Great Britain has strict gun control laws. Advocates of gun control believe that these laws cut down on violence and crime. Such laws only empower lawbreakers. Gun homicides were low in the United Kingdom even before gun control laws went into effect. This does not mean that there hasn’t been any gun violence since these laws went into effect in 1977. “Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year’s Day this year [2002] a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.”

Gun control has had an impact elsewhere: a dramatic increase in other violent crimes. “For example, comparing London and New York, cities of very similar population and demographics, the rate of assaults and robberies is over six times as high, and 7 or 10 times nationwide (depending on statistic used).” Compared with the United States, “the United Kingdom has a slightly higher total crime rate per capita of approximately 85 per 1000 people, while in the USA it is approximately 80.”

Consider this 2002 article from Reason.com:

On a June evening two years ago, Dan Rather made many stiff British upper lips quiver by reporting that England had a crime problem and that, apart from murder, “theirs is worse than ours.” The response was swift and sharp. “Have a Nice Daydream,” The Mirror, a London daily, shot back, reporting: “Britain reacted with fury and disbelief last night to claims by American newsmen that crime and violence are worse here than in the US.” But sandwiched between the article’s battery of official denials — “totally misleading,” “a huge over-simplification,” “astounding and outrageous” — and a compilation of lurid crimes from “the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic where every other car is carrying a gun,” The Mirror conceded that the CBS anchorman was correct. Except for murder and rape, it admitted, “Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes.”

The most recent riots in London indicate that lawless people will use any means at their disposal to force their wills on others. Three men were killed by an automobile, people were openly beaten in the streets, and business establishments were looted while others were burned. Store owners had no way of protecting their property. The people doing the looting, and they weren’t just the poor and disenfranchised (a millionaire’s daughter, a ballet student, a musician, an organic chef, a university graduate student, a law student are just some of the types of people arrested), knew that they would meet little resistance. “In reality, the English approach has not reduced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.”

So what does the law abiding citizen do? He shops on Amazon for baseball bats! He can’t buy guns, so he gets the next best thing, a metal version of the Louisville Slugger. In a 24-hour period, sales for baseball bats on Amazon UK rose by more than 6000 percent.

Defenseless citizens were also buying police-style telescoping truncheons. (The spring-loaded ones are illegal.) The Guardian reported the following: “Amazon has removed several police-style telescopic truncheons from sale on its site as soaring sales of truncheons, baseball bats and other items that could be used as weapons sparked fears of vigilantism in the wake of widespread rioting.

So now, law-abiding citizens are even more defenseless. They can’t even order a baseball bat on line to protect themselves from roaming thugs. Maybe it’s time they whittle down their cricket bats. Paul Joseph Watson writes: “Just like gun control, banning baseball bats only disarms the public and creates victims. Criminals will always be able to acquire weapons of any description because they do not obey laws. Leaving Brits defenseless will only embolden the rioting hordes.”