Yeah, what HE said!

Great Rant posted on Never Yet Melted.

It's one of those moments when you fall back in awe, saying to yourself:

"Gee ... I wish I had said that!"

I won't provide the link or the URL to the original youtube video.
The full credit (and hits-count) goes to the source:

https://neveryetmelted.com/2018/10/14/rejoinder-to-the-remoaners/

Why We Fought The Britsh

1984 has reached No-longer-so-Great Britain.

U.K. Police Urge Citizens To Report Neighbors For 'Offensive' Speech:

English police are now calling on citizens to report hate incidents. Reporting friends and neighbors to the police has terrible historical connotation, and for good reason. It is legitimate fascism. Timid citizenries are easy to control — fear that even a coworker could file a report to the police can keep people in check.

Thanks to Joe's Gulch for the heads-up and the link; he's a nice man, but he just doesn't HATE enough to give this report the attention it deserves.

The only way the world could possibly be negatively affected by this sort of societal incursions on the First Amendment is if the good folks at GOOGLE agreed with them!

Oh ... wait .....

Hello?  IS there anyone there? 

>TAP TAP TAP<   Is This Thing On?

100th London murders; Thinking Like A Brit!

It could be worse!

100th London murder investigation launched as capital set for record number of killings after pensioner found dead - Mirror Online: 100th London murder investigation launched as capital set for record number of killings after pensioner found dead Full list of those killed after epidemic of knife crime sweeps the capital this year piling pressure on Metropolitan Police.

They tell me that knife attacks are less frequently fatal than attacks by guns.   And I assume that not all of the Brits who were attacked by knives died from their injuries; the article does not address the question of how many Brits were attacked by knives and survived the attack.   For the sake of argument, we will assume that a few some survived.

So, if those who were "only injured" by knives had been armed with firearms, and were able to defend themselves against their attackers ... then the total number of "dead" would be much greater (due to the deaths, by gunshot, of the attackers).

That would be a terrible number of "death by gunshot", and would make it seem that London is a hotbed of violence!

When you think about it, it's ultimately A Good Thing that Brits are not allowed to defend themselves with firearms.

Help Stamp Out Gun Violence!

(Oh, and BTW .... The Brits have made knives illegal.   Which is okay, because they don't like to to eat steak anyway.)

PS: I wonder if there would be fewer knife attacks on Brits if they were legally permitted to carry firearms.   Logic suggests that the possibility that the victims might be able to defend themselves against more powerful and vicious attackers might make the villains more ... cautious ... about choosing their victims.
But that's just poppycock; that could never happen in a Civilized Society!

The problem with "Gun Control"

Well, "Gun Control" isn't working for the UK.

Why Is London Imposing ‘Knife Control’? Because Gun Control Hasn’t Worked:  April 13, 2018

The United Kingdom has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world, so the increased murder rate in the British capital is largely a result of a sharp rise in knife-related crime. The surge in violence prompted London Mayor Sadiq Khan to announce a massive “knife control” campaign eerily reminiscent of those sometimes proffered in the United States in response to firearms-related violence. The knife control measures will include the deployment of 300 additional London police officers to conduct “stop and frisk” searches of individuals suspected of knife-carrying, a policing tactic once roundly condemned by Khan.

So they decided to impose "Knife Control"  How's that working for you, after four months??

Friday 17 Aug 2018 6:31 am

https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/17/four-children-stabbed-south-london-one-boy-disembowelled-7850208/

A boy is fighting for his life after he was allegedly disembowelled when he was stabbed on a south London housing estate. He was one of four children who were taken to hospitals in south London following the incident at Landor House, Camberwell yesterday. All the boys are aged between 15 and 16 years old and six attackers of the same age have been taken into custody.

No information is immediately available about the 'six attackers of the same age".

In theory, the 1689 English Bill of Rights protects the right of individual British subjects to possess arms for purposes of self-defense. In reality, modern Britons have had this right completely stripped from them, to the point where they may be reprimanded for using kitchen knives against home intruders.

The Brits have the same myopic vision as do the politicians in America.

Their politicians continue to convince themselves of the same imaginary solutions as do politicians here in America.  They think they can control "violence" by controlling the instruments of violence.

They know they can't stop shootings and stabbings by passing laws, but that's all they have ... apart from completely disrupting the root causes of violence;which is a societal problem, not a legal one.

