In 1987 Michael Ryan, armed with a self-loading rifle, shot 16 people dead in the streets of Hungerford. He was free to roam the town at will, shooting at will until he took his own life. No-one was in a position to stop him. In March 1984, three Palestinian terrorists armed with automatic weapons tried to shoot up a crowded cafe in Jerusalem. Two of the three terrorists died. They only managed to kill one of the people in the cafe.

What made the difference was that most of the customers were armed. The Israeli government trusts its citizens with guns. We all know that this isn't true of the British government - we're not even allowed to carry pepper sprays for self-defence.

This hasn't always been the case. Up until 1920 any adult citizen could buy a pistol or rifle (or even a machine gun!) without having to apply for any kind of license. You just walked into a gun shop (or iron-mongers or department store), selected the gun you wanted, handed over the money and walked out with it, the same way you would buy any other kind of legal product. This doesn't seem to have caused any problems. Then in 1920 Parliament passed the first Firearms Act. The excuse given at the time was that this act was necessary to control armed crime - even though this was almost non-existent by today's standards. It's now known that the government of the day was worried by the possibility of a violent revolution. With thousands of veterans coming home from the First World War to face unemployment and poverty, the government actually thought a British re-run of the Bolshevik Revolution was a real possibility. Therefore they made preparations to confiscate all the weapons in private hands and redistribute them to government supporters in the event of an uprising. They don't seem to have had much confidence in the people who elected them - a common failing among British politicians. Obviously this paranoid fantasy never came true - but the system of licensing and registration that it gave rise to stayed on the books and over the years it has had several major modifications. Machine guns were banned in 1936, short-barrelled shotguns in 1968, semi-automatic and pump-action rifles in 1988, breach-loading pistols in 1997, and now there's even talk of extending the licensing system to airguns! Every time something new has been banned or restricted, the government has told us it would prevent criminals getting hold of guns. If this was true banks and building societies would never be robbed by thugs with sawn-off shotguns and the IRA and other gangs wouldn't be able to get hold of assault rifles and submachine guns. In reality, England and Wales now have the highest rate of violent crime in the industrialised world, according to the Third International Crime Victimisation Survey.

Gun grabbers often point to America as an example of widespread firearms ownership leading to more violence. Let's look at the facts. Since 1911 it has been almost impossible to own a pistol legally in New York - this hasn't stopped criminals shooting people with illegal weapons. New York has been promoting itself as a "safe city", based on the fact that they only had 500 or so murders last year! Other cities in America where guns are either illegal of heavily restricted include Washington (the "Murder Capital of America"), Detroit and Boston. These are also the most violent cities in America. On the other hand, in Florida in 1966 the authorities in Orlando decided to do something about the number of rapes being committed in the area. Over a two-year period they taught 2,000 women how to shoot and then issued them with licenses to carry concealed weapons. The number of rapes in Orlando fell dramatically (while remaining substantially unchanged in other parts of Florida) and none of the women who had been trained had to use their guns to defend themselves. It seems the thought of women packing heat has a bad effect on the average pervert's sex drive. In recent years many American states have passed laws to make it easier for people with no criminal records to obtain concealed carry permits. An exhaustive study by Professor John R Lott of the University of Chicago shows that this generally leads to a drop in violent crimes - the murder rate drops by an average of 8.5%, for example - in built-up areas the results are even more impressive, with an average of 13% less murders. The study concluded that if every state in America had liberalised the laws on carrying concealed handguns in 1992 there might have been 1,570 less murders, 4,177 less rapes, 60,000 less aggravated assaults and 12,000 less robberies nation-wide in the five years since. In the 41 states where it is currently legal to carry concealed weapons, there are fewer violent crimes and burglaries, although there is usually a slight rise in non-violent crimes such as car theft as criminals switch to crimes that are less likely to lead to confrontations with armed citizens. You can't have everything - personally I'd rather have a few more cars being nicked and a few less old ladies being mugged.

In Britain, the argument most commonly trotted out for gun prohibition is that it will prevent lunatics like Michael Ryan and Thomas Hamilton from getting guns. How? A gun's a pretty simple piece of technology, basically it's just a metal pipe - anyone sufficiently motivated can make their own. Or better still, buy one on the black market. The lack of a Firearm Certificate would have made no difference to them at all. And of course if you really feel like some mayhem, there are plenty of other ways of killing and injuring people apart from guns - such as the home-made flame-thrower that was used at a school in Northern Ireland a few years ago, or the good old car which seems to be the most popular weapon of mass destruction. What these kind of laws actually do is disarm the potential victims. If everyone in Hungerford had been carrying a gun on that day how many people would Ryan have been able to shoot before he'd have been stopped? Two or three? Certainly a lot less than sixteen. And it's worth noting that if Hamilton had tried doing what he did at a school in Israel there's a fair chance that at least one of the teachers would have been armed and able to return fire - the Israelis believe in protecting their children - and presumably discipline isn't a major problem in Israeli schools!

