Because they’re elitists. Brits view Americans as unstable boors whose collective economic and military might — and personal access to firearms — make us inherently dangerous. In fact, as Dan Baum’s Gun Guys explains, American gun culture is based on moral principles. “We’re equality freaks. We endlessly congratulate ourselves for our Equal Protection Clause and our founding mythology of a classless society. If equal is good, and guns make us equal, then by extension guns are good. They make us sovereign and inviolate. An armed man is a little republic unto himself.” Dan was being both insightful and sarcastic (as is his wont). But there’s no getting around it: there’s a reason our forefathers revolted against Britain’s condescending collectivists and it’s got less to do with tea than gunpowder.

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100 COMMENTS

  1. Jealousy.

    Every single guy over there wants my Marlin 1894c. They all grew up watching cowboy movies, too.

    • Neither literally true (check my passport) nor figuratively.

      As the post about the FFL dealer describes, if Big Government wants to disarm you, they’ll give you the chance of surrendering meekly or dying in a hail of bullets (and being tarred as a terrorist jihadi on his way to a mass shooting at a school, because what innocent man would resist the bloodhounds of the Law?)

      We were beheading kings and deposing tyrants before the Mayflower, and a contributing factor to US independence was the support engendered in the UK for the cause: Edmund Burke’s speeches are one well-known example.

      • Okay. I therefore challenge you to replace your current government (from top to bottom) with one that recognises the natural rights of its citizens.

        • Which “natural rights” don’t I have here, that I would in the USA? (Note that I get to choose which state of the Union). I’ve probably got easier legal access to firearms than a DC resident, for example.

          Details of reality matter more than propaganda.

  3. Not all Brits hate guns. Many of them have been pleading for the U.S. to not give theirs up as they so foolishly did.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkS2BRoCd2I

    Their gun ban in 1997 did nothing but raise the murder rate and increase other violent crimes. It did nothing to stop the Cumbria massacre. It is so bad over there now that the UK is now the violent crime capital of Europe – worse than the U.S.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5712573/UK-is-violent-crime-capital-of-Europe.html

    • Gun crime in the UK is worse than the US? You fooking liar. We never have school shootings,it happens every week in the US. We have the odd gang shooting but its nothing like what it is in the US. Do you ever hear of a child getting their hands on their parents firearm and killing their sibling or friend in the UK? That also happens weekly in the US. The only people who want to carry firearms in the UK are the nut jobs,and you’re more than welcome to them.

      • You do realize your country has a population of 64 million right? Perhaps if you had a population of 315 million, you may have more concurrent incidences. On top of all that the UK is smaller then one of our 50 states. In comparison to violent crimes per capita, the UK is not far from America and neither are anywhere near the top. Another interesting fact, the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) counted 39,044 general purpose local governments, which includes 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township governments and 3.033 county governments , where as there are currently a total of 69 such cities in the United Kingdom: 51 in England, 7 in Scotland, 6 in Wales, and 5 in Northern Ireland. So if i were to compare the crime rate of my living room to the UK i would be arguing similar logistics to those of you that say the UK is safer then America.

  4. We endlessly congratulate ourselves for our Equal Protection Clause and our founding mythology of a classless society

    Wuh? Americans are anti-nobility and monarchy (or used to be) but a classless society? That was never part of it. Equality of opportunity is very American. Equality of outcome? Not so much.

    • I’m reminded of the lyrics from the song, “The Farmer and the Cowman”, from the musical, “Oklahoma!”

      “I don’t say I’m no better than anybody else,
      But I’ll be damned if I ain’t just as good!”

  5. Brits always be slaves to there government. They jealous and in many ways a flop i n modern history. Face it wasn’t for the USA UK would be speaking German or Russian with out us.

    • If it weren’t for the Brits you lot would still be wearing moccasins and shitting behind bushes. The US jumped into a fight halfway through and you want to take all the credit. I remember watching a movie called U-571,it was about the Enigma cipher machine,but the plot was changed and the hero’s were American,when in reality it was the Brits that captured the machine.I remember watching the movie and thinking, feck me, fancy having to rewrite a movie to make it popular in the US. It must really gall you lot that no matter how powerful the US are, it’s citizens will always be speaking another counties language (mainly English). Tatty by you fecking arsewipes.

