As mentioned before on Samizdata.net, a television advertisement for featuring a woman firing a gun has been banned by regulators after it prompted complaints from viewers. The advert for the Freelander Sport was accused of glorifying guns and encouraging dangerous driving. Ofcom, the regulator for the UK communications industries, ruled that it had breached guidelines on harm and offence and must not be shown again.
Given regular coverage of high-profile shooting incidents and public concern about the wider social impact of the so-called gun culture, the glamorisation and normalisation of guns, even indirectly, is simply offensive to many people.
What on earth do they mean by gun culture in Britain? It must be the fact that criminals have them, because a law-abiding citizen can not get hold of one. Oh, no, guns are bad, bad, bad. The fact that a gun would enable a father to defend himself and his sons against a drug gang thugs terrorising his neighbourhood is obviously missing the point.
A public-spirited man who was beaten up in front of his young sons when he confronted drug dealers outside his home committed suicide because he felt powerless to protect them.
We must ensure that those who want to protect themselves and their families understand that guns would only increase the level of mindless violence in Britain and, more importantly, make the self-righteous Guardianistas and assorted champagne socialists look even worse. There is no room for gun culture in the multi-cultural Britain.
Interestingly, David Davis, the shadow home secretary notes:
Large amounts of crime go unreported and many people accept yob culture as a fact of life.
We shall also fight the ‘yob culture’ with luncheon vouchers, wagging our fingers at hyper-active young men beating up whomever stands up to them and banning them from town centres for unruly behaviour. That should show them.
Now pass me that baby…
Can someone give me the basics on British gun laws? What do you have to do to buy one or carry one? I live in Virginia, where the laws are as loose as anywhere in the US. It is still a complicated mess. You can buy a handgun with an instant background check. You can openly carry one with no permit (cannot be concealed). You need a basic training course to get a permit (concealed). As for carrying one in my car I am always confused. I think the gun must be openly seen to be legal (this is without a permit). Anyway, do the British laws compare with tighter laws in some US states? I have heard they laws are brutal, but I don’t know the details.
Interesting that the government of Britain holds itself wise enough to socially engineer the people so they don’t have a “gun culture” and feel confident enough to engage in censorship to accomplish it.
Shannon:
Isn’t the arrogance of the parasite class breathtaking?
They really DO know what’s best for us. I guess I can sleep at night now.
In the old BBC Radio 1 days it was a surefire method of increasing a bad record’s sales by “banning” it from plays, something that any Radio 1 DJ was empowered to do.
One gets the feeling that Ofcom might well be helping Landrover with some weird below-the-line campaign, by banning what was an otherwise eminently forgettable commercial – quite unlike the well made Y&R advertising campaign for Landrover currently being aired in the US.
So my guess is that the Beeb doesn’t broadcast any of those fabulous Charles Bronson movies that encouraged Americans to ‘hit back’ during the social malaise of the mid 1970’s.
Then might I recommend a trip to the video store to rent the entire ‘Death Wish’ series.
BB, the law on guns in Britain are harsh and fairly straightforward. Essentially, all handguns are banned. Rifles above a .22 calibre are banned. Shotguns are allowed for “appropriate” users, ie, they are licensed to people like farmers and clay shooters, albeit under increasingly stringent guidelines.
This country has gone out of its mind. A friggin starting pistol is deemed to be encouraging a gun culture? Has Britain sunk into a nation of complete wusses? Sheesh.
the glamorisation and normalisation of guns, even indirectly, is simply offensive to many people.
To which I can only reply, “so what?”
Anyone fancy joining together to form a new religion in the UK in which guns form a necessary and Holy part of the ritual -a ritual which involves them being carried at all times and fired religiously every day… 😉
What the hell are you talking about, Jonathan? Please, it’s understandable that a Virginian is not acquainted with our firearms laws, but don’t confuse the guy further with this nonsense.
Have you got all night? I’ll just make some more coffee, and this should take only a few hours… No, please, “straightforward” is the last word to describe our gun laws – since the 1920 Act (prior to whichwe had no firearms controls worth mentioning) there has been a succession of Acts and bureaucratic dictats, often as knee-jerk reactions to notorious incidents – the 1967, 1988 and 1997 Acts all fall in this category. They form a morass of irrational, often contradictory, oppressive, ill-drafted legislation that many barristers & judges find difficult to comprehend. There is no evidence that any of them has had any measurable benefit. In the 84 years since that first Act, armed crime has mushroomed beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings.
