“I was
frightened to defend myself. I thought if I did
anything I would be arrested.”
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
Celebrity 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.
A couple of weeks before that, the 85-year-old mother of Phil
Collins, the well-known rock star, was punched in the ribs, the
back, and the head on a West London street, before her companion
was robbed. “That’s what you have to expect these days,” she said,
philosophically.
Anthea Turner, the host of Britain’s top-rated National Lottery
TV show, went to see the West End revival of Grease with a
friend. They were spotted at the theatre by a young man who
followed them out and, while their car was stuck in traffic, forced
his way in and wrenched a diamond-encrusted Rolex off the friend’s
wrist.
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.
Former Bond girl Britt Ekland had her jewelry torn from her arms
outside a shop in Chelsea; 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; network TV chief
Michael Green was slashed in the face by thugs outside his Mayfair
home; gourmet chef to the stars Anton Mosimann was punched in the
head outside his house in Kensington….
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. 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 $140,000.
It’s just as well Tom failed to catch up with the gang.
Otherwise, the ensuing altercation might have resulted in the
diminutive star being prosecuted for assault. In Britain,
criminals, police, and magistrates are united in regarding any
resistance by the victim as bad form. 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. “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.
Forgive me for unsheathing my bread knife. My mistake, old boy.
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?”
No wonder, even as they’re being pounded senseless, many British
crime victims are worrying about potential liability. 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. They pressed the hot iron
into her side and stole her watch, leaving her badly burnt. “I was
frightened to defend myself,” said Miss Best. “I thought if I did
anything I would be arrested.”
And who can blame her? 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. He was charged with murder. 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. 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. 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. Martin
discovered.
Norfolk is a remote rural corner of England. It ought to be as
peaceful and crime-free as my remote rural corner of New England.
But it isn’t. Old impressions die hard: Americans still think of
Britain as a low-crime country. Conversely, the British think of
America as a high-crime country. But neither impression is true.
The overall crime rate in England and Wales is 60 percent higher
than that in the United States. True, in America you’re more likely
to be shot to death. On the other hand, in England you’re more
likely to be strangled to death. But in both cases, the statistical
likelihood of being murdered at all is remote, especially if you
steer clear of the drug trade. 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.
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. In America, if you
can make it out of some of the loonier cities, it’s a piece of
cake, relatively speaking. In Britain, if even a rock star or TV
supremo can’t insulate himself, nobody can. In any society,
criminals prey on the weak and vulnerable. 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.
And that’s where America is headed if those million marching
moms make any headway in Washington: Less guns = more crime. And
more vulnerability. And a million more moms being burgled, and
assaulted, and raped. I like hunting, but if that were the only
thing at stake with guns, I guess I could learn to live without it.
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 sister-in-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.
Between the introduction of pistol permits in 1903 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.” And what’s the result?
Even when you factor in America’s nutcake jurisdictions with the
crackhead mayors, the overall crime rate in England and Wales is
higher than in all 50 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. Robbery, sex crimes, and violence against the
person are higher in England and Wales; property crime is twice as
high; vehicle theft is higher still; the British are 2.3 times more
likely than Americans to be assaulted, and three times more likely
to be violently assaulted. Between 1973 and 1992, burglary rates in
the U.S. fell by half. In Britain, not even the Home Office’s
disreputable reporting methods (if a 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; two-thirds will have their
property broken into at some time in their lives. Even more
revealing is the divergent character between U.K. and U.S. property
crime: In America, just over 10 percent of all burglaries are “hot
burglaries”—committed while the owners are present; in Britain,
it’s over half. Because of insurance-required alarm systems, the
average thief increasingly concludes that it’s easier to break in
while you’re on the premises. Your home-security system may
conceivably make your home more safe, but it makes you less so.
Conversely, up here in the New Hampshire second congressional
district, there are few laser security systems and lots of guns.
Our murder rate is much lower than Britain’s and our property crime
is virtually insignificant. Anyone want to make a connection?
Villains are expert calculators of risk, and the likelihood of
walking away uninjured with an $80 television set is too remote. In
New Hampshire, a citizen’s right to defend himself deters crime; in
Britain, the state-inflicted impotence of the homeowner actively
encourages it. Just as becoming a drug baron is a rational career
move in Colombia, so too is becoming a violent burglar in the
United Kingdom. The chances that the state will seriously impede
your progress are insignificant.
These days it’s standard to bemoan the “dependency culture” of state welfare, but Britain’s law-and-order “dependency culture” is even more enfeebling. What was it the police and courts resented about that Norfolk farmer? That he “took the law into his own hands”? But in a responsible participatory democracy, the law ought to be in our hands. The problem with Britain is that the police force is now one of the most notable surviving examples of a pre-Thatcher, bloated, incompetent, unproductive, overpaid, closed-shop state monopoly. They’re about as open to constructive suggestions as the country’s Communist mineworkers’ union was 20 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.
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; it also applies to their communities and their policing arrangements. 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.
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. If more crack deals passed off peacefully,
that “child” death rate could be reduced by three-quarters. 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. That’s
something those million marching moms 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. Ask Phil Collins or Ridley Scott or Germaine Greet.
These days it’s standard to bemoan the “dependency culture” of
state welfare, but Britain’s law-and-order “dependency culture” is
even more enfeebling. What was it the police and courts resented
about that Norfolk farmer? That he “took the law into his own
hands”? But in a responsible participatory democracy, the law
ought to be in our hands. The problem with Britain is that the
police force is now one of the most notable surviving examples of a
pre-Thatcher, bloated, incompetent, unproductive, overpaid,
closed-shop state monopoly. They’re about as open to constructive
suggestions as the country’s Communist mineworkers’ union was 20
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.
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; it also applies to their
communities and their policing arrangements. 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.
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. If more crack deals passed off peacefully,
that “child” death rate could be reduced by three-quarters. 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. That’s
something those million marching moms 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.
Ask Phil Collins or Ridley Scott or Germaine Greer.
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