Not true. The contention was that there was “never a culture or demand . . .” Malcolm clearly shows that widespread firearm ownership not only existed, but was, in certain instances, compulsory.
Not that it matters now. The person making that contention has modified it to include only the modern era. Which seems a reasonable distinction to me.
APB states:
But this is misleading. The Game Act was passed, as you say, to restrict gun ownership, not to grant it. Which by inference forces us to conclude there was indeed something to restrict - widespread gun ownership. The English Bill of Rights enacted eighteen years later was intended to restore a previously held right. Thus, the labeling of those rights in the Bill as “True, Ancient and Indubitable.” Blackstone, in his Commentaries agrees: he considered the right to bear arms the “natural right of resistance and self preservation” and viewed the right as necessary “to restrain the violence of oppression.”
Finally, let us not forget that the subsequent Game Acts of 1692 & 1706 omitted guns from their lists of proscribed “engines.”
In the final case however, I’m not sure any of this is germane to a critique of Cecil’s article.
This doesn’t really help your argument. Chicago’s gun laws are among the most draconian in the entire United States - including a nearly complete de facto ban on handguns.
As of 1982, to own a handgun in Chicago, it had to be registered. Registrations are only valid for a single year. And oddly enough, you can no longer register new handguns at all. If you didn’t have it before the sunset on new registrations, you can’t legally have it.
In addition to the ban on handguns, all other firearms (except antiques and curios) must be registered. And you gotta have a state issued firearm owner’s ID card to even buy ammunition.
Anyone who doubts that English law allows a householder to kill in defence of himself or his property should consider the case of Kenneth Noye. He is currently serving time for a road rage murder in 1996, prior to that he was imprisoned for 14 years for his part in a bullion robbery. He also walked free after admitting stabbing a policeman, John Fordham to death. At his trial he convinced the jury that after finding the undercover policeman in the grounds of his home, he stabbed him four times in self defence. This is an account of Noyes’ criminal career.
I picked Chicago because that’s where (I guess) that’s where Cecil lives. Any chance of anyone coming up with a single large city anywhere in the USA where there were fewer gun related deaths than in the whole of England and Wales?
Houston for example. 73 fatal shootings January to August 2001. Yes, the site is definitely anti-gun and included 'burbs out to Plano, but we’re ccomapring it to England and Wales - population in the 50,000,000 range.
You can also find the official State by State breakdown here. Just I haven’t checked every single State, but the 500,000 residents of Wyomong had fewer (70) gun realted fatalities in 2001 than the whole of England and Wales.
The predominate international influence on gun crime is from Jamaica. However, eastern European criminal gangs are gaining hold, particularly in people-smuggling and the sex industry. But they have littleto do with everyday crime such as burglaries and muggings, which are often to fuel crack or heroin addictions.
Can I ask what your source is for the England and Wales figures ? I only ask because this site (which may or may not be reliable) quotes BBC News as saying:
“Police recorded 886 homicides in England and Wales in 2001/02, an increase of 36 on the previous year; 768 were detected, which represents a decrease in the detection rate consistent with the preceding four years (Jon Simmons 2003). In the same period, there were 22 gun related deaths, which represents less than 3 per cent of all homicides (BBC News 16/09/03)”
If so, 22 related deaths in a population of around 54million would represent a rate much less than a rate of 70 deaths in a population of 500,000 both in absolute and per-capita terms.
When it comes to unstated assumptions, yes. Same thing all over the world. If Sherlock Holmes can take it for granted that Dr. Watson (Dr Watson!) carries a revolver, it’s pretty obvious that a doctor carrying a revolver wasn’t exactly in the same class of event as Queen Victoria riding a pogo stick down Rotten Row.
Actually, the stories specify Dr. Watson’s ARMY revolver, the implication being that he WAS unusual in carrying such a piece, and that had he been a life-long civilian like Homes, he wouldn’t have a gun either. Hell, it’s Holmes who’s the heroic crimefighter, why doesn’t HE own a revolver – hmm?
I very much doubt such records are made widely available - because of the obvious potential for their misuse. And even if you do get hold of such figures, comparing between different countries or territories would be fraught with difficulties, because of varying methods of identifying race (do you record somebody’s race as what you perceive it, or what they state it is? Can you compare ‘African-American’ in America with ‘Black British’ in Britain, when there’s also African-American Britons? What about people who identify themselves as Jedi? And so on…)