Handguns are not completely forbidden: I lost my Colt Series 70 .45ACP to the 1997 Act, but a friend owns his pre-WW2 RAF issue 1911 in .455 British – practically the same gun – because it was issued to his uncle, so he has it on a lawful collector’s Firearm Certificate. My club owns a long-barelled 357 Magnum, because in some way handguns with very long barrels are deemed less likely to turn us into ravening psychopaths than short-barreled ones. Black powder revolvers can still be owned on a FAC.
As for rifles, the only ones in bigger than .22 cal we can’t own are semi-automatics, a legacy of the 1988 Act. Many people including myself own hunting rifles, up to and including 375 H&H, 458 WinMag etc.
Shotguns are the most commonly owned, and certainly not just by farmers and clayshooters (I am neither) – maybe 400,000 people own them in UK, haven’t seen the latest figs for Shotgun Certificates.
There are still a lot of guns owned by ordinary citizens, as opposed to agents of the State and the criminal fraternity. At least for the time being.
I find myself continually having to remind people that RKBA and the law of self-defence are, in fact, two separate issues.
There is no point whatsoever in having access to gleaming, impressive ironmongery if the law forbids you from using it to defend your life and limb. You might just as well collect antique clocks for all the good they will do you.
The anti-weapon laws in the UK are, indeed, absurd, maternalistic and paranoid but they are not, per se the problem.
I am happy to report that today, I could privatize an important item: my formerly military assault rifle had it’s serial number altered by the addition of the letter “P”, standing for “Private” and I was free to take it home as my own.
It’s the FAS57, a 15 pound rifle with 24-shot magazine and very powerful military ammunition. I’m sure that most people throughout Europe would be “shoked” by the scene where I could just walk away with that rifle, no questions asked 🙂
We still have the right to possess such guns, though since 1999, we’re not supposed to carry them anymore – except on our way to the shooting range – though we do have the right to self-defense. If someone uses a gun in legitimate self-defense, then the infringement of the gun-carry law is considered irrelevant, since the law of necessity overrides all other concerns. Yes, that’s right: to defend the life and sefety of a person, everything necessary in that course of action is legitimate, even if it breaks the law.
If we join the EU or even just the Schengen agreement, we will loose the right to own and use guns and most likely, sooner or later, the right to self-defense in general.
Tony H overcomplicates, BB.
Yes the specifics are complicated. But there is no comparison to the US: you can only own single-shot long guns, all hand guns and automatics are effectively banned; you cannot carry in any public place; you cannot physically handle without a licence; you cannot keep privately except under lock and key in state-approved conditions.
So a private detective, body guard, someone who carries a lot of cash for business reasons, can they or can they not become licensed to carry a gun? Are there some exceptions?
“Ofcom” Did Orwell come up with that one?
I think Anthony Burgess had a method for dealing with crime that doesn’t involve firearms ownership.
BB –
Definitely NOT for any of those reasons. (For a few years now, someone who carries a lot of cash for business reasons better have proof of its origins for the authorities or risk it being confiscated.)
There used to be a very limited exception for politicians in Northern Ireland deemed to be in danger of assassination or kidnap, but it was for them personally only. The only lawful armed bodyguards are specialist police officers assigned protection duties.
(But bodyguards are rare anyway. Though Government paranoia is increasing, under normal circumstances round the clock guards were provided only to the Queen, heir to the throne, Prime Minister and Northern Ireland minister, and former Prime Ministers and Northern Ireland ministers. I see Mrs Blair frequently in an ordinary social context, but I’ve rarely spotted even backgroud protection. I imagine a subversive like me wouldn’t be allowed within half a mile of Laura Bush, even supposing the Secret Service were to approve her regular use of public amenities not cleared of the public.)
David Carr wrote:
Spot on David. It is just as legal, I believe, in Britain to use a legally held shotgun to protect ones self as it is to use a kitchen knife, large black cooking pot or cat swung at high speed around ones head. The problem is the state interfering in the act of self defence not and not necessarily the tool used. Once that nut is cracked we can start getting onto changing the meta-context that people use when considering the best tool for the job.
