Self-defense in Britain

From the UK, comes this article by Peter Hitchens:

... The only firearms I ever possessed were a couple of childhood airguns, once common but now - I suspect - more or less banned. The righteous frenzy against toy guns (including those which are unmistakably and obviously toys) is now so great that toyshops often don't stock them any more. All I desire is my lawful freedom, as guaranteed by the 1689 Bill of Rights and lawlessly whittled away by the civil service and dim politicians, to own a gun if I choose to do so. I suppose it's possible that, as our anarchy deepens, I might reluctantly want to take advantage of this. But that's the point. The choice should be mine, not that of some boot-faced politically-correct police officer anxious to maintain his monopoly of force - and anxious to ensure that his idea of the law should be the only one available.

As I argue in my book 'A Brief History of Crime', it's the great gulf between police and public over how the law should be enforced that lies behind two important features of modern Britain. The frequent arrests of people for defending themselves or their property are not accidents or quirks. They are the consequence of the Criminal Justice system's abandonment of old-fashioned ideas of punishment; also of that system's social democratic belief that crime has 'social' causes and the ownership of property isn't absolute. Most law-abiding people don't really accept this. They think criminals do bad things because they lack conscience or restraint, not because they were abused as children or their dole payments are too small. And they don't see why they have to barricade their houses or hide their worldly goods from view on the assumption that some unrestrained low-life is otherwise bound to steal them. So they regard it as legitimate to hurt and punish those who rob them or otherwise attack them. If they were allowed to enforce the law as they see it, they would quickly show the police and courts up as useless and mistaken. One of the most important jobs of the police is to stop us looking after ourselves, in case we do a better job than PC Plod. [emphasis added]

Guns simply take this to a higher level. Since we foolishly abolished the formal death penalty, imposed after a careful trial, we have transferred the power of capital punishment to an increasingly armed police force (though no legislation has ever actually been passed to arm them, and the pretence is still maintained that they are unarmed). That police force is now the arm of the liberal state - rather than enforcers of conservative law (which is why it is nowadays called a 'service') - and so has a much wider licence to use (liberal) violence than ordinary conservative citizens. Contrast the police force's zealous efforts to stamp out private gun ownership with its own rather poor efforts at responsible gun use, as a result of which quite a few people (one stark naked in a well-lit room) have been shot by mistake or as a result of over-reaction by armed officers. As it happens, I find these mistakes and over-reactions quite easy to pardon. Which of us, in such situations, could be sure he would do the right thing? I've never joined in the frenzy of criticism over the de Menezes case, for instance. It is terribly easy to see how such an error could have been made under the circumstances. But if we didn't have an armed police force, and left executions to the hangman, then these things would be a lot less likely.

But what concerns me is that members of the public in the same situation are judged so much more harshly if they make such mistakes. And, perhaps more important, how police shootings are widely accepted, though they are summary, often erroneous and inadequately investigated. Whereas a society which finds this summary execution acceptable gets into a pseudo-moral lather about the idea of lawful execution after due process, jury trial, the possibility of appeal and reprieve.

This brings me back to the USA. Americans are not so infantilised as we are. For many reasons, mainly the fact that it is still possible to live genuinely rural lives in large parts of the country, Americans are less likely to rely on others to protect them or their homes from danger. ...

Read the article here. While Americans, as Hitchens asserts, may not be as infantilised as the hapless Brits, that is unfortunately the direction we're headed, and have been headed for some time. It starts in schools, with things like "zero tolerance" policies, and is reinforced by politicians who lie to our faces when they say that the police will protect you (even though the police have no legal duty to do so), and thus you shouldn't have the means to protect yourself (while they themselves are often surrounded by armed security, paid for by the taxpayer). Those same politicians pass laws at every opportunity to enlarge the government and its control over our lives. We may not be in as wretched shape as Jolly Old England, but we're sliding down the same sorry path.