From: [d--r--n] at [cs.man.ac.uk] (Dave Barton (visitor))
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Gun Control in England works?
Date: 9 Aug 93 09:25:39 GMT

Well, I am in the British Isles for six weeks, away from the "carnage
in America".  Remember all the paens to gun control in England?

In the Manchester Observer today, Monday, August 9th, is a story
called "Young Guns".  In it, there is a story about a raid on a local
bar with some fully automatic machine guns (thought to be Thompsons,
believe it or not) in which one of the young gang members lost control
of his weapon, stitching the entire wall above the heads of the
spectators.  A young woman whose dog barked at a passing byclist found
herself looking down the barrel of a gun.  Several stories were told
of people wounded in gunfights by incidental fire.  And this is in
Manchester, mind you, not London or any of the so-called "tough towns"
such as Liverpool (which is not that far away).

There have been 320 gun crimes in Manchester in the first three months
of this year.  This is a three fold increase in five years.  Senior
officers of the police talk about a "firearms culture".  The guns come
from a variety of sources, including the odd gun shop raid,
under-the-counter sales by official dealers, and a chain in Eastern
Europe.  Curiously, the United States (and gunrunning Virginia) were
not mentioned.  Stories abound here of drug dealers openly carrying
weapons.

One of the people interviewed was a sixteen year old named Dave,
standing outside a record shop.  "I could get you a gun", he says.
"You sel them all the time.  It's the ammunition that's hard to come
by."

The list of causes: "No jobs, no future, no hope".  The drug culture
provides an alternative.  Teenagers selling drugs think they need the
guns for protection.

Detective Chief Superintendant David James, Head of the Greater
Manchester CID, spoke of a significant increase in firearms offences
over the past two years and, more frighteningly, the "willingness to
use them spontaneously in a public place".

Weapons are used, he says, to safeguard territory as well as lucrative
markets.  They are status symbols for the people at odds with other
factions in the same area.

Police spoke of being able to point the finger at many gang members,
but of a great difficulty gaining convictions.  Important witnesses
refuse to testify, change their stories, or refuse to appear in court.
Since the beginning of 1992, five major trials have collapsed in the
North-west because important witnesses have done this.

Sound like Washington D.C. or New York?  Nope, this is in the gun
control paradise, England.  Manchester.

The problems are poverty, hopelessness, and increasing prohibitions on
substances people want, which gives the hopeless and unemployed a
lucrative, illegal out from their poverty.  If guns are wanted, they
will be found.

Gun control does not work.  This is being shown in this gun control
paradise every day.  Those who for some reason think that England's
low crime rate is due to gun control need to wake up and look around.

If the U.S. keeps on the road of more controls rather than addressing
the central problem, things will only get worse.  The draconian gun
control laws here are completely ineffective at controlling the access
to guns if they are wanted.  Market forces really do prevail.

So don't believe those who tell you that England's gun control laws
are working, and keeping their country safe.  They have simply had
less of the problems that we have had for many years: disadvantaged
groups and cultures with no other hope than violence and crime.  As
this grows in England, so will its crime.  As ours has.

					Dave Barton
					[d l b] at [hudson.wash.inmet.com]
					Temporarily at:
					[d--r--n] at [cs.man.ac.uk]