The United Kingdom is often touted as having fewer so-called gun crimes than the United States, and that’s evidence we should do something similar. However, when you delve into the details, you see that crime continues not just unabated, but it has increased. The criminals often just used other weapons, which benefited them, but were terrible for self-defense purposes.
The UK’s Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, isn’t popular with the more leftist elements of British politics. That’s probably an endorsement, in my book, but while they’re pretty far-right by UK standards, they’re almost middle of the road here in the US.
Still, one columnist’s attack on Farage’s comments on guns is a big chunk of why the UK is so unsafe these days.
Reform says Britain can trust it on firearms. Farage’s record, and the harder politics growing around him, say otherwise.
A dangerous view of gun control
Nigel Farage has spent years indulging a dangerous view of gun control, and the issue now is trust. In 2014 he called the handgun ban introduced after Dunblane, the deadliest mass shooting in modern British history, “ludicrous” and “kneejerk”. He said Britain needed “a proper gun licensing system”, which he thought largely already existed, and argued that criminalising handguns meant “only the criminals carry the guns”, recycling the language of a longstanding American gun-rights slogan popularised by the NRA. When those remarks returned in 2025, he did not withdraw them.
Nor should he have, because it’s true.
I’ve written numerous stories about criminals having guns in the UK. I’ve covered numerous cases of not just the kinds of firearms we might get here in the US, but full-auto weapons. Criminals might be less likely to use them there, but they have no trouble getting them.
And yeah, the handgun ban post Dunblane was ridiculous. It’s worth noting, also, that it hasn’t stopped mass shootings in the UK. There have been as many, if not more, since Dunblane as there were before it. Nothing’s changed in that regard.
But currently, the UK has a problem. We’ve heard about the rape and grooming gangs that run the streets of many cities there. We’ve seen the way young women are treated by “Asian immigrants” who have no respect for the British way of life. There’s a reason a young Scottish girl felt the need to carry a big knife and an ax to deal with the predators who tried to proposition her younger sister.
Crimes with knives are so rampant that law enforcement brags about going into homes and taking kitchen knives from people, but sure, there’s no reason to believe Farage when it comes to guns.
Heaven forbid that good people defend themselves, but that’s really how the UK views things.
Farage isn’t calling for constitutional carry, no licensing, or anything that we might consider as minimal for someone to be considered pro-gun, but he’s a lot more sensible than your average British politician. He clearly sees that no matter how much anti-gunners try to pretend otherwise, the post-Dunblane gun laws didn’t really do what people were told they would do. Instead, they do what they always do: restrict the rights of peaceable people to protect themselves, while criminals continue to illegally arm themselves.
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