U.K. Population (LIVE) The current population of the United Kingdom is 65,041,915 as of Thursday, April 28, 2016. I have had a bit of conversation with a person from England.

(No, it’s not Jules, a blogger from Nottingham -home of Robin Hood- who follows this blog and is a firearms enthusiast). 

The conversation followed the familiar, tired rant that Americans are in love with firearms.
We are. It’s true. We have over 300 million of them in private hands. That means that Americans own 4.6 firearms for every citizen of the United Kingdom. Despite that fact, only two hundredths of one percent of firearms are ever used in a crime. That number is so small as to be statically insignificant. 
There are trillions of rounds of ammunition in private hands in the United States. That number grows daily. Yet outside of the inner cities, populated by gangs and thugs and states that have tough firearms laws, crimes involving the use of a firearm are rare as a percentage of all crime.  It’s an odd statistic, but the more laws restricting firearms ownership, proportionally, the criminal use of firearms is higher. 
The reason should be clear, but I’ll spell it out. Criminals are loathe to attack somebody who will shoot back. They are far more disposed to attack a harmless target. 
I don’t suggest that the British adopt our firearms tradition. But shouldn’t free people have the option of adequately protecting themselves as well as the sovereign does?
It’s not about hunting or target shooting. It’s about an American RIGHT (not privilege) that preceded the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, the Articles of Confederation,  the Monroe Doctrine, Jay Treaties, the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Slaves do not have the right to arm themselves, but free people do. It all comes down to that.
Crimes against women plummet when open carry laws are enacted. There is a reason why. “Nobody ever raped a .38)
President Obama harps continually about people in “fly over country” who cling to their God and Guns. Well, we do.
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Oh, and Happy International Worker’s Day (May 1st). Celebrate with Bernie if you must. I won’t be singing the Internationale. 
Comrade Bernie went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon. Who does that? Even Russians (who can afford to) leave Russia to celebrate big events…nobody but Bernie goes there. Even Bill and Hillary found a better love nest than the “worker’s paradise”.  I’m sure that if elected he can travel there as a hero of the Motherland.

32 COMMENTS

  1. Bernie has no better chance of getting his commie foot onto the carpet of the Oval Office than Pat Paulson did. Or Ralph Nader. Or John Kasich.

  2. ALL of my Aussie and GB friends chide me all the time about our gun laws and our obsession in wanting to own and carry. All they know and believe is the MSM reporting on gun crimes in the US. I tell them to look deeper and see that there are millions of us who have never shot anyone, ever. I told them that if they didn't get off my case, I would gut shoot them, hang them by their heels and slit their throat. They laughed because they like our sense of humor. I wasn't trying to be funny. Just wanting the to know how peaceable we guns are.

  3. Coffee: homicides per 100,000 population suggest that you are 21 times more likely to die from a gunshot in the U.S. than in Australia. You are 57 times more likely to die by a gun in the U.S than in Britain.

    BUT: remove the black on black murders in just 4 U.S. cities from these stats: Chicago, LA, New Orleans and Houston, and the stats suggest that the likelihood of getting shot and dying in the US, UK and Australia are about equal.

    Moral of the story: stay out of black neighborhoods in large urban areas of the U.S.

  4. That's my point as well. The inner city hells occupied by "inner city people" skew the stats. If you were to remove the stats of black-on-black crime, the US is a very safe place to be.

  5. There are a lot of Bernie supporters (people who love Big Brother and feel the Bern) who would be shattered by your comment.

  6. I've had the same experience. And you don't have to be shot to die in America. You can go to Little Saigon (Vietnamese enclave in SoCal) and the zips will run you over by accident.

  7. They just don't get it. If we were as bad as they say we are — because we're armed and they're not — we'd just take what they have.

  8. Mark O'Keefe wrote:

    Throwback Thursday: Send A Gun to Defend a British Home
    by Mark Keefe – Thursday, May 28, 2015

    Throwback Thursday: Send A Gun to Defend a British Home

    In 1940, 75 years ago, the British stood alone against Hitler’s war machine. From May 27 through June 4, the British evacuated more than 300,000 troops from France in the face of the advancing German Blitzkreig. It was called the “Miracle of Dunkirk," but while the soliders were able to fight another day, they left much of the equipment—especially arms—on the beach. The American Committee for the Defense of British Homes ran this notice in the November 1940 American Rifleman.

