- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (5 Jun 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674007530
- ISBN-13: 978-0674007536
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
1,258,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13 in Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Law & Disorder > Issues > Gun Control
- See Complete Table of Contents
Guns and Violence: The English Experience
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Product Description
Review
In addition to presenting the big picture with plenty of detail, Ms. Malcolm describes some of the more difficult aspects of this whole debate--changing definitions of crime, unreported crimes, wavering enthusiasm for strict law enforcement. Altogether she makes a forceful case, clearly and fairly. Even the most hardened anti-gunners...will want to read "Guns and Violence", if only to see what ammunition their opponents now possess.--Kimberley A. Strassel"Wall Street Journal" (08/06/2002)
Product Description
Behind the passionate debate over gun control and armed crime lurk assumptions about the link between guns and violence. Indeed, the belief that more guns in private hands means higher rates of armed crime underlies most modern gun control legislation. But are these assumptions valid? Investigating the complex and controversial issue of the real relationship between guns and violence, Joyce Lee Malcolm presents a researched historical study of England, whose strict gun laws and low rates of violent crime are often cited as proof that gun control works. To place the private ownership of guns in context, Malcolm offers a wide-ranging examination of English society from the Middle Ages to the late 20th century, analysing changing attitudes toward crime and punishment, the impact of war, economic shifts, and contrasting legal codes on violence. She looks at the level of armed crime in England before its modern restrictive gun legislation, the limitations that gun laws have imposed, and whether those measures have succeeded in reducing the rate of armed crime. Malcolm also offers a revealing comparison of the experience in England with that in the modern United States. Americans own some 200 million guns and have seen eight consecutive years of declining violence, while the English - prohibited from carrying weapons and limited in their right to self-defence - have suffered a dramatic increase in rates of violent crime. This text takes a crucial step in illuminating the actual relationship between guns and violence in modern society.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent and very readable book that concisely reviews and comments upon the history of firearms and firearms legislation in Britain. The author Joyce Lee Malcolm lifts the lid on what has transpired to demonstrate that by and large the encroaching and often unnecessary legislation has not been in the best interests of the law abiding majority. In addition to the controversial subject of firearms she deals at length with the historical right of English citizens to defend themselves, their families and their homes against violent criminals and how this right has been eroded to the point of elimination by successive governments using false or misleading reasoning. More disturbing is her revelation of the way that the Home Office used secret and unaccountable police directives, at odds with the 1689 Bill of Rights and English common law, to gradually undermine and remove the justification for self-defence. The years 1997 to the present day make sad reading, as having removed the right to self-defence and vigorously prosecuted those victims of crime who dared to defend themselves, the police authorities have failed year on year to curb rising violent crime. In fact in some areas they have withdrawn publically from the responsibility to defeat it. Some of the examples given by the author of the way that criminal rights have taken precedence over victims rights beggar belief. Also of significance is that much of the legislation responsible for this state of affairs was seen as questionable and was opposed at the time of its introduction, the warnings of unintended consequences being ignored. This is by no means a sensationalist book, but the very clear laying out of chronology and facts carry great weight. The path taken by the authorities is exposed as ultimately self-destructive and the only gain appears to have been by those criminals able and willing to perpetrate violence against the public. The police emerge in a very poor light, at some considerable distance from the laudable ideals which brought them into being. This book should be required reading for every politician, lawyer and senior police officer. Very highly recommended.
33 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When it come to gun-ownership, British politicians are quick to tell us that "we must never become like America".
But is this really true ? In this astonishing book, a leading and respected US criminologist shows that the United States has actually achieved a substantial reduction in it`s overall crime rate by allowing it`s citizans the use of defensive firearms.
In contrast, during the same period, the UK`s crime rate has risen proportionally as British Subjects are disarmed by sucessive governments.
The author has gained access to a joint US Dept of Justice & British Home Office 1995 study which compares rates of crime in both countries. This study concludes that you are three times more likely to be mugged and four times more likely to suffer aggrevated burglary or "Home Invasion" in the UK , than in the United States. Why the difference ? Joyce Lee Malcolm presents evidence from a survey of convicted burglars who openly state that they will not risk burglaring a house when they believed the owner to have access to a gun. Professor Malcolm then gives us a comprehensive account of other authoritive studies.
The author examines the history of gun control in Britain, shows its constitutional basis in both countries, and chillingly details how the freedom to self defence has been progressively criminalised in the United Kingdom.
This is the most important book on this complicated and emotive subject since Colin Greenwoods 1969 work.
As crime mounts year on year, our politicans will ignore it at their peril.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This rigorously scholarly book comprehensively demolishes the thesis that violent British crime is reduced by disarming the populace. That demolition will not surprise Americans such as the author, particularly if they've read More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (Studies in Law & Economics). But the book will not please the British ruling class, particularity because it exposes the creepy 70-year sequence of legislative steps that led to that disarming - it's now criminal offense for a Briton to carry anything that might in any circumstances be considered an offensive weapon, even a penknife.
The book looks at almost a thousand years of British violence. That's not an easy task, since the definitions of violent crimes have changed over time, and so the author must adjust reported crime figures to ensure comparability. The result shows that by the end of the 19th Century, when Britons were routinely armed, the murder rate had followed a centuries' long decline to an all-time low.
The author looks at the legal basis for the bearing of arms, the 1689 Bill of Rights, upon which the American revolutionaries based their splendid Constitution. And the book explains why it made sense for every man (actually Protestant men) to carry guns: quite simply, it kept the peace. Just as it does in modern Switzerland, with a gun in every home. Because, why is a criminal going to attempt violence when his victims are likely to take him out?
The author shows how the armed and free Briton became, over time, to be regarded as a threat to public order. Not unreasonably from the elite's perspective after the French and subsequent European revolutions. And how the introduction of a professional police force was used to slowly erode the Bill of Rights.
And most importantly, how that erosion led to a progressive rise in the murder rate starting at the end of the 19th Century, to the point where British newspapers now report heinous crimes every day.
Of course this book won't change anything. But it tells you all you need to know about last year's British riots. Because with all weapons criminalized only criminals had them, and with a pusillanimous police force the shopkeepers were left defenseless.
The book looks at almost a thousand years of British violence. That's not an easy task, since the definitions of violent crimes have changed over time, and so the author must adjust reported crime figures to ensure comparability. The result shows that by the end of the 19th Century, when Britons were routinely armed, the murder rate had followed a centuries' long decline to an all-time low.
The author looks at the legal basis for the bearing of arms, the 1689 Bill of Rights, upon which the American revolutionaries based their splendid Constitution. And the book explains why it made sense for every man (actually Protestant men) to carry guns: quite simply, it kept the peace. Just as it does in modern Switzerland, with a gun in every home. Because, why is a criminal going to attempt violence when his victims are likely to take him out?
The author shows how the armed and free Briton became, over time, to be regarded as a threat to public order. Not unreasonably from the elite's perspective after the French and subsequent European revolutions. And how the introduction of a professional police force was used to slowly erode the Bill of Rights.
And most importantly, how that erosion led to a progressive rise in the murder rate starting at the end of the 19th Century, to the point where British newspapers now report heinous crimes every day.
Of course this book won't change anything. But it tells you all you need to know about last year's British riots. Because with all weapons criminalized only criminals had them, and with a pusillanimous police force the shopkeepers were left defenseless.
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