  6. Hey, Brits — how does royal @ss taste? You’ve been kissing it for so long, you’ve forgotten how freedom smells. It smells like smokeless powder.

    • Don’t kid yourself: the Royal family only exist because we let them.
      Feel free to pass the powder the next time Charles goes on about globull warming though.

  7. (future) US Citizens didn’t give a damn about what the Brits thought in the 1770’s and I can’t see that much has changed in the past 200+ years. They are so used to being Subjects that they will never understand what it takes to have real freedom…

  8. I’m sorry and why do we care what the Brits think?

    Don’t listen to the media anyways because I guarantee the Brits would like to have guns.

    • I’m British and I can guarantee you, most UK citizens don’t want firearms to become legal. When my children go to school do I worry about them being gunned down? The thought never passes my mind, does it worry you?if it doesn’t then it should. If it can happen in Sandy Hook,then there’s no reason it won’t happen in a school near you.

      • I still cant understand your logic. 400+ million people have lived in America since 1980. Only 297 of which have ever been killed in a school shooting. So basically you have less then .00000075% chance of ever being killed in a school shooting. You have more of a chance slipping on your own bullshit.

  10. I can’t help but think that if the British actually understood
    our Bill of Rights, civil liberties and gun rights: they might
    still have an empire. Now, all they can do as reminisce about
    their former self and wonder what went wrong.

    • Actually, one reason we gave up the Empire was precisely because we understood civil liberties: the Empire wanted to be cut loose (some sooner, others in slower time) and we had the choice of helping them go free, or trying to force them to remain subjects at gunpoint.

      Did it work? Well, most of the former Empire is still on friendly terms with us; compare with how the French are fondly remembered in Indo-China, the Belgians in the Congo or the Germans in Namibia for a few examples.

  11. What amazes me most is how Ucivilized the British were, despite their airs, throughout the course of the Empire. The Empire conquered, disarmed, and subjugated millions of people all around the world, treating nonEuropeans as slaves, starving and killing them at will. Just look at what British Imperial and business interests did in India and China, mercilessly exploiting those people at the point of a gun. They stole the process for making black tea from the Chinese, then started producing their own teas in India using what amounted to slave labor. Uprisings complaining of coditions were brutally repressed. Perhaps they banned guns out of sheer embarassment of all their murderous sinning for those hundreds of years.

      • True, but if not for American food, weapons, aircraft, etc, I doubt the British could have held out long enough for the Soviet army to regroup and turn the Germans back. Who knows what might have happened if there was no western front to worry about? They might have taken Moscow and ended the war.

  13. Okay, England has some redeeming qualities and as a legacy/offshoot British State they have influenced our culture.

    That having been said, England can bl0w me. If their way of doing things was so f*cking great, then the 50% of the world they raped… errr… colonized wouldn’t be the throng of massively f*cked up nations that it is today. Granted, they share that responsibility with other European nations and they are not the worst offender of the bunch. However, our way of doing things is *just fine,* so thanks for all the advice but no thanks. We didn’t need your statist bullsh*t in the eighteenth century and we certainly don’t need it now. Furthermore, you can quote any statistic about safety you like. English cities are wretched hives of scum and villainy with catastrophic violent crime rates. Criminals can happily prey upon the English people with little or no fear that they will be resisted with force. If you limes are happy living that way then, by all means, be my guest. It is not my place to dictate to you what natural rights you should or should not be demanding. Similarly, it is not your f*cking place to dictate to Americans (who gladly threw off your shackles a long time ago) what natural rights we should have.

    If I were one of the limey statist pr1cks that is SO concerned about American guns, I would take a DEEP, hard look at my own culture… and tend to it. Or to the hundreds of cultures you’ve destroyed across this planet. Leave us the f*ck alone before we punch you in the nose. Again.

    • I was going to add on the qualification… but I see you did.

      There’s a reason why you never see a restaurant which advertises “British Food!”

      Their food is horrible.

      • So are we writing off Holland & Holland, Purdey, and Greener?

        Which I believe are all much better than English food.

        • Well, you’d have to ask Ralph about that.

          I just pointed out that you don’t see restaurants in the US serving Brit food. Especially since they’ve acquired a taste for pferd.

      • The Brits lives doesn’t revolve around food,unlike in the US where every other person is fecking huge. Now pipe down fatty.

        • I can say from experience that nothing beats a traditional English breakfast. Variety & quantity unsurpassed.