Nor is it true that legal ownership of guns contributes significantly to armed crime. Hardly any of the guns that are used in crime have ever been legally owned - they're smuggled in from abroad or occasionally home-made. A gun is basically just a piece of metal pipe closed off at one end. In some of the poorer parts of the world the production of home-made guns is a popular cottage industry - I've seen a photograph of a 12-shot, 12-bore revolver shotgun made in South Africa out of plumbing parts, and the Viet Cong sometimes used to make sub-machine guns out of steel pipe. If illiterate peasants can make their own hardware out of whatever comes to hand what chance do victim disarmament laws have in a technologically advanced country like Britain? Based on the number of guns handed in during the various firearms amnesties, and the experience of other countries, it has been estimated that there are at least several million unregistered firearms in the country - and more are being smuggled in all the time, including ex-Warsaw Pact Kalashnikovs. There is absolutely nothing that any government can do to stop this. The illegal possession of firearms already carries stiff penalties in this country, but criminals continue to ignore the law. There are enough weapons out there to arm every bank robber, rapist, terrorist and paranoid psychopath at least several times over - even a total ban on the private ownership of guns would have no effect, except to further reassure criminals that their victims would not be able to put up a meaningful defence.

There are only two ways to reduce violent crime in this country. One way would cost money, the other way would save money. The first way would be to increase the sentences of violent criminals, as most politicians say they're in favour of doing. Obviously keeping criminals inside longer would increase the cost - for one thing more prisons would have to be built. Personally, I'd be prepared to put up with that (just as long as the increased prison population was made up of actual criminals and not people who couldn't afford to pay for their TV Licence). The other way would be to repeal all the Firearms Acts that have been passed since 1920, along with the Offensive Weapons Acts - re-legalise the carrying of weapons for defensive purposes. The immediate effect of this would be that the huge numbers of police officers who are currently employed full-time in administering the licensing system (inspecting shooters' security arrangements and processing the endless paperwork the law currently requires) could be put to work doing the job they're actually trained for - catching criminals. There would be no more time and money wasted harassing innocent gun owners because of technical breaches of the rules, as often happens now.

More importantly, an environment where a large proportion of the population was permanently armed would almost certainly be a safer one. Would you attack someone if you thought they might be carrying a gun? Criminals want easy targets - they're not interested in being hurt or killed themselves. Surveys of the American prison population have shown that most convicted criminals are in favour of victim disarmament. An armed citizenry would be the single most effective deterrent to armed crime I can imagine. Many robbery attempts in America have ended without a shot being fired on either side as soon as the criminals realised their intended victims were armed - estimates of how many instances of successful armed defence take place in America vary widely, but some studies put the figure at 2.5 million times a year. In 98% of these cases, the attacker fleas as soon as he becomes aware that his intended victim is armed, without a shot being fired. Loonies are a different matter, of course. If someone has decided to go on a killing spree it's not likely that anything will deter them - they probably want to die anyway. You can't prevent another Hungerford-style massacre from starting - but if you have a gun you can certainly bring it to an early conclusion.

The answer to violent crime is not fewer guns but more in the right hands. "The right hands" means the peaceful majority of the population. Criminals and lunatics can get guns any time they like - no law will change that. Buying guns on the black market is easy, if you spend any amount of time in inner-city pubs and don't mind associating with seedy characters. The police look more and more like some sort of paramilitary force, with guns, CS sprays and body armour, which they say they need for their protection, but want to stop the rest of us acquiring for ours. The only people who are disarmed by the law are those who are least likely to be violent and have the most need to defend themselves! The general public. The people who get robbed, murdered or raped every day on the Six O'clock News. This means you. You have the right to defend yourself, your family and your property. If the State says you don't have the right to defend yourself, it is really saying that you don't have the right to live. How many people are murdered or seriously injured every year because self defence is effectively banned in this country? The government are accessories to murder, rape and robbery on a huge scale.

The most effective known means of deterring criminals - private ownersip of weapons for self-defence - has been banned in Britain, for now. But immoral laws have been repealed in the past. This one can and should be. The public have the right to bear arms for defence.

If it only saves one life it's worth it.

Copyright 27 August 2000, Stuart Heal