By: José Niño
American mass shootings tend to receive wall-to-wall media coverage, while mass shootings in other countries fly under the radar.
Days ago, England suffered a mass shooting in Plymouth, in the southwest part of the country, where a gunman killed five people.
According to a CNN report, law enforcement identified the murderer as a 22-year-old man named Jake Davison. Devon and Cornwall Police Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer recounted that the shooting incident took place across multiple locations in Plymouth.
The gunman’s mother was among the victims shot.
“This was a truly shocking event, and was witnessed by members of the public,” Sawyer stated.
The Plymouth incident is the largest mass shooting in England since 2010, when a taxi driver in 2010 went on a shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of 12 people in Cumbria, England.
Gun control is very much ingrained in British politics, and England is considered one of the most heavily regulated countries when it comes to firearms. Davison himself was licensed to possess a firearm, reports the BBC.
The Firearms Act of 1920 was the first modern gun control package passed in the United Kingdom. It was instituted in response to fears of an uptick in unrest following the conclusion of World War I, despite scant evidence showing that crime was on the rise in that period.
Gun control legislation did not stop there, however. The British government continued with its policies to disarm lawful British citizens with tougher laws in 1937, 1968, and 1988. Even after passing monumental gun control legislation, the U.K.’s homicide rate gradually grew from the 1950s well into the start of the new millennium.
Gun control was not enough to prevent mass shootings, including those that occurred in Hungerford, England, and Dunblane, Scotland. The British political class doubled-down on passing gun control as a response to both massacres.
In the case of Hungerford, the British government passed the Firearms Act of 1988, which greatly limited lawful British citizens’ ability to own rifles and shotguns. In the wake of the Dunblane massacre, the government passed the Firearms Act of 1997, which severely restricted the possession of handguns.
Regardless of these laws on the books, a deranged gunman still carried out an atrocity in Plymouth, England. From the US to its former imperial master, there’s a common trend of gun control leaving lawful citizens vulnerable to attacks from cold-blooded killers.
Americans should be thankful they don’t live in a draconian gun control regime like the UK. Nevertheless, we should never become complacent and should always push for full restoration of our Second Amendment rights.
No citizen should ever have to take their chances with unreliable police services when faced with a potentially lethal threat.
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook, Twitter, or email him at [email protected]. Get his e-book, The 10 Myths of Gun Control, here.