          Its greatest virtue is that it helps one avoid an English lunch, and an English supper.

          But then, London curry joints & falafel stands do that as well.

          ;^)

  16. If you actually watch the video, the first segment about Texas school teachers tooling up is actually kind of cool.

    • Hell, I thought the whole video was pretty awesome. I don’t think they were trying to make anyone look crazy, though. That’s pretty close to objective reporting.

  17. Everyone is having fun slinging insults at the Brits.

    Did anyone actually watch the video? I thought the journalist covering Texas did a pretty unbiased piece. No creative editing. In fact, he helped justify the pro-2A movement with some fair and un-munipulated interviews. He was not condescending nor did he argue with those being interviewed (hint to Piers Moron). Too many in our own MSM have forgotten what journalism is.

    I love the guy explaining that he uses his AR to hunt with. Oh, who knew. All we’ve heard from the MSM is that the AR is an “Assault Weapon” with no practical use except as a lethal military style killing machine.

    Excuse me while I go back to cleaning my trusty bacon rifle.

    • Exactly. I know most people don’t recognize it when they see it anymore, but this was what journalism used to be like, and should still be. There’s a reason that people who want real, objective, in-depth reporting watch BBC, Al Jazeera, and RT.

      • I saw a smear job on RT a year or two ago where the RTKABA in the US was being purposefully portrayed as some kind of collective insanity/irresponsibility. They also used statistics that I can only describe as being wholly dishonest. So a big PASS on that.

        +1 on the BBC and your overall point about journalism, however. Although I would caution that the BBC is state funded, unless I am mistaken and as such it cannot be completely relied on to tell the truth. I would also question Al Jazeera’s objectivity also, but I will be the first to admit that I am jaded as a result of my experiences in that particular part of the world.

        There really just isn’t that much in the way of objective media these days.

        As for my previous nasty comments about the British, they had nothing to do with this video. They have everything to do with their mainstream portrayal of the RTKABA and their own massive hypocrisy. Their time and effort would be better placed working to correct their own society. I would also prefer it if they would take P Morgan back indefinitely.

        • Your one negative example of RT doesn’t negate my point. Everyone screws up once in a while. But while your negative example was “a year or two ago,” (and I’m not saying it’s the only example, just the one you gave), my point was how far back would you have to go to find a positive example of objective reporting on Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC or even CNN? An objective story on any of those major networks is a rare thing.

  19. Brits are just jealous of Americans, because we have the balls to
    Stand for what we believe in and we have better teeth

    • You mean, 230 years ago a large number of Americans had the requisite stones. Right now, it is easy to claim “we have the balls,” but that statement really has no weight. At this stage of the game, things are easy peasey; it’s simply a matter of speaking out, complaining to representatives, and influencing fellow citizens. It’s only when it comes time to organize, break the law, and take up arms that you can say “we have the balls.”

  20. I think you’re right about the interviewer in Texas. Very decent non-Morganesque interviews and commentary.

  21. The sound of a British person trying to tell me what to do makes my blood boil. I think it is ingrained in my DNA.

  22. As a longtime TTAG fan and even longer-term USA fan, I would like to say : not all Brits. I wish you every success in your pro-2a campaign.

  23. The problem isn’t Brits, per se; the problem is elitists, some of whom happen to be Brits. The bigger problem is elitists who happen to be Americans, or who at least pretend to be, and I’m not talking about birth certificates.

    You’ll notice that our current political class exempts itself from every law it foists on the rest of us, from insider trading laws to gun bans. They think they are our betters, and can therefore lord it over us, and that any lie that happens to bubble out of their mouths is true just because they said it.

    The funny thing is that they aren’t better or smarter. Which is why we’re in the mess we’re in.

  24. As an EX-Brit who spent 13 hours yesterday waiting to testify against Colorado’s retarded mag capacity bill, I want to again not all Brits are opposed to firearms. In fact I wasn’t even the only ex-pat opposing the bill at the hearing.

    Ironically even Piers Morgan criticized British civil disarmament when he lived in England and his house was burglarized. He just got driven out of the UK for publishing lies about British troops in Iraq and will say anything in the press to get attention.

      • IIRC, his beef with Piers relates to Piers publicizing that Jeremy was engaged in behavior highly suggestive of getting a bit of action on the side.

