Pro-gun article...in a UK paper

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2409817.ece

[Manedwolf]

Even one of the commenters gets it.

Most of us on the left are conflating the idea of not requiring guns with the practice of not allowing guns. The ends are confused with the means. But the paradox is that restoring gun rights will ultimately reduce gun necessity.

THANK YOU, yes.

How many purely sociopathic massacres of innocent people were there in the US when you could buy a Thompson at the local hardware store?

When everyone carried a revolver as a matter of dress attire? Twain wrote of that. So did everyone else, pretty much. Why do we never hear that anyone walked into an office with a LeMat, with nine shots of .40 caliber and one shotgun blast, to kill co-workers? Perhaps because they knew that lots of the co-workers had revolvers in their desks and vests?

The 1911 was available to buy long before the gun control laws. It was just as effective then as it is now, but curiously, there weren't workplace and school rampages with them.

[LadySmith]

Another UK commenter who got it:

Yes I want a gun for self defence. The police cannot protect everyone. We were stopped from owning a gun for self defence in 1946 by a declaration from the Home Office that had no debate in parliament. In 1953 we were banned from carrying anything that could be used as a weapon for self defence.

Since then the restrictions on the public have got tighter while the powers of the police have got greater yet still we have a higher rate of criminal violence than when we were all entitled to be armed.
A Ross, darlington, UK

I hope plenty more British citizens feel the same way and work towards changing things over there.

[The Rabbi]

Even one of the commenters gets it.

Most of us on the left are conflating the idea of not requiring guns with the practice of not allowing guns. The ends are confused with the means. But the paradox is that restoring gun rights will ultimately reduce gun necessity.

THANK YOU, yes.

How many purely sociopathic massacres of innocent people were there in the US when you could buy a Thompson at the local hardware store?

When everyone carried a revolver as a matter of dress attire? Twain wrote of that. So did everyone else, pretty much. Why do we never hear that anyone walked into an office with a LeMat, with nine shots of .40 caliber and one shotgun blast, to kill co-workers? Perhaps because they knew that lots of the co-workers had revolvers in their desks and vests?

The 1911 was available to buy long before the gun control laws. It was just as effective then as it is now, but curiously, there weren't workplace and school rampages with them.

While obviously I agree with the basic point I have to disagree here.  There were massacres long before gun control laws (I seem to remember the first school killing occurring in the 1920s).  It is something that happens on some regular basis.
Also society was different.  Values were different.  People took personal responsibility more seriously and had better developed notions of right and wrong than we do today.
But dont blame the implement.