Thread: Constitution and controls on firearms ownership

Here is a link to the Firearms owners of Australia website which holds a reprint of a British publication giving the case to abolish firearms control as unconstitutional under common law and the bill of rights 1688 which is still in force today.
The British webpage disappeared last year.
https://www.foaa.com.au/the-case-aga...-constitution/

It is a worthwhile read to understand how we arrived at the present situation, where private ownership of firearms seems to be under a never-ending attack. It may help those who view control as benign, and not a threat, those willing to accept more control in the name of safety, to understand that all controls are about power and coercion, a prelude to registration and confiscation.

It should be noted that during the 19th century, when British people were completely free to arm themselves, although the population grew to several times its original size (from 11 million in 1801 to 41 million in 1911), the crime rate fell not only in relative but also in absolute terms. Nonetheless, the final decades of the 19th century saw a marked increase in the control by the state over the life of the people in many fields, and demands were increasingly put forward for various measures of gun control. A leader in the Daily Telegraph, of 5 November 1888, for instance, argued that

“We can conceive instances in which it is justifiable, or at least excusable, for civilians to have revolvers in their dwellings … The carrying of a revolver on the person is quite another matter; and it is distinctly a cowardly, bloodthirsty, and un-English habit …

“Let the proprietors of revolvers be registered and let no person be placed on the register until he can show his right to possess such a weapon, which should be numbered, and let infraction of the law be made a misdemeanour punishable by fine and imprisonment.”[13]

In this new mood, the government introduced the Pistols Bill 1893, which sought to impose restrictions on pistol sales and use, but the Bill was defeated. C.H.Hopwood objected that

“It attacked the natural right of everyone who desired to arm himself for his own protection, and not harm anyone else.”[14]

In 1895 a private member’s bill which sought similar restrictions was again defeated, the same Hopwood arguing that

“To say that because there were some persons who would make violent use of pistols, therefore the right of purchase or possession by every Englishman should be taken away is monstrous.”[15]

Colin Greenwood, former Chief Inspector of the West Yorkshire Constabulary and now editor of Guns Review, in his definitive study Firearms Control, summarises the legal situation with regard to firearms in 1900:

“England entered the twentieth century with no controls over the purchasing or keeping of any types of firearm, and the only measure which related to the carrying of guns was the Gun Licence Act, requiring the purchase of a ten shilling gun licence from a Post Office. Anyone, be he convicted criminal, lunatic, drunkard or child, could legally acquire any type of firearm and the presence of pistols and revolvers in households all over the country was fairly widespread…” “…guns of every type were familiar instruments and … anyone who felt the need or desire to own a gun could obtain one. The cheaper guns were very cheap and well within the reach of all but the very poor … the right of the Englishman to keep arms for his own defence was still completely accepted and all attempts at placing this under restraint had failed.”[16]

The Pistols Act 1903 introduced the first restriction on retail firearms sales. Although other firearms were not affected, this was a dangerous precedent, in that when, in a more intolerant atmosphere, the state sought further restrictions on firearms, and these were objected to, it could point to the existence of the Act as justification for the principle of further statutory controls.

Such an atmosphere emerged with the First World War and its revolutionary aftermath. In 1918 the Sub-committee on Arms Traffic saw the vast quantities of surplus weapons that would come onto international markets after the war as a possible threat to the British Empire, both from “Savage or semi-civilised tribesmen in outlying parts of the British Empire” and “The anarchist or `intellectual’ malcontent of the great cities, whose weapon is the bomb and the automatic pistol. There is some force in the view that the latter will in future prove the more dangerous of the two.”[17]

It is important to stress that the government was not seeking to disarm the broad mass of responsible British people. Indeed, at the end of the war the government gave away nearly all its huge stockpile of captured German weapons to individuals who had contributed to the war savings scheme. Each person who had given a small amount received a rifle; those who had given more received a machine-gun; and those who have given particularly large donations were given a piece of German field artillery each![18]

The Firearms Act 1920 introduced major firearms control for the first time in British history, although in theory it did not extinguish the right to keep arms to defend the person and household. Under Section 1, with certain exemptions, an individual could only purchase or possess a firearm or ammunition if he held a firearms certificate, valid for three years and renewable for three-year periods, which “shall be granted by the Chief Officer of Police” in the applicant’s district, if the applicant had “good reason for requiring such a certificate”; could be permitted to possess, use and carry a firearm without endangering public safety; and on payment of a fee.
In 1972, in the only academic study ever made of British firearms legislation and its effects, Greenwood showed that none of the legislation had been based on proper research, and that all if it had been a complete failure in controlling the criminal use of firearms, which had increased – often dramatically – after every act of firearms control. “The use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than ever before.”[23]

On the elaborate licensing system established by the legislation, he concluded that;
“The voluminous records so produced appear to serve no useful purpose. In none of the cases examined in this study was the existence of these records of any assistance in detecting a crime and no one questioned during the course of the study could offer any evidence to establish the value of the system of registering weapons … it should surely be for the proponents of the system of registration to establish its value. If they fail to do so, the system should be abandoned.”[27]