taught how to use legal guns, were taught by their fathers, implying a connected relationship which itself is known to be protective.)

Read the review: I may want to read Malcolm's book. 

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Especially when the supposedly dangerous object can contribute to safety in particular circumstances, so that the calculation of risks and benefits is highly individualized.