There are no laws which the Brits ... or the Americans ... can pass which will definitively 'solve' the problem of gun/knife violence.    They and we will have to completely reform our societies, and as long as we continue to embrace the acceptance of immigrants from 'other societies', nothing will change.

But the cat is out of the cradle, the monster is out of the closet, and no amount of legislation will ever put them back into the box.

Unless you put them all into a cell and keep them there forever; or initiate even more draconian solutions, such as public executions.   Which I would not watch, nor anyone in a "civilized" society.

To paraphrase "The Sound of Music":   How do you solve a problem like Sharia?
.

"Justice in Action?" You decide.

Apparently folks in Tallahassee don't have a lot of confidence in the "Support Your Local Sheriff" mantra.

Academy Sports pistol thief - who threatened to kill upon his release - released on bond - The Gun Writer:

Jason F. White told Tallahassee police that he tried to steal a Glock 27 from Academy Sports June 29 because he needed to kill someone. The unemployed 24-year-old Tallahassee resident told officers an “unknown man” was threatening him and his children, and that he needed to kill him.

This certainly provides a provocative contrast to the previous story about the Brit who was arrested for attempted murder for firing a paint-ball gun into the ground in front of an aggressor.

"... the real defenders of the second amendment oppose the NRA"?

A recent opinion piece in The Guardian postulates that the NRA is not a "real defender" of the 2nd Amendment.

(The Guardian?   I thought they were a British website ... why are they worried about American firearms laws?)

Only the Brits would postulate that an argument against a Constitutional Right is actually an argument FOR it.

Why the real defenders of the second amendment oppose the NRA | Corey Brettschneider | Opinion | The Guardian: Perhaps no subsection of a political movement is so passionately animated by a clause of the US constitution. As many a gun enthusiast is eager to say, gun regulation is a non-starter; the second amendment is the law of the land, so the government can’t tell me what to do with my guns. But those seeking sensible gun regulation – like the 83% of Americans who support a mandatory waiting period for buying a gun and the 67% of Americans who agree with a ban on assault weapons – should not just accept the distortion of the second amendment as fact. Instead, they should loudly respond that gun regulation’s proponents, not the NRA, are the true defenders of the second amendment. In fact, both supreme court case law and the text of the second amendment itself support reasonable regulations on guns. As written, the constitution and the second amendment permit precisely the kind of regulation Congress should enact.

Actually, this is not a common interpretation; America' defenders of the second amendment are NOT those who would undermine our constitutional right to "KEEP AND BEAR ARMS".   What part of "... shall not be infringed ..." seems complicated?

What IS complicated, and is  the most controversial part of the 2nd Amendment, is the word "regulated".   Original (18th Century) definition may offer the interpretation as "according to current usage" or "well practiced"; but recent definitions seem to emphasize "limited by law" or other similar restrictions.

The Tyranny of the Majority:

Regarding recent American politics (specifically initiatives), some writers argue that:

One of the original concerns about direct democracy is the potential it has to allow a majority of voters to trample the rights of minorities. Many still worry that the process can be used to harm gays and lesbians as well as ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities. ... Recent scholarly research shows that the initiative process is sometimes prone to produce laws that disadvantage relatively powerless minorities ... State and local ballot initiatives have been used to undo policies – such as school desegregation, protections against job and housing discrimination, and affirmative action – that minorities have secured from legislatures

The curious case of a British writer condemning the American Constitution probably isn't merely a social disagreement, but a refusal to accept that America rebelled against British rule because the mores and practices of that homogeneous culture were not appropriate to the priority of Americans to completely reject any movement which undermined our own right to self-determination.

And after 200 years, The Brits are still going "Tsk-Tsk" when they see Americans making decisions which seem inappropriate to our former masters ... who didn't have what it takes to hold on to their former "colony".   (And who eventually lost all their "Colonies" along with their power due to the effeminization of their culture.)

REMINDERS:
. Brits are forbidden to use as much as a kitchen knife to protect themselves against a home invader, and are subject to prosecution if they injure an intruder;   Americans consider an ounce-and-a-half of buckshot to be the perfect defense of property, home and family;
. Brits require extensive documentation and "special permission" to possess firearms; Americans who have never been convicted of a felony (or, now, misdemeanor "social crimes" such as family fights), are free to buy almost anything but cannons, rocket-launchers and full-automatic weapons.
. Brits are 'subjects"; Americans are Citizens.

