Just Lie There and Take It
There are some questions that I really hate answering. One that was put to me by someone who had to travel to the UK was “What kind of pepper spray can I legally carry over there?”
The answer is that you can’t.
“Any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing” is a Prohibited Weapon, under S.5 of The Firearms Act 1968. The same act covers other prohibited weapons such as automatic firearms and rocket launchers, all of which can only be possessed by permission of the Home Secretary.
So pepper spray is in the same restricted class as machine guns and anti-tank weapons. Welcome to Jolly Old England!
There actually is a type of defensive spray product I’m aware of that is still legal. Marketed under a variety of names by a few companies, it is a harmless and non-toxic goo that is supposed to deter attackers.
How is it supposed to give violent criminals pause, exactly? Well, it stains their clothes and skin with a dye of some kind, usually red but it can also be found in blue. If you get it on their face, either because you are a good enough marksmen with the spray bottle or because the criminal is a completely incompetent buffoon, then they maybe won’t be able to see for a second or two until they use their fingers to give their eyeballs a scrape.
A few years ago, back before the US based company Mace decided to sell their own brand of harmless goo, I decided that I wanted to try out the only UK self defense spray on the market at the time. I contacted the British firm and asked them to send me a can, but told them not to bother when they claimed that the international shipping charges would cost over twenty pounds more than it actually took to ship a small package to the US. I suppose it makes sense to try and screw your customers over when you live in a country where even pepper spray is outlawed.
So you can’t legally buy pepper spray in the UK. If you get some anyway and get caught, then the courts could very well come down on you with the same penalties as if you were wandering around with a machine gun.
You can buy harmless sticky goo to spray on any violent criminals that cross your path, but it will probably be a waste of time unless the criminal in question is a clean freak who can’t stand the thought of sticky goo getting on him. If he starts dancing around, waving his hands in an agitated manner while trying to scrape off the goo, it might just be possible to run away.
Since that is unlikely to happen unless you get mugged by a prissy little girl, I wouldn’t waste any money on this stuff. Better to buy a dog while you are over there, I suppose.
So what happens if you are fit, tough, young, and still come in contact with tear gas or pepper spray?
And what happens if you get sprayed with the harmless goo?
Oh, he looks like a sad little Smurf!
December 20th, 2009 at 8:01 am
As much as I would love to own a gun (which is a lot) I have to maintain that British gun laws work.
I live in a part of London that most police will tell you has more gun crime than anywhere else in London. This makes it one of the worst areas in England. Despite this it members of the ‘normal’ public are almost never the victims of gun crime. The shootings are invariably against those already deeply embroiled in crime. This sort of negates the ‘in England only the criminals have guns’ argument because it still doesn’t really effect the man on the street.
I understand that lots of people in the US are the victims of muggings and such like at gunpoint and that the most common firearm injuries are accidents caused by peoples personal weapons in their houses. This means that bringing in American style gun laws here would mean a definite additional loss of lives and injury virtually without doubt.
Don’t get me wrong, if the law changed I would be the first guy in the queue asking for a licence or whatever. I just think that it’s probably lucky for me that can’t do that.
I love the blog by the way.
December 20th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Thanks for coming by, Rooney. I welcome and value every single one of my readers.
But there are a few things about your comment I would like to discuss. I certainly hope I don’t make you too uncomfortable.
“I live in a part of London that most police will tell you has more gun crime than anywhere else in London. This makes it one of the worst areas in England. Despite this it members of the ‘normal’ public are almost never the victims of gun crime. The shootings are invariably against those already deeply embroiled in crime.”
And how is this different from the situation in the United States? Sounds like an exact description of conditions found here.
“This sort of negates the ‘in England only the criminals have guns’ argument because it still doesn’t really effect the man on the street.”
I don’t understand. Didn’t you just say, in the sentence right before this one, that only criminals have guns in Great Britain?
“I understand that lots of people in the US are the victims of muggings and such like at gunpoint and that the most common firearm injuries are accidents caused by peoples personal weapons in their houses.”
It is true that gun crime is higher than in the UK, but crime rates are much higher over in Old Blighty. Any citizen is over four times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime in England than a citizen of the US.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
So far as accidents are concerned, they are rare. Backyard swimming pools are about 700% more lethal than guns, yet I never hear anyone suggest that we need to outlaw pools.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvacci.html
The most common firearm fatalities are caused by suicides, who specifically purchase a gun to end their own lives. About 60% of all firearm fatalities fall in this group, and about 53% of all suicides by any means use a gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Suicides_involving_firearms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods
So anti-gun laws will lower suicide rates? It doesn’t appear that such is the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Note how many countries with a high suicide rate also have what we in the United States would consider draconian gun control laws. The suicide rate in Japan, for example, handily exceeds both the combined suicide rate and homicide rate in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
What is the bottom line? Great Britain currently enjoys less than half of the homicide rate of that found in the US, but the gap is shrinking. Violent crime in the UK is at a level that would horrify Americans, and is at a rate not seen here in four decades.
