Culture Vultures: In the Absence of Guns
Steyn, Mark
_9 / l . i l l | i l W l l ~II $ by Mark Steyn In the Absence of Guns In Britain, defending your property can get you life. C elebrity, news from the United Kingdom: In April, Germaine Greer,...
...The sole point of agreement was statistical: Thirty-five percent of the officers wanted to remain in the Army, and make it their career...
...In Britain, if even a rock star or TV supremo can't insulate himself, nobody can...
...That's what you have to expect these days," she said, philosophically...
...A week before that, the 94-year-old mother of Ridley Scott, the director of Alien and other Hollywood hits, was beaten and robbed by two men who broke into her home and threatened to kill her...
...But in Britain and most other parts of the Western world, the state reserves that right to itself, even though at the time the ne'er-do-well shows up in your bedroom you're on the scene and Constable Plod isn't: He's some miles distant, asleep in his bed, and with his answering machine on referring you to central dispatch God knows where...
...In the U.S., power resides with "we, the people" and is leased ever more sparingly up through town, county, state, and federal government...
...But away from those dark fringes of society, Americans live lives blessedly untouched by most forms of crime-- at least when compared with supposedly more civilized countries like Britain...
...Rita Simmonds isn't a celebrity but, fortunately, she happened to be living next door to one when a gang broke into her home in upscale Cumberland Terrace, a private road near Regent's Park...
...Otherwise, the ensuing altercation might have resulted in the diminutive star being prosecuted for assault...
...From an estranged perspective usually, although a knowledgeable reporter can make a difference...
...young officers, the Times said, was being separated from their families when they went on overseas missions...
...in Britain, it's over half...
...In New Hampshire, a citizen's right to defend himself deters crime...
...In April, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment-for defending himself against a career criminal in an area where the police are far away and reluctant to have their sleep disturbed...
...Ask Phil Collins or Ridley Scott or Germaine Greet...
...What was it the police and courts resented about that Norfolk farmer...
...outside his Mayfair home...
...It's the peculiar genius of government policy to have ensured that in British society everyone is weak and vulnerable --from Norfolk farmers to Tom Cruise's neighbor...
...In 1991 , 52 percent of Army lieutenants and captains wanted to remain in the service...
...My mistake, old boy...
...Privately owned firearms symbolize the essential difference between your great republic and the countries you left behind...
...Would you mind giving me a sporting chance to retrieve my cricket bat from under the bed before clubbing me to a pulp, there's a good chap...
...The Times also said the young officers distrusted the generals, although it stressed that far less than the Post did, and about the young officers' disenchantment with a politically correct and entirely too sensitive military the Times said nothing at all...
...In any society, criminals prey on the weak and vulnerable...
...Even when you factor in America's nutcake jurisdictions with the erackhead mayors, the overall crime rate in England and Wales is higher than in all 5o states, even though over there they have more policemen per capita than in the U.S., on vastly higher rates of pay installing more video surveillance cameras than anywhere else in the Western world...
...Consequently the Post story, by Thomas E. Ricks, was something of a breakthrough...
...in Britain, the state-inflicted impotence of the homeowner actively encourages it...
...They're about as open to constructive suggestions as the country's Communist mineworkers' union was 2o years ago, and the control-freak tendencies of all British political parties ensure that the country's bloated, expensive county and multi-county forces are inviolable...
...If you have one without the other, you end up with modem Britain: a materially prosperous society in which the sense of frustration and impotence is palpable, and you're forced to live with a level of endless property crime most Americans would regard as unacceptable...
...gourmet chef to the stars Anton Mosimann was punched in the head outside his house in Kensington...
...fell by half...
...property crime is twice as high...
...I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best...
...The problem with Britain is that the police force is now one of the most notable surviving examples ofa pre-Thatcher, bloated, incompetent, unproductive, overpaid, closed-shop state monopoly...
...Shortly before the attack, she'd been reading about Tony Martin, a Norfolk farmer whose home had been broken into and who had responded by shooting and killing the teenage burglar...
...The most they'll tolerate is "proportionate response"-and, as these thugs had been beating up a defenseless woman and posed no threat to Tom Cruise, the Metropolitan Police would have regarded Tom's actions as highly objectionable...