        With that said, Piers deserves to be punched in the nose by a lot of people, Clarkson was just the first in line.

  25. The british monarchy are collectivists? You know one of the first signs of total insanity is redefining words entirely, right?

  26. The reporter isn’t big on research, I see. The Constitution was ratified in 1789, not 1791. It’s the Bill of Rights that was ratified in 1791.

  27. Bravo Robert – yet another Brit bashing thread. As a regular visitor to TTAG, it saddens me that you consistently resort to such gross generalisations about another culture. Brits hate Americans with guns: “Because they’re elitists”. What rubbish.

    As you may have gathered I’m a Brit, I’m also a gun owner (in the UK itself no less!) and a regular shooter. I enjoy the vast majority of TTAG’s content and read practically every post. I usually try to ignore those which focus on drawing a distinction between our two cultures based on stereotypes, and sometimes, flat out name calling.

    Believe it or not, there still exists a very active shooting scene here in the UK. Yes we have our fair share of detractors and anti’s – but these types of people also exist in the US. I have no problem with you using the UK as a cautionary reminder of what can occur to shooters when a government oversteps its remit and passes overly restrictive gun legislation. Just 30 years ago we could own a broadly similar range of firearms as you currently can. Now this diversity has been severely curtailed.

    Not all British people are sheep, not all Americans support the second amendment – there are people in every society with whom you will not agree, some with whom you will never be able to see eye to eye. Derogatory articles such as this do nothing but stir up casual racism amongst some of your readership – as evidenced in several of the comments above. Please Robert – lay off the Brit bashing, there are surely better, more productive articles to write. I look forward to reading them.

    • A well written response and I will take it to heart.

      Although:
      “Believe it or not, there still exists a very active shooting scene here in the UK.”

      I’m not really sure that an “active shooting scene” means to you what it means to us.

      • “I’m not really sure that an “active shooting scene” means to you what it means to us.”

        Perhaps in retrospect this was a poor choice of words. Nevertheless, marksmen and women come from all walks of life, and a diverse range of cultures. And we’re all very similar once you move past any initial cultural eccentricities. We all love to shoot (of course), we all value freedom and the right to self determination.

        What I don’t like is divisive articles such as this which try to drive wedges between people of different nationalities. I feel that it’s unfair to discriminate against the entire British public because of the vocal protestations of UK based pro-legislation, anti-gun, hoplophobes and the damage that they have managed to do to our sport.

        Focus should surely be upon these types of groups specifically – and other threats to our shooting culture, both in the US and abroad. The UK makes a great example of what can happen if the shooting community allows themselves to be divided. I can assure you that this problem is still prevalent in the UK, even if it is bemoaned by many.

        Solidarity is key to overcoming challenges. Not only solidarity between hunters and target shooters, modern sporting rifle users and traditionalists, but also between the shooting cultures of different nations. We share common beliefs and bear similar responsibilities. I would personally much rather stand together as friends.

    • “Just 30 years ago we could own a broadly similar range of firearms as you currently can. Now this diversity has been severely curtailed.”

      In the Parliamentary form of government, IIRC, the victorious political party assumes control of all the levers of government. If some measure acquires the momentum to be pushed through House of Commons & a majority of the ruling party supports, there’s no stopping it. The outlawing & confiscation of semiauto rifles in 1988 following a massacre, became law under Prime Minister Lady Margaret Thatcher, whom I otherwise greatly admire.

      We Yanks do love our Constitution. It’s a Magna Carta sort of thing you know, and causes our would-be ruling classes no end of devilment.

      • Hey Robert. Some do but not all, far from it. I tell those that do to get their own house in order first. Can’t help but notice there are a lot of Americans hating armed Americans at the moment though.
        I appreciate the pressure you guys have been under lately but Barry seems to be putting the other great Liberal hobby horse (Global Warming) back on the agenda, so maybe you’ll get a reprieve. Perhaps he figures his carbon taxes will leave folk with no money to buy guns.
        Your time in the UK wasn’t that bad, was it? Some of my ex-USAF mates have stayed.

      • No, we don’t. Amiable envy, maybe, but certainly not hate.

        I’d guess there are fewer Brits who “hate Americans with guns” than there are USAians… it certainly isn’t *us* imposing magazine limits on you and trying to ban those scary eevil “assault weapons”.

