Morpheus – I’m having an interesting discussion with Toad. Add me to your ignore list if it bothers you.
Toad!
Well, your earlier equation seemed quite unequivocal that the 1920 Firearms Act was introduced for one reason, and one reason only – the perceived threat of an armed “bolshevik” uprising. Your equation was 2+2=4 -which leaves no room for any other variables at all.
And yet, turning to the Blackwell Report once more, we find that there ARE other variables in the equation. I shall reproduce a section of the report and highlight some of the salient points.
Grounds for strengthening the Law.-That the control of firearms should be made far more stringent than it is now is a proposition which hardly anyone could be found to question. Attention had been called to the matter in Parliament before the war, and on the 13th of March 1913, a Return was made to the House of Commons of the cases in which firearms had been used against Police Officers in England and Wales in the five years 1908-1912. The Return (Paper 188 of 1913) showed that in these five years 47 cases had occurred, in which 92 Police Officers had been shot at, 6 had been killed and 24 had been injured. In 34 of the 47 cases the weapon used was known to be a revolver or some other kind of pistol. Of the 47 cases 15 occurred in the Metropolitan Police District.
In October, 1912, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informed the Home Secretary that in the dock strike of that year seven cases had occurred in which men concerned in the strike came into the hands of the Police for using firearms and five others for carrying them though not actually using them; and that ten other cases of the carrying of firearms were known to the Police, although in these no offender had been actually apprehended or summoned. The Commissioner of Police has also furnished us with other figures to show the extent to which firearms were used for criminal purposes, or if not actually used, were at any rate in the possession of persons who came into the hands of police, in the three years 1911-1913 and 1915-1917 respectively. It appears that in the three years 1911-1913, firearms were used in the Metropolitan Police District by 100 persons of British nationality and by 23 aliens; while firearms were found in the possession of British subjects in 76 cases and of aliens in 27 cases. The corresponding figures in the three years 1915-1917 were 42 and 5 as regards the use of firearms by British subjects and aliens, respectively, and 44 and 10 as regards the possession of them. The decline in the latter period as compared with the three years before the war is no doubt due to the restrictions on the purchase of firearms imposed by the Regulations under the Defence of the Realm Act, and the measures taken for the internment of alien enemies during the war; but if firearms can be brought into the country or obtained here with the same ease when peace is concluded as the law at present allows, the numbers may be expected to rise to or above their former level.
The returns also show that in nearly half of the cases in which firearms were used, sometimes with fatal effect, in the Metropolitan Police District in the years 1910-17, they appear to have been used without any particular premeditation in the course of ordinary quarrels - in some cases in street-fights - when, but for the offender's possession of a lethal weapon, probably no serious harm would have been done or attempted. In many of these cases the Courts appear to have taken an extremely lenient view of the offence of using firearms; and the question whether it would not be to the interest of public order that more deterrent penalties should be imposed for this offence, even when no serious injury may have been inflicted, and particularly when firearms are used or carried by persons engaged in crime, is one which it seems to us might well be submitted for the consideration of judicial authorities. In any case the Returns show that there is good reason for so altering the law as to make it much more difficult to obtain firearms than it is at present.
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It will be seen, therefore, that prior to the war there was strong reason for amending the law, and this was recognised by the Government in 1911 when the Bill to which we shall presently refer in detail was drafted under the instructions of the Home Secretary. Strong, however, as the case was in 1911, it is immensely stronger now. We have to face the situation that the war will have added enormously to the world's stock of rifles and pistols, that large numbers of pistols, and possibly other weapons, will have come into the possession of private persons, notably discharged soldiers and their relatives, and that the number of men skilled in the use of firearms will have greatly increased. It must also be borne in mind that we can hardly hope to escape on demobilisation an increase in crime. Large numbers of the criminal classes have entered the Army, both voluntarily and under the Military Service Acts; and however effective may be the measures taken to facilitate the return of discharged soldiers to civil life and peaceful occupations, it would be unreasonable to expect that all these men will be ready to settle down at once to agricultural or industrial employment. There would be additional ground for apprehension if men of this class, and indeed discharged soldiers in general, were permitted to retain any revolvers which have come into their possession during their army service, or to procure them under the easy conditions allowed by the existing law.
As can be seen from the above, the need for a change in the law was recognised as long ago as 1911 – long before the Russian Revolution of 1917.
But, it seems that your NRA source is quite dismissive of the reasons given in the Blackwell Report. From one of your earlier posts, he is quoted as saying
Although popular revolution was the motive, the Home Secretary presented the government's 1920 gun bill to Parliament as strictly a measure "to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them." In fact, the problem of criminal, non-political misuse of firearms remained minuscule.
Minuscule? LOL! In a five year period (1908-1912), 92 officers had been shot at, 24 injured and 6 killed – that’s a police mortality rate higher that that of modern times! But your NRA source does not believe the government’s motives, and his considered opinion is
Of course 1920 would not be the last time a government lied in order to promote gun control.
The government’s rationale according to the Blackwell report seems reasonable and straightforward, so the question that remains is WHY did your NRA source not believe it? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that in HIS view it was tantamount to "anti-gun propaganda", and that it provided him with useful material to use in his campaign as a gun lobby activist closer to home? Hmm?
2+2=4 and few people would disagree, but in this case it's an oversimplification. It’s clear that other factors are involved here, and were under review long before 1920.