Obviously this is all in the context of self defence. Having guns for purely sporting purposes is also a perfectly valid reason for having them. But we’ve been through all this before.
Well, my comment above didn’t make much sense did it? Serves me right for commenting so early in the morning. As you can see from my second sentence, David is not quite spot on (I believe, ie it is not necessarily illegal to use a legally held gun) but his sentements are ie the state makes it extremely difficult for its cash cows to defend their lives and their property from those that would choose to take either by force by imposing the subjective idea of “reasonable force”.
I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned yet that pepper spray is a prohibited FIREARM in the UK…
It’s JohnJo’s:
“Obviously this is all in the context of self defence. Having guns for purely sporting purposes is also a perfectly valid reason for having them,” that really highlights the issue. Having certain sorts of guns for sporting purposes is still permitted in Britain, having them for self defence is definitely not regarded by the authorities as a valid reason for possession.
In fact, carrying any item with the intent of using it to injure another (including in self defence) could lead to a charge of carrying an offensive weapon. Pre-prepared defence is not in the official mind legitimate: to be defensive, use must be improvised in the face of threat.
Actually I think technically “injure or threaten another” would be more accurate.
Generally true Guy (and practically true too). It’s all very complicated. I believe that having a gun for self defense can be legal in certain circumstances, but special dispensation needs to be aquired from the home office or something and this is never forthcoming (except perhaps in Northern Island). This is all at the limits of my knowledge so I stand as an easy target on this one. Also, I don’t think me arguing the finer points of what is in effect a defense option that is not open to the public doesn’t really serve to push this issue forward. I’ll shut up now.
The laws regarding firearms are different in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK. Handguns for target shooting are still legal there, and firearm certificates can be granted to people for self defence. These will typically be politicians, and people connected to the state who could be at risk from terrorists, such as building contractors who work on police stations. They are allowed to carry their handgun, and are allowed 25 rounds of ammunition. Because these people need to be able to practise the use of their defensive weapons, the state could not ban the ownership of target pistols in NI, because then there would have been no ranges for them to use. I believe that at one time there were 10000 certificates for self defence handguns on issue, which is quite a high proportion of a population of 1.5 million, but the figure may well be smaller now. These certificates are only valid in NI, so any politician coming to England must in the official mind no longer be in danger, because of course the IRA have never operated in England have they?
You’re right, it’s complicated, JohnJo – and contrary to Guy Herbert’s dismissive suggestion, I over simplified rather than over complicated. To simplify yet again, if you happpened to have an illegal firearm about your person, and used this to kill an assailant trying to kill you, you might (we hope) get off with justifiable homicide. However, the police might still decide to prosecute you for unlawful possession… Something similar happened a few years ago to an Essex gun dealer who shot dead an armed intruder, and he was subsequently harrassed for having had the gun ready to hand in the backroom, instead of locked in a strong room or display case – where it would have been no good to him…
“Carry” is not possible in mainland UK, though many private individuals in Ulster have permits for handguns to carry. It’s perfectly possible to apply for a gun for self-defence, still a lawful option – but in the 1950s the Home Office simply told police forces, who issue FACs , not to grant a FAC to anyone applying for a weapon for self defence. Bureaucratic dictat.
Complicated, Guy Herbert? You don’t know the half of it, I suspect. Try some reading – I recommend Colin Greenwood’s 1970s study of UK firearms legislation, and the response to the 1997 Act written by Jan Stevenson & Richard Munday, “Guns & Violence” – ISBN 1 871134 11 0
BB, as has been pointed out, British firearms laws are a complicated mess, and have been getting more complicated and messier since they were imposed in 1920.
To give you a brief precis, and there may be small exemptions which I shall disregard, handguns are banned, automatic guns are banned, and full bore semi-automatic or pump action rifles are banned.
One may own the following if one has a firearms certificate (FAC): manually operated full bore rifles (except pump action), semi-auto or manual small bore rifles, muzzle loading pistols, high powered air guns and shotguns which can hold more than three cartridges.
