Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
You did not say that "Many of the Commonwealth Ctaribbean islands have some of the strictest gun laws in the world." You said that they had these laws because they were derived from British laws, and I think the very strict UK laws came after Caribbean independence.
|
British gun laws have been restrictive since the 1920 Firearms Act, which made the right to bear arms contingent upon Home Secretary and police approval. They were made more restrictive still with the 1933 Firearms and Imitation Firearms (Criminal Use) Bill and the 1937 Firearms Act, when self-defense was removed as a possible justification for a license being granted by the Home Office.
By the time the Firearm Act of 1968 and the Firearm (Amendment) Acts of 1988 and 1997 arrived, they largely only affected the tiny minority of upper class citizens who had any chance of owning sporting firearms, anyway. Ordinary citizens were already effectively disarmed from 1937, excepting shotguns for the farmers.
Added to which, even after Commonwealth countries gained their independence, most of their legislators and legal experts, especially in smaller nations like the Caribbean islands, were still educated in British schools, exposed to British culture and absorbed British law, so that legislation in the newly independent Caribbean Commonwealth countries was substantially influenced by trends in UK legal culture.