Gun Ban Fails in England

A member of the Parliament in Britain was stabbed and shot to death yesterday. But wait, I thought England had banned guns? They did. When guns are banned, only criminals have them, leaving the rest of us at their mercy.

As this Washington Post article reports:

Without the widespread availability of such guns, anyone seeking a firearm for criminal purposes in Britain will need to get creative. In 2014, the Birmingham Mail reported that criminals in the city had been forced to use "plundered war trophies and collectible weapons, sometimes more than 100 years old." In fact, during the 2011 riots in the city, experts discovered that a late 19th-century St. Etienne revolver had been fired. In other instances, flare guns and replica weapons had been retrofitted in an attempt to make them deadlier. 

More sophisticated guns are often in drastically short supply. Handguns have been sold for more than 10 times the price at which they could be purchased in the United States. This sometimes leads to elaborate arrangements between gun dealers and their customers. The Economist has reported that two rival gangs in Birmingham were later found to have used the same gun to shoot each other's members and affiliates. Each had rented the gun from a third party at separate times.

 Where there is a will, there is a way.