(Seriously though, this is a subject close to my heart, having been a witness to the fatal shooting of a schoolfriend)
After the Virgina Tech incident, I posted a few comments on my fave blogs about the contrast between the gun situation over here and in America. Even on the liberal blogs I was shouted down by some, who insist that the answer is for MORE people to carry guns, the logic being that the students could have shot their attacker.
Given the choice between everyone having guns, and no one having them, which would you choose? In the UK I don’t know anyone who thinks the gun prohibition is the work of an evil Government restricting the liberty of its citizens. This is a voluntary arrangement, almost universally agreed to because it makes so much sense. OK, the bad guys can get guns if they really want to, but even they don’t use them (mostly) because no one is shooting at them.
As ever, wiser men than me have spoken on the subject. I’ll leave the last and best lines to my comedy-God, the late great Bill Hicks:
Like, I was over in England. You ever been to England, anyone, been to England? No one has handguns in England, not even the cops. True or false? True.
Now-in England last year, they had fourteen deaths from handguns. FFFFFourteen. Now-the United States, and I think you know how we feel about handguns-woooo, I'm getting a warm tingly feeling just saying the fucking word, to be honest with you. I swear to you, I am hard. Twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns.
Now let's go through those numbers again, because they're a little baffling at first glance. England, where no one has guns, fffffffourteen deaths. United States, and I think you know how we feel about guns-woooo, I'm getting a stiffy-twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns.
But there's no connection, and you'd be a fool and a Communist to make one. There's no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone.
You can read the whole transcript here
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