British gun controls: A dangerous virtue signal

What is the purpose of gun control laws? What is that we seek to achieve by restricting the common citizens' right to own firearms?

Is it to reduce violent crime and homicide?

If so, this is a fool's errand; it has long been known that gun control does not have any noticeable effect on crime rates.

So is it, then, an attempt to curb gun deaths? 

It appears support for gun control in the UK is based on nothing except the average person’s negative impulsive, and irrational reaction to the concept of a firearm in the hands of their fellow citizens.

Self-evident, aberrant paranoia, based on a statistically insignificant number of casualties from a tiny number of tragic mass shootings. 

Indeed, gun rights in the UK have always faced their most draconian restrictions following high-profile massacres. Following the Hungerford shootings of 1987 (16 Fatalities), semi-automatic and pump-action rifles were prohibited along with restrictions on shotguns. Then, in the aftermath of the 1996 Dunblane shooting (17 Fatalities), handguns were also banned.

Between 1987 and 1996 a total of 34 people were killed in mass shootings in the UK. As tragic, wretched and undeserved as those deaths were, let's get a sense of perspective. Let's remember that the UK was, at the time, a country of almost 60 million people, with over 5,000 car deaths per year and over 200 knife murders per annum.

Switzerland has 27.6 civilian firearms per 100 inhabitants while having a 0.59 in 100,000 intentional homicide rate. In contrast, the UK has 5.0 civilian firearms per 100 inhabitants and has a 1.2 in 100,000 intentional homicide rate.

The maths is clear: while having five times fewer civilian firearms per capita than Switzerland, the UK has double the homicide rate. Whatever the issue is, be it a result of poverty, culture or something else, it is clear that gun violence is a symptom, not the cause.

All this said, greater availability of guns could result in more accidental gun deaths. It could also raise the deadliness of pre-existing gang violence, as it is usually easier to get the job done with a pistol than with a knife. However, as a society we are prepared to tolerate increased death rates of this kind with other tools: knife rights result in deaths, using cars results in many times more deaths than knives or guns, and all of these can and have been used as deadly weapons, yet we do not clamour for knives to be outlawed or cars to be taken off the streets - because we believe their utility outweighs their danger.

So what utility do firearms provide? 

 The Utility of Firearms

 1. Self-defence

In the USA, various surveys of the number of defensive uses of firearms yield estimates which average to around 2,000,000 cases per year. For perspective, the number of homicides in the USA in the year 2020 was around 20,000. Naturally, it is safe to assume most of the two million defensive firearm uses would not have resulted in a murder even if the victim did not possess a gun. Nevertheless, the numbers do still make a compelling case for the benefits of owning or carrying a firearm as a means of defence and protection against crime.

2. Defence against foreign invasion

Historically, invasions of your neighbours’ lands has been a familiar thing to European states, with western European countries facing foreign occupation as recently as 80 years ago.

Such a concept as the invasion of the UK may seem inconceivable, alien, remote. Nevertheless, history teaches that circumstances change as the years pass, with armed conflict between European countries still occurring today. And the simple truth is that no occupying force can indefinitely hold down a rebellious and armed populace. 

Look to the US communist-hunting campaign in Vietnam in the 70s or the US-led conflict in Afghanistan which ended just a few weeks ago at the time of writing. While advocates of gun control may pithily state that no citizen militia can stand up to the might of a modern military superpower, this claim has been proven wrong on numerous occasions. 

A bomb might destroy a factory, but laws are things enforced with the end of a rifle barrel.

3. Defence against Tyranny

Is it easier to repress and exterminate an armed population or a disarmed one? The answer is as glaringly obvious in theory as it is in practice. How many German Jews would have had their businesses burned during the Night of the Broken Glass and how many would have been carted off to death camps during the reign of the NSDAP had each one had in their possession small arms comparable to the equipment available to the Wehrmacht? 

It is true that you can have a morally abhorrent regime take and hold power without instituting gun control – but you can’t have such an oppressive government hold power without significant public support when the public is armed. When the most potent weapons available to the citizen are sharpened sticks, knives and possibly their grandpa’s old ceremonial sabre, the tyrants’ march, supported by a small force of well-armed police, and emboldened by a monopoly on arms, becomes a mere walk in the proverbial park.

These same police would think twice if they knew that behind each closed door there might be a fully-automatic rifle. It’s common sense. 

For all these salient points, the firearm’s greatest strength rests in its status as the most effective way to end a life. The vast majority of self-defence cases involving firearms do not actually involve expending ammunition: the show of capability of deadly force will be deterrent enough nine times out of ten. Equally, what state would be mad enough to invade a country with more guns than citizens? How many politicians would be so stupid to order the extermination of a group capable of organising a deadly defence, and how many policemen will be insane enough to carry out such orders?

The answer, should it be more than zero, will hopefully be less than the number of rounds available to good citizens.