by Paul Green
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My
American cousins must at least concede that the natural right to
keep and bear arms was recognized long before their forebears did
– in the English Common Law and in the 1688 Bill of Rights. For
what it is worth, that document is still part of British constitutional
law and states: “subjects… may have arms for their defence…”

While
Americans should concede that point, my fellow countrymen should
also concede that King George’s invading army deserved exactly what
they got from the American citizen militia, leading up to that pivotal
year of 1776.

Of
course, Britain’s Christian background meant that belief in the
God-given right of arming oneself to defend person and property
went back much further – and not just to the Old Testament: In the
New, Jesus did emphasise mercy and restraint, but also instructed
his disciples to sell their coats
if necessary to buy a sword; his illustrated teachings included
armed
land owners and home
owners (ref: here)
resisting robbers; and he himself used
a whip when driving out moneychangers
from his “Father’s house”.

These
and other ideas were consolidated into the precedent of Common Law,
as expounded upon by Blackstone, and distilled into common speech
through terms like: “An Englishman’s home is his castle”.

However,
if the English did to some extent pass on to the early Americans
a belief in the right to keep and bear arms, unfortunately it seems
to have been because they were not intending to use it any more.

Especially
since the early 1900’s, many of the rights and liberties of Englishmen
have gradually dwindled away. How the mighty have fallen: The income
tax for example, early on was well below ten percent but rose to
90% or more in the 50s and 60s. Today, according to a recent mainstream
media documentary, the overall total of government spending is bigger
than the private economy.

Socialism
was introduced under a facade
of Christian compassion in the United
Kingdom. But the only reason it could get any foothold at all was
the existence of a landless underclass kept in its place by the
residual presence of feudalism.

The
underclass were promised not freedom but better masters, and sold
the idea that they themselves would be in ultimate control of the
new masters through “democracy”. Earlier and better men had grown
tired of both this servility and of elite feudalism, and had set
out for greener pastures in the colonies.

What
had originally begun there as free trade ended up as an empire –
subjugating the local populations by denying their right to bear
arms. But there must still have been something right about the Common
Law and minimal administrative framework of those colonies…

Some
went on to be listed among the richest and freest countries in the
world – at least, relatively speaking: Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
Hong Kong, Singapore, the Bahamas and some of the Caribbean islands.
Others have not done so well of course: Jamaica has had the unwelcome
distinction of the highest murder rate in the world – since introducing
total gun control in the 1970’s.

For
Britain, the big downside was that its best and brightest spread
out around the world, most never to return. That left a greater
concentration of fertile ground for ideas appealing to the something-for-nothing
underclass and it also left the entrenched power-and-glory over-class.
The freedom loving middle class have fought back at times and some
in the working class have broken out of the mould. But the cry for
liberty, rather than just more reasonable masters, has been muted
and alliances with the feudal Tory Grandees have made it a losing
battle ever since.

But
socialism, feudalism, fascism or any other form of state control
“ism” can never last without the firepower superiority of the state.
The over-class must have the last word and the underclass must know
it. Politics is never the same when it is known that the armed population
can, as a last resort, get fed up with the masters and kick them
out by force.

In
a society like Britain, where the government has now exceeded the
size of the productive economy, that level of fed up-ness can only
increase. Economic failure and failed political promises can only
be papered over with propaganda and money printing for so long.

Still,
the power and glory bunch don’t need to have too much concern. All
that really matters to them is that they keep the top military and
secret police brass happy. These absolutely must be political insiders,
as must the moral rubber stamp machine of last resort – the state
sponsored church.

The
main reason they feel they don’t need to be too concerned, is because
the population is disarmed. Always a big concern of the socialists,
feudalists and fascists, the only way that an authoritarian end
could be maintained in a country with a tradition of private arms
ownership was through gradualism. Gradually at each public crisis
the right would be turned into permission and then whittled away
with conditions until gone.

Today
it is gone, and the only reason a farmer can have a shotgun (of
no more than 3 shell capacity) is because royalty and the elites
have always liked clay pigeon and pheasant shooting on their estates.
Anyone who has any kind of firearm has to be inspected by police
annually. They have to keep the weapon under lock and key in a safe
and in a manner approved by the visiting inspector.

In
the 1950’s banks would require branches to keep a loaded pistol.
Today, protection is no grounds for owning one. Government guidance
on “self defence” has allowed for using nothing more than
a few commonly available household objects and is beyond absurd.

There
has been some minor adjustment in the last couple of years, but
the situation is far from clear. Recent crackdowns have meant that
even carrying a knife of more than two and a half inches in length
can lead to imprisonment. British men have been legally turned into
cowards and some have complied up to the point of looking the other
way when a young woman was attacked on public transport.

The
media is tightly locked down on the subject of self defence or firearms.
Media ownership at the top of course, is only granted to insiders
who toe the line. Rupert Murdoch was a Margaret Thatcher favourite
at one stage and so gained a foothold in Britain and a launch pad
for the world media empire. Recently he has fallen out of favour
and we can only speculate on the insider forces at work. Yet still
he openly tweets his support for gun control in the hopes of recovering
some of the lost favour.

