Earlier this week we ran an update on a Leicestershire couple arrested for shooting burglars with their registered shotgun. The couple were released without charge. It’s one of those ‘win the battle lose the war’ deals. For all the crowing about the rights of the average British subject to defend themselves against criminals triggered by the arrest, for all the public satisfaction when Mr. and Mrs. Ferrie were freed from the fear of prosecution, the truth is the UK continues to deny their populace the ability to defend their lives and property through force of arms. In terms of self-defense, the country remains a gun-free zone. Remember that . . .
Since The Firearms Act 1968, Her Majesty’s Government has excluded personal protection as a valid reason for possessing a government-issued firearm license. Mr. Ferrie wasn’t “allowed” to keep his gun for self-defense; he owned the gun for varmint control and/or hunting. To say this case was the exception to the rule would be an exercise in British understatement.
American gun control advocates celebrate the UK’s stringent not to say draconian gun licensing legislation. Despite statistics showing that the UK’s per capita violent crime rate surpasses that of the U.S. (gang bangers and all), the Land of Hope and Glory is, supposedly, a template for our times.
Uh no. Check this announcement from Robert Bolton proprietor of NG Bolton jewelry shop [above].
It is with great regret that i have to announce, having suffered our 23rd raid/robbery/burglary,that we are having to close our business. This is due to a combination of circumstances. One being the cumulative trauma of these events, we have suffered a range of attacks from the use of sawn off shotguns, lump hammers, pick axes to our telephone wires being cut and burglar alarms filled with foam at home. In the recent theft a number of customers items were stolen and the pain of informing people that their mother’s or grandmother’s engagement ring or wedding ring has been stolen is something i never wish to go through again. In addition to the risks of operating a jewellery business to oneself there are additional risks to ones family to consider. Quite understandably our insurance costs have increased exponentially and the restrictions imposed by our insurers, whilst utterly reasonable when considering the claims experience, are making the running of the business very difficult, if not impossible.
As a result of all these factors we have had no choice but to close the business. A closing down sale will commence on Friday 7th september. All stock will be reduced by 50% with the exception of Pandora items which will not be reduced. We will be continuing to purchase old gold, platinum and silver until the shop actually closes which is anticipated to be in the early part of next year.
NG Bolton is/was a small store in Guiseley, a town of 21k souls within the City of Leeds. You could say that their closure represents the failure of British police to protect private property. Or you could wonder how many of those 23 burglaries would have been deterred by the simple presence of a sign outside the door saying “Armed security.” And a self-defense shotgun inside to back up the warning.
Shock horror! That’s not how people behave in a civilized society! What do you want, the Wild West? Better a mother’s or grandmother’s wedding ring lost to criminals than blood spatter on the walls! Why it could be the blood of innocents! Women! Children! We are not barbarians!
Like all criminals (save the ones falling afoul of drug possession or tax laws), the criminals in the UK are barbarians. There’s only one way to deter them: force. The problem with the U.K., the problem with gun grabbers everywhere: they delegate the use of force against vultures operating outside the rule of law. To the government
While less blood may be spilled (a debatable point), the results are less than satisfactory (at least for the law-abiding resident). Simple logistics—the number of police per head of population—and the culture of passivity works against the unarmed populace. Criminals are emboldened. Crime rates soar. Violent crime increases.
And yet residents can’t see that the loss of their firearms rights led them to victimization. They can’t see that their dependency creates a police state. Give us more resources (your money) and we’ll protect you, the government argues. And so the populace complies. Mustn’t grumble, as the Brits are wont to say.
Without the right to armed self-defense, what choice do the people have? Their life (i.e. safety) or their liberty.
That’s no choice at all. Not for a free people. But then the Brits are not a free people. They have sacrificed their individual rights for an illusion of personal and communal safety. Their self-righteousness about their surrendered gun rights, their denial of its results, is maddeningly sad.
Could the Brits ever reclaim their gun rights heritage which we in the States inherited and enshrined in our Constitution? I doubt it. As someone who lived in the U.K. for 18 years, as someone who watched the U.K. become the most surveilled country on planet earth, I reckon they’re too far gone.
Today’s Brits are all too willing to sacrifice their personal fate to the false promise of political correctness. The idea that the collective is the defender of individual rights, rather than the individual, has created a Nanny State of once improbable proportions. Winston Churchill is, as suggested below, spinning in his grave
Until and unless men like Mr. Bolton are willing to defend their right to defend themselves they will be defenseless—against criminals and the government they mistakenly empower to protect them.
How the mighty have fallen.