Indians For Guns

Hello!
News of the multiple shootings in Cumbria, England yesterday, has probably reached you. I have agreed to be interviewed by Channel TV about the event and its implications. It will likely go out in their main "Channel Report" programme which airs at 18.00 to 18.30.

I do not know who else, if anybody, will be present and I cannot predict all the questions. What I can say is that, after 31 years of serious research into the costs and effects of gun control legislation on a world-wide basis, I am strongly against giving "easy" - but false - answers, e.g. Jersey is OK because we have strict gun control.

It is possible that that approach may bring temporarily reduced pressure. But it is totally false and only strengthens illusions that the greater the bureaucracy, the greater the safety of the public.

There is no known record of any gun control legislation, up to and including complete firearm bans, anywhere in the world, ever resulting in a reduced violent crime trend, or generating any other social benefits.

They consume resources and damage or destroy sport and trade, while ensuring that law-abiding victims will be unarmed if they ever have the misfortune to be caught up in one of these terrifying events.

There are no easy solutions to catastrophic mental breakdown.

Kind regards
Derek Bernard

Hello!

What an unusual pleasure it is to read an article in a UK MSM newspaper in which the journalist does NOT confuse bureaucracy with effectiveness. Presumably because bureaucracy is the only output that governments and their agencies can reliably generate, it is usually an automatic presumption by journalists and politicians, as well as government agencies, that, in gun control

more bureaucracy = more effectiveness

Nothing could be further from the truth. Unless the bureaucracy is firmly based on research, measurement, analysis and monitoring, all it will do is consume resources, both public and private, restrict or crush sporting activities, generate prosecutions of people who have NOT done anything remotely anti-social and encourage the dangerous – but widely-held – illusion that inanimate objects are the problem.

If you are a professional medic, pharmacist, psychiatrist, or psychologist, I’d be especially interested in your views on the suggestion in the article below that there may be a link between the use of anti-depressants and mass-killings.

Clearly, if there is a link, it could be in either or both directions. Unstable and/or depressed people may be prescribed anti-depressants, which prove to be less effective than was hoped; or, maybe, unstable and/or depressed people are prescribed anti-depressants and the drug dangerously increases their detachment from reality.

Regards
Derek

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... e-all.html

in gun control, more bureaucracy = more effectiveness

Hello!

I have received a couple of suggestions that the job of trying to respond to the pressures and attacks on the British shooting community arising from the terrible Cumbria killings last week, is probably best left to the major shooting organisations.

I strongly disagree with this view and would like to explain why.

I have been a Member of numerous British shooting organisations over the past 40 years or so. I have retained my membership of some, despite moving to Jersey 33 years ago. For example, I remain a Life Member of both the UKPSA and NRA. The NRA website is certainly a useful source for press comments and coverage.

Sadly, in the 31 years that I have been a student of the costs and effects of gun control legislation, during which time I have come into contact with a great many of the senior officials in the various British shooting organisations, I have never met one who has given the impression of having studied the subject more than superficially.

As a somewhat exaggerated and sarcastic generalisation, they have all tended to fall into the category whose views on the subject are broadly along these lines:

"Guns are lethal weapons and the government and police are quite right to have stringent controls over those who may own them. But the type of sport shooting pursued by me and my Members and friends is safe, decent and honourable and shouldn't be trodden on too hard, as hardly any of us are killers. But all the gun uses that I and my friends don't personally pursue are very dubious and those who do enjoy them should be treated with grave suspicion and probably banned".

This is precisely the policy that has been substantially pursued by the UK "shooting establishment", hand-in-hand with government, from 1900 to the present day (with some very welcome indications of a wider perspective in the last few years). That policy has taken British sport shooting, as well as British gun design, manufacture and distribution, a long way down the road to extinction.

And, in parallel, it has helped take the UK from having the lowest crime rates in the developed world 100 years ago, to having one of the highest today.

The reality is that gun control legislation that is designed primarily to put obstacles in the path of gun-ownership by the general public and, especially, gun-use in self-defence and the defence of others, is seriously anti-social. It consumes resources, both public and private; damages or destroys sport shooting, as well as trade and technical development; encourages criminals by publicising that not only will their victims almost certainly be unarmed, but that those victims who attempt to use force against their assailants, will likely be prosecuted severely. Possibly worst of all, it encourages an irrational and perverse belief throughout society that the inanimate device is the problem.

Every possible method of gun “control” – up to and including total bans – has been tried, usually in several different countries and for long periods – but I have found it impossible to find any persuasive evidence of consequential social benefit anywhere, from any control procedure, whether examined individually or collectively. In contrast, evidence of perverse consequences, both individual and collective, are legion. For example, research discloses that the 40+ jurisdictions that have had genocidal events since WW2 in which over 50,000 people have died, had all already introduced strict gun control before the killing started. Armed victims tend to make the whole process much more messy and difficult.

The UK is a particularly glaring example of the unwillingness of the government, police, media and public to learn lessons from either the UK’s own legislative mistakes, or those of other jurisdictions. Or absorb the powerful lessons offered by those jurisdictions that have relaxed or even done away with controls. For over 100 years the UK has continued down the same destructive path, all the while cloaked in righteous indignation, extreme ignorance and even pride in having “one of the world’s toughest gun control regimes”.

As recent examples, the major UK legislative changes in 1967/8, 1988 and 1997/8 were all extremely expensive, all did huge damage to lawful shooting and all were promptly followed by a severe worsening in violent crime trends. No doubt the reduction in lawful gun-ownership and sport shooting were well worth the collateral damage.

The steadfast objective of the UK Home Office, ever since the late 19th century, appears to have been: “to reduce civilian gun ownership to the lowest possible level”. They are probably very proud of their consistently successful work towards that end. Perhaps they get large bonuses for it. The Home Office staff selection procedure is amazingly consistent - it has produced multiple generations of civil servants who are all so intelligent that they know that government knows best. The toll of avoidable dead and injured victims, raped women and very high burglary rates are probably seen as very small beer in their drive for a Britain in which only criminals and the State have guns.

So … I regard it as essential to attempt to publicise an alternative view, based on a considerable amount of work over many years, in many different countries; and to “say it like it is”, even if that usually feels like swimming against a powerful tide.

Kind regards
Derek

"Guns are lethal weapons and the government and police are quite right to have stringent controls over those who may own them. But the type of sport shooting pursued by me and my Members and friends is safe, decent and honourable and shouldn't be trodden on too hard, as hardly any of us are killers. But all the gun uses that I and my friends don't personally pursue are very dubious and those who do enjoy them should be treated with grave suspicion and probably banned".

This is precisely the policy that has been substantially pursued by the UK "shooting establishment", hand-in-hand with government, from 1900 to the present day (with some very welcome indications of a wider perspective in the last few years). That policy has taken British sport shooting, as well as British gun design, manufacture and distribution, a long way down the road to extinction.

There is no known record of any gun control legislation, up to and including complete firearm bans, anywhere in the world, ever resulting in a reduced violent crime trend, or generating any other social benefits.

They consume resources and damage or destroy sport and trade, while ensuring that law-abiding victims will be unarmed if they ever have the misfortune to be caught up in one of these terrifying events.

There are no easy solutions to catastrophic mental breakdown.

Kind regards
Derek Bernard

There is no known record of any gun control legislation, up to and including complete firearm bans, anywhere in the world, ever resulting in a reduced violent crime trend, or generating any other social benefits.