Given all the above, it seems obvious that British citizens do not now, nor will they ever, understand why Americans are all about their rights.    The Brits, you see, are all about suppression of minority rights ... the rights of the individual.

Because, you see, we have rights.  Brits only have "exceptions".

And that, Children, is why Britain was well on its way to becoming a Nazi subject-state before America entered World War II;   Brits are historically appeasers. 

There is a famous quote to the effect that "America and England are two countries which are divided by a common language" ... or words to that effect.
Americans still don't much give a damn what you think about us.
A good fight is always reason enough.

Liberator resistance pistol

I'm appalled to learn that a WWII "Liberator" pistol was "surrendered" in England.

[H/T: Guns.com]

During WWII, thousands of these pistols were air-dropped in England and Nazi-occupied Europe, where the citizens were helpless to resist the German invaders.

There was also a program in which Americans voluntarily donated their private firearms to be sent to England, to help the Brits resist the expected Nazi invasion.  (Never got any of them back, either!)

The Brits wouldn't surrender in 1939-1945, and we admired their pluck.

Once, Winston Churchill declared "We will fight them on the beaches ..."

Once, the Brits proudly proclaimed that "The Sun Never sets on the British Empire!"

Today there is no British Empire and no British "pluck".    The sun has set.

It's sad, but perhaps inevitable, that men get old and "can't get it up anymore". 
It's even worse when an entire culture deteriorates so pitifully.

Liberator resistance pistol pops up during British gun amnesty (PHOTOS):

The first national firearms surrender in England and Wales in years has produced a treasure trove of antique weapons to include a famous WWII-era “gun to get a gun.”
 The two-week amnesty, coordinated by the National Ballistics Intelligence Service, allowed gun owners to turn in firearms, ammunition and gun-like items to police without fear of penalties or punishment. One of the more interesting items coughed up was an FP-45 Liberator pistol handed in at the Folkestone police station last week as reported by Kent Police.

Brits Outlaw More Weapons

Street weapons like 'zombie knives' are to be outlawed under a dramatic crackdown:

SICKENING street weapons such as zombie knives and knuckledusters are to face a complete ban, under a dramatic new crackdown. Home Secretary Amber Rudd will today propose to make possessing them illegal everywhere, whether in public or at home.

H/T: The Captain

No, they're not outlawing ALL knives ... just "bad knives".

Judging from the photo accompanying the original article, it appears that the Brits don't like serrated blades, curved blades, long blades, thin blades with sharp pointy ends, and anything else that looks "sickening".

The article doesn't provide much details ... well, they're Brits and not as good at details as they are at sensationalism.

Not that "The Amis" (we Americans) are much better at defining the things we choose to ban; look at our government's attempt to define "Assault Weapons" so they could keep said weapons out of our irresponsible civilian hands.

It seems to me that there is no difference between governments in "The Free World" and "The Tyrant Countries", except that we here are suppose to be the masters and the government our servant.

Yes, we are just that gullible.

(BTW ... Note to Mark:  I'll have the deed to that bridge in the mail to you as soon as your check clears.)

(See Below The Fold for references)

The 2nd Amendment Does Not Give You The Right To Own A Gun

This is an important constitutional point, and who knows how long it will be available online, now that Bob Owens Has Left The Range.   But the discussion is interesting.


The 2nd Amendment Does Not Give You The Right To Own A Gun:

Listen to this college history lecturer turned firearms instructor. He knows his stuff.

You can access the video at the above link.

(I tried to access the source code for the video, but it hasn't been uploaded to any internet source available to the public.  And since it's proprietary to Bearing Arms, they have the right to restrict  SOLE access to their own website.)

I hope that Bearing Arms is careful to preserve this video, because it explains the Constitutional nuances of the Second Amendment, which many people just do not understand.

The central point is, of course, that the Constitutional Forefathers DID NOT TRUST GOVERNMENT to preserve the rights of the common citizen.  Therefore, in the first ten amendments to the constitution called "The Bill of Rights" or The Enumerated Rights ... even though they specifically were not 'enumerated' (ranked by order of importance) .. every one of these rights were deemed as important as any other of the Rights defined there'


Here is a list of the Bill of Rights, in an video file:


Bear in mind that the "Colonists" had suffered under the thumb of The King (George III) of England, and the unwonted excesses of the British troops who were stationed in the colonies to keep order, protect the colonists from predation by native people, and to enforce British Law (including the collection of taxes).