I am personally very reluctant to suggest that solutions to crime that work in one culture and country will also work in another. But I think that whatever methods the authorities are trying in Great Britain simply aren’t working very well, and they might think about changing them.
December 20th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I’d like to add to what James said:
Despite this it members of the ‘normal’ public are almost never the victims of gun crime. The shootings are invariably against those already deeply embroiled in crime…I understand that lots of people in the US are the victims of muggings and such like at gunpoint…
This involves a core fallacy of the gun control meme: that “gun crime” is the quantity we’re concerned with. Britain has managed to decrease “gun crime” through her heavy-handed gun laws, but her violent crime and murder rates have gone up. Her criminals simply stab their victims to death instead of shooting them. Your government trumpets the decrease of “gun crime” while more people are actually being murdered. Is it a great success to have more dead, but to have turned criminals to different weapons? The unfortunate truth is that people who’re violent enough to murder others to get what they want aren’t dissuaded by what tools are available. Take away their guns and they’ll use knives. Take away their knives and they’ll use screwdrivers.
…the most common firearm injuries are accidents caused by peoples personal weapons in their houses.
I don’t have access to statistics on personal injuries due to gun accidents, but I _do_ have the _death_ rates from injuries, which can probably shed some light. Firearms accidents account for just under 650 deaths per year. Given that “assault by firearm” (which includes defensive shootings*) accounts for a little under 13,000, gun accidents are clearly less common than deliberate uses.
I know 650 people dying is still a terrible thing, but give that list a browse to put it into perspective: other things that kill more Americans per year than gun accidents are bicycle accidents (926), air and space transport accidents (655), Motorcycle accidents (4787), “Fall involving bed, chair, other furniture” (906), accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, (661), choking on food (872), poisoning by “noxious gasses and vapors” (656), assault by sharp object (2080), and medical and surgical complications (2521). _Doctors_ are the cause of more accidental deaths in the States than guns are.
Hell, we have over a hundred fatal accidents a year involving horseback riders or horse-drawn carts. Each specific means of suicide dwarfs gun accidents by at least a factor of ten. And this isn’t even looking at car and truck accidents, which accounts for more deaths than all forms of suicide put together, and more than twice as many deaths as all forms of murder.
The bottom line is that life isn’t safe, and you shoudn’t treat adult citizens like children, trying to take away everything that could be dangerous.
[* - One last note: studies of defensive gun uses in the US have found anywhere from 108,000 per year and 2.4 million per year. Even assuming the very least, compare that to the lethal firearms assault rate: 108,000 DGUs to under 13,000 total deaths from DGUs and "gun crime". The _overwhelming_ majority of defensive gun uses end up with nobody dead. This isn't a great fit for the popular image of the bloodthirsty gun-toting American who just can't wait to murder an intruder, is it?]
December 20th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Incidentally, Rooney, this is one of the reasons I think gun control gets so much traction: the case for gun control is easily summed up in relatively simple terms, while the case for gun rights often requires pages and pages of context and mind-numbing numbers.
December 20th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Your friend should know that wasps can be a real problem in the UK, he or she might want to pick up a can of Raid or equivalent and keep it handy while there. Alternatively, the people he is visiting might not be the best of housekeepers - it might be thoughtful to bring them some oven cleaner since they’ll be cooking for company.
Now, he or she should also be aware that if you have been disarmed and end up having to defend yourself against violent assault with whatever is at hand, you will likely face criminal charges. Especially in a third world country that routinely prosecutes victims for defending themselves. To compound this, many readily available objects can cause permanent and often far worse physical damage than devices specifically designed for non-lethal self defense applications.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:37 pm
In the UK, anything used for self defense counts as an offensive weapon, and unless you can convince the magistrate that you really need that large can of toxic chemicals on on your person while walking down the street (wasp spray is intended to be used on stationary nests, expect them to bring that up), you’d be screwed anyway. This is a cesspool while people defending themselves with their *bare hands* are imprisoned for assault, do you really think they’d let you get away with improvising weapons?
December 21st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
What I do is carry a 6-pack holder ring. I whip it out when about to be attacked, saying that I’m a master of the aincient Chinese technique named “The Six Rings Of DEATH”. Then I run as fast as I can while they’re falling down laughing.