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| Britain |
| Returning The Right to Bear Arms to Great Britian |
| 2025-06-10 |
| [American Thinker] The right to self-defense, and by extension the right to bear arms, has a long and complex history in Britain. Today, many see strict gun control as a hallmark of British law, but this was not always the case. Indeed, Britain has a robust tradition of armed citizenry, rooted in common law, enshrined in the 1689 Bill of Rights, and eroded only in the modern era. British society faces unprecedented strains, from mass immigration, rising crime and public disorder to distrust of the State, so it is worth re-examining whether Britain has moved too far from its historic principles. The roots of Britain’s approach to bearing arms can be found in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The overthrow of King James II and the ascension of William III and Mary II resulted in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Mostly focused on the abuses of State (Royal) power, it contained a clause declaring: That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. While limited by religious qualification (reflecting the Protestant-Catholic tensions of the time), the Bill of Rights enshrined a foundational acknowledgment of the citizen’s right to bear arms. It was not an unlimited right. It was conditioned by status and subject to the law, but it established that the government could not arbitrarily disarm the population. Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the English militia system required men to possess and train with weapons to ensure that defense was a civic responsibility, not a purely professional one. Far from fearing private firearm ownership, the State encouraged it, not least because it lacked a standing army and viewed armed citizens as vital to national defense. This tradition continued well into the 19th century. Gun ownership was common; regulation was minimal. This changed after World War I, which left Britain with a surplus of weapons, a newly politicized working class that knew how to use them, and an Establishment fearful of a Bolshevik revolution, culminating in the Firearms Act of 1920, the first major piece of modern gun control legislation. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 Nope, Britains have chosen serfdom and there's not enough of them to get out of that box anymore. Their leaders have imported a new slave class and don't intend to give it up, who cares what they do to the rubes. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2025-06-10 22:59 |