...the British are 2. 3 times more likely than Americans to be assaulted, and three times more likely to be violently assaulted...
...It's just as well Tom failed to catch up with the gang...
...Proportionate response" from the beleaguered British property owner's point of view, is a bit like a courtly duel where the rules are set by one side: "Ah," says the victim of a late-night break-in, "I see you have brought a blunt instrument...
...They pressed the hot iron into her side and stole her watch, leaving her badly burnt...
...property crime: In America, just over 1o percent of all burglaries arc "hot burglaries"committed while the owners are present...
...When the New York Times caught up with the story the next day, however, it reported it quite differently...
...network TV chief Michael Green was slashed in the face by thugs MARK STEYN is theater critic of the New Criterion and movie critic of the Spectator of London...
...is higher still...
...N by John Corry Fort Happy Commune The Washington Post plays Ricks on the New York Times...
...I like hunting, but if that were the only thing at stake with guns, I guess I could learn to live without it...
...In Britain, criminals, police, and magistrates are united in regarding any resistance by the victim as bad form...
...If more crack deals passed off peacefully, that "child" death rate could be reduced by three-quarters...
...Martin discovered...
...But these days in the British police, when they can't get their man, they'll get you instead: Frankly, that's a lot easier, as poor Mr...
...Because of insurance-required alarm systems, the average thief increasingly concludes that it's easier to break in while you're on the premises...
...Formula One Grand Prix racing tycoon and Tony Blair confidante Bernie Ecclestone was punched and kicked by his assailants as they stole his wife's ring...
...On the other hand, in England you're more likely to be strangled to death...
...only z2 percent wanted to leave...
...Conversely, the British think of America as a high-crime country...
...A story in the Washington Post said the Army had found that its most promising young officers were disenchanted with the post-Cold War, politically correct, and entirely too sensitive military...
...Anthea Turner, the host of Britain's tol> rated National Lottery TV show, went to see the West End revival of Grease with a friend...
...Between 1973 and 1992 , burglary rates in the U.S...
...I think it's more basic than that...
...True, in America you're more likely to be shot to death...
...Just as becoming a drug baron is a rational career move in Colombia, so too is becoming a violent burglar in the United Kingdom...
...Former Bond girl Britt Ekland had her jewelry torn from her arms outside a shop in Chelsea...
...it also applies to their communities and their policing arrangements...
...And more vulnerability...
...In Britain, not even the Home Office's disreputable reporting methods (ifa burglar steals from 15 different apartments in one building, it counts as a single crime) can conceal the remorseless rise: Britons are now more than twice as likely as Americans to be mugged...
...In Britain and Canada, power resides with the Crown and is graciously devolved down in limited doses...
...The chances that the state will seriously impede your progress are insignificant...
...In the British Commonwealth, the approach to policing is summed up by the motto of Her Majesty's most glamorous constabulary: The Mounties always get their man--i.e., leave it to us...
...Tom Cruise heard her screams and bounded to the rescue, chasing off the attackers for 300 yards, though failing to prevent them from reaching their getaway car and escaping with two jewelry items worth around 514o,ooo...
...When it comes to anything else, though--burglary, auto theft, armed robbery, violent assault, rape-the crime rate reaches deep into British society in ways most Americans would find virtually inconceivable...
...Forgive me for unsheathing my bread knife...
...Conversely, up here in the New Hampshire second congressional district, there are few laser security systems and lots of guns...
...To a north country Yankee it's self-evident that, when a burglar breaks into your home, you should have the right to shoot him- indeed, not just the right, but the responsibility, as a freeborn citizen, to uphold the integrity of your property...
...Even more revealing is the divergent character between U.K...
...and U.S...
...Anyone want to make a connection...
...But neither impression is true...
...But 46 J~ne 2 o o o _9 The American Spectator in both cases, the statistical likelihood of being murdered at all is remote, especially if you steer clear of the drug trade...
...And who can blame her...
...What most disturbed the JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's senior correspondent...
...But I'm opposed to gun control because I don't see why my neighbors in New Hampshire should have to live the way, say, my sisterin-law does--in a comfortable manor house in a prosperous part of rural England, lying awake at night listening to yobbo gangs drive up, park their vans, and test her doors and windows before figuring out that the little old lady down the lane's a softer touch...
