Birmingham [UK]: 400-strong vigilante mob forms to tackle crime "No trust in police"

Daily Mail ^

[NotaLowTBoomer]

Vigilante group of almost 400 people join forces to tackle crime in their area after spate of violent attacks left them with 'no trust in the police'

'We Stand Determined' is attempting to stop a wave of crime in Birmingham The group originally asked for more police officers but failed to get them Men and women are patrolling the streets after violent robberies and attacks

[Chickensoup]

So it wasn’t Saxon?

It was English?

I always learned it as Saxon.

[Interesting Times]

The original is here.

It isn't clear who changed "English" to "Saxon" or when.

[robowombat]

Handguns were never as common in the UK as here. They were far from unknown in large cities with a reputation for violence such as Glasgow or the East End of London. The use of pistols by the Russian revolutionaries in the ‘Siege of Sidney Street’ caused a flap and also made Winston Churchill an opponent of civilan ownership as WSC was seriously embarrassed by the whole affair as he was Home Secretary. He proposed the earliest gun control law aimed at pistols the next year,

While the UK was generally peaceful in the late Victorian era the notion of a shotgun behind the door to greet things that go bump in the night was common in thinly settled rural areas such as Cumberland (personal knowledge). While the government has yet to try and seize rifles and shotguns the constant diminution of the rights of self defense has effectively disarmed Britons. If the ragheddis ever become really numerous and obnoxious outside large cities I expect a number of Britons will risk prosecution for firing on muzzlemen marauders.

[Winniesboy]

The only evidence for what you say about pre-1900 customs is anecdotal. There is just as much, in fact rather more anecdotal evidence that the examples you describe were exceptional rather than the norm.

Interesting indisputable fact is that there are now more legally-owned guns in the UK than there were before the 1997 post-Dunblane handgun ban.

[Winniesboy]

I should add that of course shotguns were common in rural areas like Cumbria, they always have been and are now. Every farm has a shotgun (usually several). All my neighbours here in rural Devon have guns.