Mostly, the latter.

When you review these amendments, recall that each was enacted to address a specific grievance which the British King's policies had visited upon the Americans.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a joyful and NOISY celebration of American Independence!

And now ... the traditional Independence Day  Geek Fireworks Show!

God Bless America!

"Oh, Lah ... See How Diverse We Are?"

London Police Chief: Terror Victims Show How Diverse We Are | The Daily Caller:

London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick touted the diversity of the London attack victims in a Saturday interview with the Associated Press. “It’s desperately sad and poignant but among those who died is someone who’s British, there are French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish,” Dick declared.“We believe of course that that’s what makes our city so great,” she continued, adding “It’s a place where the vast majority of time it’s incredibly integrated and that diversity gives us strength.”

Yes, well, your vaunted diversity includes terrorist bombers, doesn't it?

You know what would make your city really great, Ms Dick?

If you could protect your citizens from these unknown and undocumented murdering asshats  your country admits EVERY DAY!

You won't even arm your First Responders, you blathering blob of British Political Correctness!

PC should stand for Police Constable.   Or hasn't anyone bothered to explain that to you yet?


(H/T: IRONS)

Speaking of "Say Uncle" ...

This is a mildly interesting article in itself .... but oh my the comments section is on fire!


SayUncle  Where Great Britain Used To Be:

Americans Reveal The Terrifying Things They Keep In Their Pockets Also, a police commissioner there suggested that civilians with gun licenses could help defend against a terror attack, a true statement. The higher ups did not approve. Share

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire

Self-defense is now ILLEGAL in the UK - NaturalNews.com:

As reported by The New American, British subjects seeking advice about what are and are not permissible self-defense instruments found some recently on a police web site. It is sponsored by the British government's Police National Legal Database. Q589: Are there any legal self defence products that I can buy? The police answer: The only fully legal self defence product... is a rape alarm.

If a British subject picks up an object to defend against a violent intruder, that is a crime.  Even if they only threaten, and don't actually USE it against their aggressor.


The only LEGAL alternative to a rape alarm (what the heck is a "Rape Alarm"?) would be a squirt bottle of dye which could be used to easily identify the intruder after he has had his way with you, your family, and your home.

But if you squirt it in his eyes, that also  may be a criminal offense.

The intruder, if caught, will probably not be charged.  The resident will most likely be charged.

Pick up a knife?   You're toast, Baby!

Aren't you glad you're you?


Welcome to America ... Land of The Free and Home of the Saved!

England: "Violence Has Been Embedded In Our Culture"; but not for the victims

 Violent gangs are now "embedded" in our culture, experts have warned after six people were stabbed to death in the capital in seven days. The comments come after figures released this week show knife crime increased by 14 per cent year on year in 2016 to levels not seen since 2011. 

What capital?
Sounds like Washington DC, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore ... what's you're guess?

Never mind ... you're wrong.

It's ... LONDON!

 The debate surrounding knife crime was thrown again into the spotlight after six people aged between 17 and 48 were killed in London between April 22 and Friday afternoon, with at least one believed to be gang related.

Oh, the Brits are so quick to denigrate America (as are all Europeans ... we must provide a service to them by providing them someone to criticize for not being as "civilized" as they are!) that it feeds my personal sense of Schadenfreude to report that ... Gun Violence is not the only source of violence in the world.

In fact, after the government of Great Britain decreed the GUNS (Evil!) would no longer be allowed to be owned by private citizens, the number of deaths by "Gun Violence" has certainly been reduced (but not yet to "ZERO"), the country continues to reel under the level of violence.

Most of the violence is arrogant propterty damage or theft, or Assault .. which doesn't necessarily end up in murder.
In England, there's little reason for the YOBs not to assault you; they know you cannot defend yourself against two or more of them.  And there are always more of them, because the worst they have to fear, if caught in the act, is that they will be assigned an ASBO ... an Anti-Social Behavior Order.

Consider it a traffic ticket; they do.