With a shotgun certificate (SGC) one may own shotguns which have a capacity of no more than three cartridges.
No certificate is needed to own low powered airguns, replicas or deactivated guns (for the time being).
Certificates are valid for five years. For a FAC one needs two referees, for an SGC one.
For a FAC one needs to show the police “good reason” to own each and every firearm, such as membership of an approved target shooting club, and if a rifle is owned for hunting, the police may impose a condition on the FAC that it may only be used on a specific piece of land.
SGCs are a bit easier, inasmuch as one may own as many shotguns as one wants, once the SGC has been granted.
All guns are registered and listed on the certificates, and when not in use must be stored securely. It is not forbidden to use a legally held gun for self defence, but since it must be locked up when not in use the chances of it being available when needed are minimal.
It is legally possible for a FAC to be granted to a person for the “good reason” of self defence, and this was done in the past, but since the 1960s by government fiat they are simply no longer issued, except in Northern Ireland.
None of this bullshit applies to the state, of course, and senior politicians are guarded by police officers equipped with Glock pistols and Heckler & Koch carbines, but that is only fair, as their lives are far more valuable than those of the ignorant peons who pay their wages.
It does get very abstruse. (Once upon a time I had a black powder license, something that still exists I believe.) But pretty much everything gets abstruse if you go into detail.
I stand by my simplified overview. I wasn’t dismissing the more nuanced discussion. If someone from the US asked for “the basics” of the similarly alien English law of libel, they’d need to know the broad idea of defamation, the exceptional mode of trial and where the burden of proof lies. You wouldn’t worry them with caselaw on qualified privilege.
Yes, pepper spray and Mace are both outlawed in Britain.
“Given regular coverage of high-profile shooting incidents and public concern about the wider social impact of the so-called gun culture, the glamorisation and normalisation of guns, even indirectly, is simply offensive to many people.”
So what? Everything’s “offensive to many people” in today’s bossy, self-righteous, interfering Britain.
Why are the morons who get up on their hind legs and spout this sort of authoritarian rubbish never called to account for their driveling idiocies? They need to go to Texas and see grannies packing heat in their handbags (it’s legal to carry concealed) and people carrying guns in their glove compartments, or simply tucked into their waistband. Even then, given that the necessity to use these guns is rare, I doubt that Texas could be called “a gun culture” by anyone except some drooling parasite in Ofcom.
Kim du Toit, if you are reading this, would you call even Texas a “gun culture”?
I don’t live in Texas, but have been there often. I used to live in the UK.
I think the difference is that, in Texas, owning and using guns is a commonplace, and is (and always has been) an integral part of the prevailing culture.
In the UK, by contrast, the ownership and use of guns has long been something of a rarity in the general population (even before the recent changes in the laws) and thus was never really a part of the prevailing culture. In rural areas, maybe more so, but generally speaking, in the UK, very few people owned guns or even knew anyone that did. So when, following the last changes in the laws which effectively disarmed the population entirely, the criminal use of firearms exploded, a name had to be found for this strange and alien development. ‘Gun culture’ it was, which allowed it to be positioned as a socio-political phenomenon and allowed comparions to be made (always negative, naturally) with the ‘gun culture’ of the US.
The difference is that, in Texas, guns and their use are an integral and unremarkable part of the majority culture, and have little discernable impact (good or bad) on it. Guns and their use are the rule rather than the exception.
In the UK, the ‘gun culture’ is almost entirely a criminal development and encompasses only a small part of the population. Guns and their use are the exception rather than the rule. To call this a ‘culture’, with all that the term entails, is little short of a deliberate deception. It’s an attempt to hard-wire in the public mind the equation that ‘firearms’ = ‘violent criminal activity, and nothing else’.
The whole furore over this advertisement and the assertions about the promotion of the ‘gun culture’ are absolutely asinine. The people doing the complaining would probably also complain that showing the Olympic clay-shooting events on TV promotes a ‘gun culture’. But, because of the historic position that guns and their use have taken in the UK, ‘gun culture’ is a hard synonym for ‘violent crime’. Which, as we know from the experience of other places, it may be, but it doesn’t have to be.
llater,
llamas
In September 1901, the Malvern Gazette newspaper of Worcestershire carried a story about a vicar who was visiting a fellow churchman in the town.
