A living laboratory

Over at Captain's Quarters, Capt. Ed weighs in on British gun laws and a recent story in the Telegraph on "skyrocketing" gun crime in the UK. Britain, of course, has some of the strictest gun laws in the Western world. They banned nearly all handguns in the wake of the Dunblane "massacre". Unfortunately (for the British people), the UK is proving something that we've maintained on this side of the pond for years: Criminals and crazies don't pay attention to gun laws. Those who do pay attention to them are the very people who don't need laws to tell them not to commit murder.

For some time now, many nations of the British Commonwealth have been playing the part of living laboratories. Since they are so similar to the US in terms of culture, they make a nice way to test gun laws before they can be implemented here. (Of course, this really sucks for the test subjects citizens there. Who wants to be a lab rat in an experiment where the rat ends up in pieces?!?) The results are in. They have been experiencing the very consequences of gun control that we've predicted every time similar schemes are proposed here; namely that only criminals will have guns as a result and that they will use those guns to prey upon the weak.

Those on the other side of the argument have claimed that eliminating guns will cause criminals to abandon them in a kind of reverse arms race. The theory is that they won't use guns if knives or even fists will do. (As though getting stabbed or beaten to death makes one less dead than had a gun been used!) The reality is that like any other predator, criminals seek to overwhelm their prey. A lion doesn't want to be barely able to kill a zebra; she wants her sisters and her to take it down in seconds and strangle it before it can kick one of them. For the lion, the hunt isn't about getting into a knock-down-drag-out with something that can kill them; it's about getting something to eat. Human predators are no different. Breaking into a home isn't about getting into a gunfight or a brawl with the owner; it's about getting the stuff inside. (And that "stuff" might just include people.) Having a gun, whether the victim has legal access to one or not, tips the odds even more favorably to the criminal's side. Because of that, the reverse arms race doesn't happen as predicted. The reality, instead, is what we see in Britain. The innocent, obeying their government's gun laws, fall victim in ever increasing numbers to those who ignore the law.

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