        • One thing to remember about the Brits is that’s where a lot of American thinking came from on the right of citizens to be armed. Sir William Blackstone wrote famously about the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. While we took their good idea and improved on it, let’s not forget the path it took to get here.

          And as empires go, it’s hard to find spotless ones, but at least the Brits left something like functional societies most places they went, especially by comparison to other European powers. See U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

        • They also left India, Pakistan, Burma, the middle east, and big chunks of Africa.

          The best that can be said of their colonial record is that it had mixed results. The places that were a big mess after the British left were also a big mess before the British arrived (which was a part of the reason they were so easy for the British to conquer), so their overall impact is… debatable.

  30. Rubbish! Most Brits are ignorant of the real America. But they are very fond of the idea of America…….

    As for the BBC it is Left wing propaganda organisation that only exists because we have to pay for a yearly license that funds it. It isn’t unbiased. It is anti-Christian. Pro-Islam. Pro-EU and so anti-British. Anti-American. Misandrist. Promulgates the myth of Global Warming. And on the whole it speaks for nobody but a slim metropolitan minority.

    (Please don’t ban me from your site. )

    • “(Please don’t ban me from your site. )”

      Haha, it’s actually relatively hard to get banned around here. You really have to try to be a jerk.

    • While there are things you could do that might get you banned, criticizing the BBC isn’t one of them- what I’ve seen suggests that RF supports the 1st A just as much as he does the 2nd.

  31. Just when I think Farago has a shred of integrity he goes and puts out a clickbait troll like this – how pathetic.

    Even sadder to see the usual inbred posters who have never left their flyover ****hole states lapping it up like ambrosia.

    • Nothing elitist about that remark, hmmmmmmer girl. Talking about your homeland got your panties in a bunch. Here’s something for you to consider, in Europe, England is the flyover part.

  32. Fudds v’s sportspersons, collectors ‘v’s self defense. And now you want to add Brits v’s Septics? The only people rubbing their hands are the banners. Keep going.

  34. I watched the video and only found a tiny bit condescending. What’s lost in the shuffle is that all of the shooters have been crazy, some of them certifiable and in need of commitment. And the liberal weenies would rather infringe on the rights of everyone who owns a gun rather than the tiny percentage of crazy people who will either kill themselves or somebody else no matter what the weapon. Liberals are so retarded.

    They see an asylum and demand everyone be released, then wail when those same people freeze to death under a bridge in the winter or shove some random person onto the subway tracks. Retards. All of them.

  35. The sin taxes and hidden costs associated with gun ownership in the UK are disgraceful.

    You keep referring to the British, incorrectly so.

  36. New York (CNN) — Three defendants pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to conspiring to defraud a Holocaust reparations organization out of $57.3 million, according to court documents.
    Genrikh Kolontyrskiy, Moysey Kucher and Dora Kucher, all of Brooklyn, helped produce and process some of the thousands of fraudulent applications for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany that are under investigation.
    The organization, also known as the Claims Conference, distributes more than $400 million a year from funds provided by the German government to victims of the Holocaust.

  37. The America we are speaking of here, no longer exists. We pro Bill of Rights people are fast becoming a minority. Instead of bashing the UK, we had better look at what happened to them as instructional. We speak with great swelling words about our wonderful country, but our words mean less and less to the great mass of our society. Who can look at the pictures in this video of British people turning in their weapons and deny it could happen in this country?

    I find much good about the British and some not good. Just like ourselves, much good, and some not good.

  38. Well. This shooter in Oregon was born in the UK and his dad is on CNN bashing gun owners. Of course. He doesn’t live in West Virginia I eat wild game and never begged any government to survive. A bunch of slack jawed pansies. The kid couldn’t get a girl at 26, couldn’t make friends et al all of the signs he wanted to shoot people. British folks for the most part understand we will never ban guns here. Some try and make America the Abbey. It won’t happen its a sad day I have to join the NRA to protect my right to own three single shot shotguns. All bought legally by the way. America trusted me with a gun before why is my right to be self sufficient under attack because of lunatics? Mental Hospitals exist for a reason. Medications to treat mental illness exist for a reason.

  39. fuck the us, they’re just a bunch of gun loving nutcases that should all die so we don’t have to hear about their bullshit on the news every fucking day, seriously, getting sick of hearing of how “great” their country is, and how “amazing” their stupid flag is, seriously, fuck off, or i’ll bomb ya.

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