It’s all about who you elect, the Brits have been electing parties that have advocated gun control and taking away the right to self defense for almost a century. But even so they did still have the right to own most guns until the school shooting in the 80’s or 90’s (don’t remember exactly when). The whole country was up in arms about that and demanded that the politicians do something to protect them. I’ve been over there several times and talked to people about that and other things, for the most part they are VERY supportive of keeping guns out of the hands of citizens, they’re actually proud of it. Except for a few, talked to one B&B operator and she was pretty contemptuous of all the British wimps but wasn’t much that she could do. The whole of Europe has gone bonkers with socialism, not sure how much longer they can live in the state of suspended reality that they live but for now it is what it is.
I had a fairly long conversation with an upper middle class British woman in her 60’s on a flight on this topic. She could simply not grasp that gun ownership was a specifically protected right that all Americans had as it was written into our Constitution. She was utterly contemptuous of the idea that individuals ought by right be able to arm and protect themselves. Her identification with HM’s government was remarkable and she was disgusted at my attitude that government was necessary evil not a positive good and that the people running the government had their own agendas that had nothing to do with the welfare or even basic protection of the citizenry. This woman was a Tory I might add and detested Labourites.