...It was based, as was the Times story, on an Army survey of 760 officers at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, although virtually all similarities between the two stories ended right there...
...Also, in 1989, 6. 7 percent of Army captains left the service voluntarily...
...Villains are expert calculators of risk, and the likelihood of walking away uninjured with an $80 television set is too remote...
...In America, if you can make it out of some of the loonier cities, it's a piece of cake, relatively speaking...
...Our murder rate is much lower than Britain's and our property crime is virtually insignificant...
...C elebrity, news from the United Kingdom: In April, Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist and author of The Female Eunuch, was leaving her house in East Anglia, when a young woman accosted her, forced her back inside, tied her up, smashed her glasses, and then set about demolishing her ornaments with a poker...
...These days it's standard to bemoan the "dependency culture" of state welfare, but Britain's law-and-order "depen- -~ dency culture" is even more enfeebling...
...No wonder, even as they're being pounded senseless, many British crime victims are worrying about potential liability...
...Robbery, sex crimes, and violence against the person are higher in England and Wales...
...They were also distrustful of their own generals, and so they were leaving the Army in droves...
...They were spotted at the theatre by a young man who followed thern out and, while their car was stuck in traffic, forced his way in and wrenched a diamondencrusted Rolex offthe friend's wrist...
...I cite those celebrity assaults not because celebrities are more prone to wind up as crime victims than anyone else, but only because the measure of a civilized society is how easily you can insulate yourself from its snarling underclass...
...The Conservatives' big mistake between 1979 and 1997 was an almost willfully obtuse failure to understand that giving citizens more personal responsibility isn't something that extends just to their income and consumer choices...
...When captains no longer find this desirable, the Army is in trouble...
...Your home-security system may conceivably make your home more safe, but it makes you less so...
...But in a responsible participatory democracy, the law ought to be in our hands...
...A few months ago, Shirley Best, owner of the Rolander Fashion boutique whose clients include the daughter of the Princess Royal, was ironing some garments when two youths broke in...
...two-thirds will have their property broken into at some time in their lives...
...Between the introduction of pistol permits in 19o 3 and the banning of handguns after the Dunblane massacre in 1996 , Britain has had a century of incremental gun control--"sensible measures that all reasonable people can agree on...
...about the same percentage wanted to leave...
...Now I'm Canadian, so, as you might expect, the Second Amendment doesn't mean much to me...
...H ow does the press cover the military...
...vehicle theft No mugging for the cameras, please...
...I thought ifI did anything I would be arrested...
...The overall crime rate in England and Wales is 60 percent higher than that in the United States...
...48 J~ e 2 o o o " The American Spectator...
...A nd that's where America is headed if those million marching rooms make any headway in Washington: Less guns = more crime...
...The figure rose to lO.6 percent-a 58 percent increase--in a999, and as Ricks pointed out, a captain's rank often comes with command of a company, and traditionally has been considered one of the most rewarding times in an officer's career...
...It does not regard the demasculinization, or, if you prefer, the deracination, of the military as a legitimate topic, and neither does most of the media...
...And a million more rooms being burgled, and assaulted, and raped...
...Norfolk is a remote rural corner of England...
...He was charged with murder...
...That's something those million marching morns should consider, if only because in a gun-free America women--and the elderly and gays and all manner of other fashionable victim groups--will be bearing the brunt of a much higher proportion of violent crime than they do today...
...Good taste says anything hinting at testosterone should be ignored...
...We know Bill Clinton's latest favorite statistic--that 12 "kids" a day die from gun violence-- is bunk: Five-sixths of those 11.569 grade-school moppets are aged between 15 and 19, and many of them have had the misfortune to become involved in gangs, convenience-store hold-ups, and drug deals, which, alas, have a tendency to go awry...
...It ought to be as peaceful and crime-free as my remote rural corner of New England...
...That he 2 The American Spectator "June 2000 47 "took the law into his own hands...
...But it isn't...
...Old impressions die hard: Americans still think of Britain as a low-crime country...
...A couple of weeks before that, the 85year-old mother of Phil Collins, the wellknown rock star, was punched in the ribs, the back, and the head on a West London street, before her companion was robbed...
...And what's the result...
Vol. 33 • June 2000 • No. 5