    Due to policies of civilian disarmament, the British people were stripped of their guns by their own government policies, arms needed to defend themselves against potential Nazi invasion. Individual American responded to the call, but most of the guns were never returned.

    And of course Yamamoto said we had "a rifleman behind every blade of grass".

    I say we're on the right path.

  9. "Nobody ever raped a .38." Well said, but would Bernie be welcome in Putin's Russia? They seem a lot less red than we do these days — flat tax, promote God and the family, no gay marriage, no trans bathrooms, no Pussy Riot etc.

    I guess the Russians learned their lesson after the great Soviet experiment. Apparently we've got some way to go…

  10. Glad I'm not the only one who's had to put up with the occasional smug Aussie or Brit pointing out how many gun deaths we have in our country, most of which are suicide or guns used in preventing deaths or otherwise urban gang related. I usually mention that I don't like going to Aussie-land because the incidence of Indonesian immigrant gang nail-gun & cricket bat murder is much higher than in America. I'd rather get shot, frankly.

  11. I still like the one where she just caps his ass, saving the government the cost of prosecution and housing his ass…

  12. "I didn't know they stacked shit that high." I'm considering the M&P9 since Florida allows active duty to get a CCW without mandatory classes for a small fee. I should probably get back to studying now…

  13. I'm not a big fan of S&W semi-autos. Consider another manufacturer unless you've fired them enough to understand the upsides and downsides.

  14. Yes, that's a far better outcome. If he's a Muslim, she should have JiHawg ammo to deny him paradise.

  15. In Russia, axe murders replace firearms-related deaths because axes are legal. As a tomahawk guy, I'm with you. Better to be shot.

  16. I don't know about Bernie. He might get there and remembering the halcyon days of the old Soviet Union, be disgusted that the abandoned communism. They also ban Muslims – not just homos and trannys.

  17. The British don't get it until they are confronted by another national crisis. They they'll want a rifleman behind every blade of grass. Historically every commoner had to become an archer. They lost that perspective.

  18. Around our neck of the woods, no metal or paper target is safe with my family. And to date, I've never been attacked by a paper target. They all know who's boss with a .45.

    On a more serious note, there have been a couple of occasions where I was really happy that I conceal carry.

  19. Incorrect. It’s actually 65,041,914 cos I’m not there. I’m bearing arms at the shooting range.

    Brits (not all – some shoot clay pigeons – yeah.. and livestock) are not used to guns and see them as terrifying, dangerous and more likely to get people killed than not. Our media coverage is always about how many innocent people or kids die by gunfire in America by some random maniac and that’s where the issue lies: You don’t want some loon running around taking shots at people just cos his life sucks. The Brit mentality is that if they weren’t available then that kind of stuff wouldn’t happen. We aren’t used to them which generates a fear. I get that and we don’t have the same issues as you so our nation doesn’t understand. I don’t think you can disarm people in America because too many people have guns here and taking them from the sensible means the nutters are free to take pot shots without the good being able to defend themselves.
    Maybe there should be stricter guidelines or analysis on who is allowed to own a firearm but then that takes away the “right" and is about as impossible as pulling scammers from the benefit system. Too many grey areas.

    Anyway, off to practise with my sniper rifle…

  20. I predicted by the end of April…and April has come and gone. I think that it's close, but Obama might be able to spike it. I think that drama will come but they aren't burning any midnight oil to make it happen.

  21. Rip: I keep tellin' ya: there's a distinct difference between Hillary and a ham sandwich.

  22. Well, there goes your chance of ever being president in these pc nonsense days. You're not allowed to use common sense statisics to prove a logical point. It's over for you.

  23. And to think, I would have made such a grand commander-in-chief and leader of the free world. Your chances of being vice president, Cube, and earning $300K per hour for speaking to Wall Street parasites went out the window right along with my candidacy.

  24. "Despite that fact, only two hundredths of one percent of firearms are ever used in a crime. That number is so small as to be statically insignificant".

    You are questioning the "narrative" of the epidemic loss of lives so beloved by journalists?

  25. Once the MSM is willing to take on the 'roots' of inner city crime, we'll be on the way to doing something about it.

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