Well, we have the same problem; but the difference is that America acknowledges that its CITIZENS have he right to defend themselves.

Not so in Jolly Old England.

HOW CAN THIS BE?

Don't the Brits have all these gun laws, meant to eliminate violent gun crime?

Doesn't work, does it?

We have had this conversation before; my ASBO opponents have supported the position that ... okay, so they have a lot of violent assaults (because their citizens are essentially disarmed, they can't fight back), but the number of assaults which end up in a death are 'fewer".

That only means that the violent felons can more easily intimidate their victims ... who are powerless to resist an assault by two or more assailants.

Or even a single assailant, who knows that the worst that can happen to HIM, is much less than the worst that can happen to YOU!

And the beat goes on.

Leave it to the Limeys ...

... to adore The HillaryBeast:

Hillary Clinton: The Guardian person of the year 2016 — News — The Guardian Nigeria:

Cerebral, hardworking and hugely versed in the workings of government, not many people were as prepared to lead America as she was. Dignified in carriage, humble in spite of her great guts, thoughtful and very wise, she was the inevitable philosopher-queen. Her tenacity in public and in private lives is the stuff of legends. She withstood haranguing by the leading lights of the opposition party who did their best to cast her as corrupt and dishonest. She endured the humiliation of a troubled marriage and steeled her heart to save it. In the campaigns, she was held to standards sometimes humanly, but certainly manly impossible to meet. She not only discharged herself creditably, she captured the imagination of the world. That she lost to a man who is as comprehensive in his ignorance as he is relentless in his arrogance to put it on display underlines a certain rot in the heart of their society.

Funny, that's not the Hillary that I voted against.

Donald Trump owes her a great debt, however, for she's the only American who would have won him the Presidency by simply being the most despicable America candidate.

UK Kops: "Blame The Law-Abiding Victims!"

Top Met Police anti-terror cop blames licensed shooters for Jo Cox MP murder | UK Shooting News:

17 Dec 2016 – The head of the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorist division has sought to blame the licensed firearms community for the murder of Jo Cox MP by a political extremist. 

Responding to a fiercely worded letter sent to him by NRA chief executive Andrew Mercer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley suggested that the licensed firearms community was to blame because they are targeted for burglaries by criminals. 

Rejecting Mercer’s description of a previous interview with the Daily Telegraph as “unhelpful”, where Rowley had claimed 800 licensed firearms were lost or stolen in 2015 without breaking down the figure, the assistant commissioner wrote: “We do see licensed firearms recovered in criminal circumstances and we do, on occasions, see licensed firearms holders acting outside their licence conditions.”  (sic)

“A recent and high profile example is the firearm discharged in the murder of Jo Cox. This was originally a licensed firearm that was stolen from a vehicle. It then ended up in the hands of Thomas Mair.”

(Mercer/Rowley information link)

Incidentally, Andrew Mercer is chief executive of NRA/UK.

Help me work through the logic here:

Basic Background for those unfamiliar with UK gun control laws:

Great Britain has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the world.  The main law is from the late 1960s, but it was amended to restrict gun ownership further in the latter part of the twentieth century in response to massacres that involved lawfully licensed weapons.  Handguns are prohibited weapons and require special permission.  Firearms and shotguns require a certificate from the police for ownership, and a number of criteria must be met, including that the applicant has a good reason to possess the requested weapon. Self-defense or a simple wish to possess a weapon is not considered a good reason. The secure storage of weapons is also a factor when licenses are granted.

• England doesn't allow anyone to possess a firearm.  Except under strict license laws.
• England keeps a record of every licensed firearm owner, available (only?) to the police.
• The privately owned, licensed firearms were stolen by thieves who obviously knew who had them.
• As far as I know, there is no public record of licensees.
• The police have no leads.
• The police are looking for some way to distract public attention from their incompetence. Or malfeasance.

Did I miss anything?

In passing, I note that the lauded "Gun Control" measures imposed in "Civilized Countries" seem only to penalize honest, legal firearms owners.

Criminals can ALWAYS get a gun .. and this is exactly how it works.

That's all I have to say about this.

"Not Terror Related"

Yes, he was a terrorist, and yes, he was acting under the aegis of a religious motivation.

