usmbguest5318
Gold Member
Scots, though a far less numerous than Americans, share an historical, thus cultural and ideology-driving, antecedent with the U.S: existential despotism at the hand of the English. I point this out because often enough, gun rights advocates remark that gun possession/ownership is crucial to so vehemently supports their Second Amendment right to bear arms is because they fear a despotic regime usurping American sovereignty and/or liberty -- a nasty legacy of English colonial rule in the Americas.
Unlike every other Western democracy in the world, the U.S. response to gun violence, lo outright gun massacres, is reactive rather than proactive. Whereas the rest of the Westernised world, in response to gun violence and in recognition of the fact that where there are guns, there will inevitably be some gun violence, opted to manage access to the instruments of gun violence as their tactic for enhancing their citizens' safety, American conservatives would prefer to arm teachers or maybe even provide schools/children with bullet-proof blankets or vests.
The gun culture of Scotland and England differs greatly from that of the U.S. The UK's gun culture centers almost exclusively around hunting (the exception being for sanctioned law enforcement purposes) [1]; thus guns there are viewed mainly as an instrument for field sports -- and not, as in the US, for self-defence, or as offensive instruments of vigilantism and vengeance. Consequently, banning guns not central to the grand “huntin’ and shootin’” tradition -- pistols and semi-automatics -- does bit impinge, for example, on the country's grouse, pheasant, hart, and target shooting traditions. Indeed, UK law acknowledges and maintains gun culture (to the extent it entails hunting, skeet and target shooting) as a recreational pursuit. Today shotgun licenses cost ~£80, despite it costing the police about £200 for firearm background checks. And grouse moor are subsidised by government at a rate of £56 per hectare.
Dunblane, in a terrible way, has saved lives. And that is what Americans really should contemplate in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting: for all the sorrow and the pain that came with vengeance upon those kids and their families, what should also born from that horror is, as happened in Scotaly, a country with less guns and less gun violence. [2]
Notes:
- To wit, the movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, is a comedy plotted around the theft of a pair of treasured hunting shotguns.
The point being that in the UK, the preponderant gun culture is cultured, that is to say, it's overwhelmingly this...
...not this....
There are, of course, sporting hunters in the U.S., but sport hunters don't really need bulletproof vest and deer and other game hunters don't march through city streets, armed for bear, carrying rifles, and trying to look as "badass" as they can. - Overview comparison of crime rates in Scotland and the U.S. The site also provides some count data, but given the population size differences between the two countries, count data aren't of any intrinsic value for this thread's topic.
- As a preface to the following and as an epilogue to the above note, I must note that statistics don’t illustrate the stark terror that a victim of gun violence feels, a feeling that can linger for years after the event. And they don’t map the tears that mark the faces of those grieving the victim of a gunshot.
Despite gun control measures undertaken since Dunblane, there are still plenty of guns in mainland Britain. Scotland has ~75K licensed firearms and shotguns. England and Wales even more, with about 1.8 million in circulation. And these guns have impact.
In the ten years between 2003 and 2012, there were 182 recorded allegations of firearms being used in a school or college in Scotland. There were five years in that decade in which gun murders committed in Scotland still remain unsolved until this day. In those ten years, almost 40% of allegations of attempted murder with a firearm in Scotland still remain open cases with the police. And over 50% of allegations of robberies with a firearm in Scotland remain unsolved.
Despite these facts, it is highly suggestive that those gun controls implemented after 1996 worked. The year of the Dunblane massacre, gun homicides peaked at 84 across the UK – the most on record. Today, gun killings have dropped to almost a third of that. In England and Wales in 2012/13, the police recorded 30 gun homicides, 12 fewer than the previous year, and the lowest figure since the National Crime Recording Standard was introduced in 2002.
Today, in Scotland, firearms account for just 2% of all homicides, and the graph opposite starkly shows how gun deaths in Scotland have dropped since the introduction of those handgun laws.
The biggest signifier of change, though, might be the role of handguns in crime since Dunblane. In England and Wales, !28% of all criminal use of guns involved handguns. They were actually fired in just 11% of cases – about 250 times. Compare this to the U.S. where handguns account for the overwhelming majority of all firearm-related homicides.
Many say to such figures: well if you take away guns, people will just use other weapons to kill, won’t they? Well, in England and Wales, it seems this is not the case. The rate of violent attacks resulting in injury declined from 1995, when there were 56 incidents per 1,000 adults, to 15 incidents in 2015. This is a drop of 73% -- higher even than the decline in gun crime.
It is also worth noting that in 1996 there was another mass shooting on the other side of the world. That year, in Tasmania saw a gunman kill 35 people using semi-automatic weapons. That shooting, as in Dunblane, triggered a political response that resulted in the implementation of rigorous gun control laws throughout Australia. A large array of weapons were banned and the government imposed a mandatory gun buy back. The results of such government action have been striking: there were 13 mass shootings in Australia in the 18-year period from 1979 to 1996, but none since.
Not surprising, some might think. It seems logical that stricter gun controls will result in less gun deaths. In a country like Japan, where it’s virtually impossible to own a gun, there are essentially no gun deaths. Whereas, in the U.S., where there are over 300 million firearms, over 10K people were unlawfully shot and killed in 2017 (and guns account, in the U.S., for about 70% of all homicides).
It would be wrong, though, to say conclusively that Dunblane’s gun laws have reduced gun violence. Just as the Founders, in mustering a revolt against England, took inspiration and actual guidance from the Scots, so again have the Scots shown the way to balance legitimate gun ownership and use with the need for public safety.
