I’m posting this primarily because CNN is generally considered reasonably unbiased. There is already a gun debate in great debates. I’m just providing information here. Please don’t shoot the messenger.
One year and half is all it took. Guns turned in and gone from public hands. First step was registering them.
Effectiveness? The article indicates some lowering of crime. But there was another mass murder involving rifles in 2010. You could play “show me the statistics” and still not know for sure. imho There’s too many variables, better policing, focusing on gangs, crimes committed with other weapons etc.
Getting caught with a gun in Britain is taken seriously. A SAS Sergeant stationed in Iraq was given a pistol and ammo in a local ceremony. He returned to Britain with it and ended up in jail. It’s been a political battle getting him out and his name still isn’t totally cleared. Google Danny Nightingale for many articles and sources.
One reason this has basically no bearing on how this will play out in the U.S.:
I’m not sure how many registered handguns there are in the U.S., but it’ll be closer to 200 million than 200 thousand. And the U.S. is much, much larger than Britain. So between that and the Second Amendment and the different views of guns in both countries, guns can’t “be taken away” that fast in the U.S.
The U.S. has a gun culture that is unparalleled when compared to the rest of world. A staggering amount of guns and ammo are in the hands of private citizens, and millions are extremely passionate about it. The biggest problem with a “turn 'em all in” law is that (IMO) very few would do it. It could also lead to a civil war.
I’m not sure the number of guns matters. Once you criminalize possession then your average family will turn them in. You have kids to feed and raise. You can’t risk prison.
Thats what seems to have happened in Britain. Most just turned in the guns rather than risk jail. Most people will comply with the laws of their country. They may grumble about it, but they comply. I love target shooting and hunting. Would I risk jail and leaving my wife without financial support? Of course not. I’m not going to risk destroying our lives by breaking a law.
The ones that didn’t could easily be found because that’s one of the objectives of registering guns. The cops have a address to visit anytime the gun laws change.
When the difference is a factor of 1,000, of course it matters. Consider the logistics of collecting tens or hundreds of millions of guns instead of 200,000. Consider the size of the countries involved, the different views U.S. states would have of any move like this, and the fact that the population of the U.S. is about five times larger than that of Britain at the time of its gun ban.
That’s not going to happen either. Like Boyo Jim said: Second Amendment. End of story. The 1994 Assault Weapons ban did not criminalize the possession of any guns. It banned the manufacture of some types of guns and it did ban the possession of certain types of magazines. Whatever gun laws may happen next, the government is not going to confiscate guns.
Does Britain have a lot of militia-types? I’m guessing not, seeing as how they don’t have much of a gun culture. Does Britain have Freeman on the Land movements and other types of anti-government paranoids? I’m guessing there aren’t too many of those, either.
Never going to happen.
The Supreme Court has been taking a broader and broader view of the Second Amendment in recent years, and that’s not going to change in a decade unless the Second Amendment itself were revised or repealed (and that idea is laughable).
This does illustrate the ludicrousness of the OP’s theory. If large numbers of people are opposed to ideas like registering guns, how is the federal government supposed to confiscate all the handguns in the U.S. in a few years?
Confiscation, unlikely as it is to happen, wouldn’t mean civil war. It would be a series of Wacos, standoffs in homes or compounds against police. And nobody outside of those houses or compounds will give a damn if they burn to the ground just like in Waco.
We don’t have many “militia” types, no - at least, I don’t think we do. I presume that means people like those who think the UN is about to invade and…do something unspecified but bad.
I mod a UK forum where we discuss consumer and legal type issues, and the Freemen on the Land guys do show up there every so often. Usually, though, they’re arguing about why they’re not subject to the law and thus shouldn’t have to pay their parking ticket or electricity bill. None that I can recall have argued that they have the right to keep a small arsenal in their basement.
Of course, another key difference between the UK and the US is that the handgun ban was implemented here with broad (though certainly not unanimous) public support. I doubt that would be the case on your side of the pond.