Russell Square stabbing attack 'not terror related', say police after interviewing Norwegian suspect | Crime | News | The Independent:

A Norwegian man was being held in custody on Thursday on suspicion of murdering an American woman in a “random” stabbing rampage in central London. Investigators say the 19-year-old suspect, who is of Somali origin and moved to the UK aged five, is mentally ill and has no known links to terror groups or radicalisation.

Forgive me if I seem unconvinced, but a "norwegian man ... of somali origin" who "randomly" stabs a number of people in a neighborhood which was historically related to "al-Qaeda inspired attacks that killed 52 people and injured 700" doesn't sound as some kind of a Mental Illness. *
(See "Tavistock Square and Russell Square", below, for historical perspective)

I don't care if he has been described as a "norwegian man"; that's not the important part.
The important part is that he was "... of Somali origin".  Which means he was a muslim, and came from an area which has been suffering violent religious conflict for decades.

You don't need to scream "Allahu Akbar" to make it clear that your motivation is to kill "unbelievers" as a strike for world domination of your religion.   The point is intimidation of the populus, and encouraging the cowering of a free people (or what had once been 'a free people').

Brit: "A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One!"

I Was A Cop In A Country With No Guns: 6 Startling Truths:

Over the first eight months of 2015, American police killed 776 people, while British police killed exactly one. American police are eight times as likely to kill a citizen, and ten times as likely to die on the job, as their essentially unarmed British counterparts. We wanted to get an idea of just why this was, so we spoke to Charley Clark, who spent nearly a decade as a police constable and a detective constable in Hackney, one of the most deprived and dangerous boroughs in London. Naturally, as we were writing about how much safer the UK is with its lack of guns, despite having a commensurate percentage of unstable potential criminals, this happened. But the fact that the attacker is alive to face trial is a testament to the police involved and to how long it takes Trojan, the British Police armed response teams, to arrive. The suspect was armed -- the arresting officers were not. Welcome to policing, British-style.

(Actually ... I posted this because this gentleman's story was both amusing and well written; if you have to go up against bad boys with nothing than an empty pocket and a smile, it seems to be good tactics to make the other bloke smaile as well.)


(sigh)

Brits in Birmingham Bemoan Bad Boys

A police chief has warned gun crime remains a major problem in Birmingham, despite dozens of arrests.West Midlands Chief Constable David Thompson told the Police and Crime Board in January that shootings were happening in the city with “concerning regularity”.He used the same forum today to say that despite arrests, convictions and 84 firearm warrants in just five months the battle against guns had “not gone away”. 

Despite having some of the most restrictive firearms-ownership laws in the "Other Advanced Countries", the British Bobbies can't seem to keep their citizens from shooting the crap out of each other.

I wonder if Hillary will use the "Reasonable" restrictions on citizens in England as a campaign talking point, she did with  the similar (almost identical) "The Australian Solution" which she described recently as "worth looking at ".

See below
Unfortunately for Hillary, Americans ARE thinking about both the Australian and the English approaches to eliminating firearms violence, and the conclusion seems to be that it Just Doesn't Work.

As much as the Left denigrates the catch-phrases of legal, responsible American firearms owners, it appears that at least one of them is very much to the point:

But ... guns are ILLEGAL in England!

 Reading the comments of the British Press,  they wonder why President Obama can't just make it illegal to own guns in America, this solving the Crime Problem.  The Brits are gleefully eager to point out the mayhem of Gun Violence in America, but their skirts are not so clean.

 Brits are discovering that when guns are outlawed, only criminals will have guns.    This is no longer just a passe "Ami" saying  now.  Even the average Limey is begging their own guv to "do something" in a society where it's illegal for them to resist home invasions with lethal force .... and privately wishing they had their own firearms instead of that ridiculous paring knife.

But the Bobbys are listening, and they've found a way to 'make things all better':

Police to offer rewards to criminals who reveal where guns are hidden:
Martin Evans, crime correspondent 25 MAY 2016 • 6:28PM

Scotland Yard is to offer cash rewards of up to  2,000 [pounds] to criminals in a bid to reduce the number of guns on the streets following a worrying rise in shootings over the past three months. Informants who tell the police where illegal weapons are located will be able to collect the reward providing the information leads to an arrest and prosecution.
 Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police justified the scheme insisting “this is the about getting the guns off the streets”. The initiative follows a spike in shootings across the capital since the beginning of the year with 122 weapons being discharged resulting in 62 people being injured and two killed.

