Welcome Wagon and Debts Repaid

Well, I’m sure that you’re all accustomed to my irregular-but-mostly-weekly schedule by now, but I still figure that I’ll share the reason for my latest delay. Ya see, the welcome wagon finally dropped by to make my return to New York City official. Unfortunately, this was a traditional, old-time New York welcome wagon, so I’m still tallying up the missing items and trying to figure out how my visitors made it from the fire escape to the open window-cum-entryway, over a sheer, four-story drop. And, of course, I want to find my weekend shoppers and remove their thumbs with bolt-cutters.

And that raises my next point: New York City has been diligent over the last few years in its law-enforcement efforts. More cops, better policework, and a resulting lower crime rate. But nothing on this green Earth is going stop the vermin among us from preying upon the rest of society. So why are so many jurisdictions trying to disarm theirs citizens so that they are less able to fend for themselves?

The latest offender is the United Kingdom. It’s ironic, really. Old Blighty is the birthplace of the English-speaking world’s right to bear arms. The backbone of England’s mythology is the sturdy yeoman, skilled enough with the longbow to dissuade tyrants foreign and domestic. Blackstone put the right to bear arms at the core of English common law, as the final defense of liberty.

But the U.K. now plans to require the surrender of 80% of handguns in private hands — all handguns over .22 caliber. The remainder of guns in private hands will have to be stored at gun clubs and used only for target shooting. Clearly, there is no thought that private citizens should be able to defend themselves with firearms.

Well, if they're going to turn their backs on their heritage, the English should be honest in the matter and burn all their copies of Robin Hood, destroy their histories of Agincourt, and renounce their use of common law. The Scots, just as demented in their reactions in the aftermath of the horrible Dunblane massacre (and if you were there, would you rather be safely disarmed? Or packing heat?), should tear down their memorials to William Wallace and shun the film Braveheart which so recently celebrated the struggle for Scottish liberty, fought largely with private arms.

All except for the sensible few. For just as the U.K. is the birthplace of the right to bear arms, it is also the cradle of the modern libertarian impulse. And while Adam Smith, John Locke, and the Cato Letters found more enthusiastic audiences on this side of the Atlantic, a respect for the dying embers of freedom in the land of its birth requires that I do something to return the favor.