It sucks to be British :(
 

Don't know if anyone noticed that THE PROPSTORE of LONDON has a disclaimer now, saying that they have NEW legislation that BANS non firing RUBBER props from movies to be sold to the general public. They have to now sell their ridiculously overpriced discarded deactivated or rubber movie guns to buyers outside of the country. WTF?

Yep, saw it a while ago.

I was a study abroad student in London (Spring semester, 2007). While I was there, I had an airsoft Glock 17, just to play around with. Now, since I left you can't buy airsoft guns unless they're colored something other than black (and as you can imagine, manufacturers aren't rushing to make pink or green guns specially for the British market). It's utterly insane to me how stupid these people are that they ban things not based on crime rates, but on a few isolated incidents. Michael Ryan shot several people in Hungerford with an AK-47, so they ban all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. Then Thomas Hamilton goes apeshit with two Browning HPs in Dunblane, so they ban all handguns. Now, there have been some incidents involving "realistic imitation guns" being used in robberies, so their response is to ban those.

People complain about "interest groups" and "lobbyists" in America all the time. Well, the U.K. has the opposite problem - as soon as there's an incident involving guns, some idiot MP in Westminster pens legislation to ban something, often without consulting anyone, and it gets rammed through Parliament on a unanimous vote. It has a lot to do with the fact that legislators are given WAY too much free reign in Britain compared to this country, which makes it so that even the most poorly thought-out bills can get signed into law too easily.

BTW, my parents have been pressuring me to apply to Master's programs in London, in case I don't get into any here in the U.S. (I already got into the King's College War Studies program last year, but decided to take the job I have now in Texas instead). I really don't want live in London again, especially for a whole year, if it means I will be completely separated from anything resembling a firearm. I pray that I can get into the UT Poly Sci department here in Austin.

Why the gun laws are different and much debated in the US is mostly because of the size of this country, and how diverse the people is. There's a lot of natural checks and balances to prevent most passing of stupid laws or unreasonable laws, but some do break do occasionally, but then again, loopholes or the opposing to a said law pops up instantly to counter it.

I'm not saying the UK isn't diverse, but it seems the laws passed there are always one sided and without challenge.

Another problem is the fact that there simply weren't enough gun owners to protest at the time. When the Handgun Ban was passed, I think I remember reading that there were 60,000 license holders, and that about 150,000 handguns were confiscated. Across a population of 60 million (which is growing even bigger, thanks to immigration of West-hating Muslims), that's not quite enough to make a political impact on any MP who sponsors gun bans.

Whereas any politician in the U.S. who tried to ban guns would have to answer to a third of the population, including 5 million NRA members.