Really?   Sixty-Two Victims in five months in a single city?

Well, it's not Baltimore (or Chicago or Cleveland or Detroit or ....) but it's A Start.

And WHY won't the Brits allow their own citizens to be armed?
Because there would be MORE Brits shot!

That a lot of those Brits shot would be the vicious predators probably doesn't escape them,
But British leaders are well aware. that if they allowed honest people to own firearms, there would still be Dead Brits; and even though that would think the ranks of career criminals, it would be political suicide.

They, like politicians everywhere, would rather see honest citizens slaughtered than to be the politico who granted them the right to self defense.

Why British Citizens aren't railing at their leadership is beyond me.

Oh.  Sorry, I forgot.
They're not Citizens ... they're "Subjects".

You know, like American Liberals want US to be.

(Oh, and BTW ... about the "Gun Buy-Back" schemes;   They don't work.)

It's an "AMERICAN" thing; you wouldn't understand

The BBC article of October 4, 2015 *see below*, wonders why President Obama cannot, with a stroke of the pen and the support of Liberal congress-critters, impose "Common-Sense Gun Laws" to curb what they (the Brits and the American Liberals) assume would resolve all of the "Gun Violence" issues in America.

There are two reasons:

First: America is not a "Democracy"; it's a Republic

Second: The Constitution of the United States acknowledges (and guarantees) the right of Americans to "Keep and Bear Arms".

Why Obama is powerless to reform gun laws - BBC News:

 October 04, 2015: Can't the states do their own thing? In the Senate - which currently has 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats (or Democratic-supporting independents) - the individual state populations are the key. The votes of Senators John Barrasso and Mike Enzi in pro-gun Wyoming (population 584,153) have the same weight as gun-control-backing Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer in California (population 38.8 million).

Yeah, that's the "Republic" thingie.

As Thomas Jefferson said, "Democracy is nothing more than Rule By Mob"; and today Liberals Americans are 'the mob'.

Our "Democratic" president would dearly love to impose his bias upon free Americans.  It's a source of irritation to our Dear Leader that he cannot arbitrarily impose draconian restrictions on our freedoms.

Don't think that a lot of Congressmen wouldn't back him in this raid on Constitutional Rights, but the folks who started this experiment in liberty were smarter than the Brits, and Obama combined.  Which wasn't much of a challenge, as it turns out.

(Curious, that the "Constitutional Law Professor" who rules America today doesn't seem to 'get it'.)

(Go here for a discussion about the Electoral College)

If you're not confused, you were not paying attention.  The "Electoral College" concept is confusing to 99.9% of Americans (including me).  But one would be surprised if an American President who is also self-identifying himself as a "Constitutional Professor" didn't understand it.

Obama cannot impose arbitrary restrictions on Firearms Ownership (or in other words " .. is powerless to reform gun laws ...") because he's not a King.  He cannot rule by fiat.  He needs the support of BOTH houses of legislature, and he can't get it because those senators and representatives are dependent upon the good will of their electorate to get themselves re-elected next year.  Without the firm support of the Electorate (you and I),

And as Al Gore learned a few years ago, one of the EASIEST ways to lose an election is to infringe on the Constitutional Rights of the American Citizen.

Even if you're a Rabid Anti-gun Liberal, you don't want to seriously propose a Constitutional Amendment unless there is first a Constitutional Convention to support your ever-so-popular view.  And even then, it's still not a good idea because then there are "other issues" which might come arise, and you are likely to lose more than you might have gained.

ONE OTHER QUESTION:

We understand why Americans would want to ask this question.

But why is the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) involving themselves in this "purely American" issue?

It may be a matter of Schadenfreude;
They're so gleeful about their firearms-ban that they cannot bear to let American Freedoms demonstrate that their 'Violence" issues haven't been resolved by their draconian Gun Control measures (which are, by the way, not working!).

So they are violently (excuse the expression, NSFW in Britain) opposed to any other country which might be willing to accept a degree of 'gun violence' in protection of "Personal Freedoms" ..  thus allowing private citizens to defend themselves in their homes and in their persons.  Because if they let THAT example go without criticism, they might find themselves defending the logic in exposing their citizens to violence without allowing' them the means to defend themselves, their property, and their family.

That would be embarrassing.