I
have never seen any openly pro-gun editorial or article in any major
British media outlet. There is no debate and there is no objectivity
on the subject. There is not even pretence of it. Public opinion
is mostly guided by the BBC and the media mogul or two who has access
to their minds en masse. Over in the US the media agenda is generally
the same. The indisputable facts, that shootings usually occur in
gun-free control zones and that multiple instances of mass shootings
have been stopped by armed citizens, are actively suppressed. But
still, there is much more of a debate on the ground.

When
a school shooting took place in Scotland in 1997, it was accomplished
by a registered and licensed handgun owner. The Dunblane massacre
was followed by all the media hysteria then Prime Minister Tony
Blair needed to ban handguns completely. The UK Daily Mirror newspaper
editor at the time was Piers Morgan and he was among those who supported
it. So he openly lied on television recently when he claimed not
to be against the right of home owners to protect themselves.

What
then would a genuinely unbiased media say on the issue of firearms?

Bias
is most evident when reporting on any one of the tens and hundreds
of thousands of violent crime victims in the UK. The issue is not
and has never been “gun crime”. For anyone who cares about people,
the only matter of concern is violence – whether by knife, gun,
baseball bat or physical strength. In Britain, all victims of violence
are defenceless by law, thanks to politicians; a fact which goes
unmentioned in the media, every time. Instead are calls for more
police power, civil liberties violation and lower standards of evidence.

It
is important to note that government, irrespective of party, maintains
power by doing the vast majority of armed stealing in the UK. It
pays off the something-for-nothing brigade of voters in welfare
entitlements. It is true that many good people are also forced onto
the welfare system due to a crippled economy borne down by taxation,
regulation, state privileged big business and central banking. Nevertheless,
many do support the principle of something for nothing by voting
for it.

That
expectation will not immediately change when the economy tanks and
welfare is dramatically reduced. Then the gloves will really come
off. In the meantime, there is still a lot of private violent crime
in the UK. But that is not the concern of the politically motivated
media control freaks. It does not really concern them that violent
crime and even gun crime has shot up after the already few handguns
were banned completely.

A
genuinely free press would report with outrage on every single case
of defenceless victims with headlines like: “Victim defenceless
– politicians to blame” “Gun control kills again – no protection
for murder victim” “How many more defenceless victims?” “When will
the innocent be able to fight back?”

The
only time I ever heard a concern of that nature expressed in the
UK press was a few years ago when a farmer shot a burglar and killed
him with a shotgun. The farmer went to jail, many sympathised, but
few followed the sympathy to its obvious conclusion.

What
could they do anyway? Governments in essence are organised special
interest groups – headed up by pathological insiders, and assisted
by self-righteous busybodies and sycophantic ladder climbers. They
want power above all else and are convinced it is for the general
good. They are also greedy for personal advancement and gain. They
like things just the way they are.

When
the population starts rising up in anger, they retreat into their
modern secularised “divine right of governments” philosophy and
demand “law and order” at all costs. Of course, they get to dream
up the “law” and to enforce the “order”. As long as the
military/police state brass is in on the plot, then the tools for
dictatorship are in place – provided the people are disarmed.

I
never rule out miracles – but it will certainly take one of Biblical
Exodus proportions to free a people once they finally realize they
have been enslaved, but have no weapons. Perhaps the fall of the
Soviet Union – which was also due to the harsh reality of economic
law, not Western belligerence – offers just a glimmer of hope. For
similar reasons, freedom has increased in China.

Perhaps
the British people will also come round, eventually. But gradualism
has done its work and right now, many of them are happy being spoon
fed from cradle to grave by government and bureaucrats. Natural
social welfare institutions have been so shot to pieces that, landless
and abandoned by family, neighbours and church many others have
no alternative.

It
will take a crisis to change that, along with the teaching of ideas
that a state sponsored church, state franchised media and state
owned education establishment are unlikely to celebrate. The crisis
is certainly on the way – but which way it will go from there has
yet to be decided.

Finally,
what about the actual question of private crime? Are governments
anywhere really capable, through police state measures, of keeping
people safe?

Their
own power-and-glory elite are certainly kept safe with armed personal
bodyguards. That much goes without saying across both sides of the
Atlantic, with Obama’s own children protected at their private school
by no less than eleven armed security guards.

However,
in less exalted circles, the last figures I heard from the London
Metropolitan Police were that detection rates – even for serious
crimes – were around 28%. That’s bad enough, but the fact is that
even for serious crimes like rape, less than half are ever reported.
Of course, more recent public figures will have been massaged and
fudged by including great “victories” like picking on uninsured
young drivers (insurance cost £2-4000+ – $4-6k), or turning young
people’s pockets out and finding cannabis, or a pocket knife for
self defence.

But
in the real world of real crime, that is about a 15% detection rate
of perpetrators.

A
15% detection rate – after a crime has already happened – and the
British people are supposed to place 100% reliance on police for
protection from crimes before they even take place?

Gun
control first enslaves; then it kills. That is just one more price
the politicians and their allied beneficiaries of the state are
happy for others to pay.

January
5, 2013

Paul
Green [send him mail] provides
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