He was awakened when the house across the road, which was occupied only by servant girls, was broken into by “a stalwart intruder bent on plunder”.
“The girls, with no-one to assist them, ran to the vicarage for protection,” continued the newspaper report.
“Mr Paterson [the vicar] lost no time in getting out. he donned his dressing gown and slippers and, armed with a revolver, went in search of ‘Bill Sykes’.
“With the aid of the village doctor, he managed to run him to bay in the neighbouring orchard. But it was five o’clock ere the housbreaker was handed over to the police and lodged in Leominster Gaol.”
What’s interesting is that the newpaper evinced no surprise or unease at the idea of a man of the cloth sleeping with a handgun within easy reach.
Imagine the fuss if something similar happened now.
I believe that at this time, guns were more or less freely on sale in ironmongers’ shops etc.
That’s a great story. I believe that Firearms Certificates were first introduced in 1903. They cost 10 shillings and were sold OTC at Post Offices. The first restrictions on carrying pistols on the person did not appear until after WW1, as I recall.
Reading Sherlock Holmes gives an insight into the state of affairs at the turn of the century in the UK. Holmes and Watson reached for their Bulldogs like they reached for their hats. And one of the decorations at 211B Baker Street was the patriotic VR in bullet marks executed on the parlour wall by Holmes with ‘his hair-trigger … and his Boxer cartridges’. The story is ‘The Diamond Jubilee’, so the date is 1897.
llater,
llamas
My bad, the story is ‘The Musgrave Ritual’, but the date is about the same.
llater,
llamas
The confusion of the British laws are the crux of the matter. Further confusion ensues when news reports of those defending themselves arrested being given jail terms further pacifies the British public (not presenting the mitigating circumstances for such an arrest, the media is certainly doing the brits a disservice).
As far as such firearm laws go, even though there are obscure exceptions, the ‘man on the street’ cannot legally own a gun. But then again, the culture that has grown over the generations forces such person to ask ‘why would you want to?’
Being a british citizen, but an American resident, I don’t intend to spend a great deal of time in Britain. Having felt the ‘yob culture’ first hand, I don’t want to live my life in helpless fear again. I am astounded over how much worse it has got over the past decade. But then again, maybe my memory is not as good as it was. Even so, the situation a decade ago was intolerable. Wag a finger at a rabid rottweiler, and you will loose it: that is the only possible outcome.
Steelcoder – I fled Britain not for greater financial opportunities, but because of the sinister authoritarianism of Tony Blair and the even more sinister acceptance of it by the British. They are the soma people … allowed their little Saturday night pukes and public gangbangs in town centres, as long as they’re essentialy passive recipients of the state and take the state’s side in their own disempowerment.
Like children in kindergarten, which state dependents essentially are, they chorus, “Yes, teacher. Guns are bad. They are part of the culture of global warming. Guns in flats in London can harm the whales. Michael Howard just lurched to the right…”
In return, they get money handed to them over the Post Office counter every week, unlike the people who drive the economy and have to work for their money.
Britain and Europe have been intentionally weakened by those who wish to destroy nationhood and parenthood – to what end, if any, who knows? … and I have absolutely no sympathy for the victims. They voted for a destructive little spirit called Tony Blair, or they loftily stayed away from the polls.
I have said in other posts: the British let it happen.
Steelcoder, and Llamas and countless others, know whereof they speak. The ones who’ve stayed behind quibble about whether A levels have been degraded (yes! – the English two year A level course is taken as a one-year O level in Singapore and the Singaporeans are still wiping the floor with the so-called A level students in Britain) and speed cameras and all the other tiny state empowerments they have allowed, yet, inexplicably, think they have a say in.
Like tens of thousands of others, I got out. The tens of thousands of native British who are being driven to flee their country are being replaced by tens of thousands of illegal aggressors from primitive societies who are supported in the advancement of their primitive agenda by the ignorant in Britain, and the lazy, and the motivated of their prosylitising religion. Or tens of thousands of ‘brides’ or ‘bridegrooms’ fresh from squatting behind a rock and cooking over camel dung. I last went through Heathrow around 10 years ago, and was astonished to see that it had become a tiny caliphate. I never went back.