I didn't say pistols didn't exist, I said "they carried". Firearms weren't cheap then or now. The average joe couldn't afford pockets pistols.
In Kabul, you can buy a brand new Chinese built AK47 for $25us . Even here, an illegal Handgun can be had for maybe £200.
Firearms are cheap. Plentiful. Everywhere.
But if the only section of society that are carrying them are Criminals, and the only protection for Law Abiding Citizens is a Police Force (who even if they did eventually turn up, are just as likely to shoot you by mistake) geared up primarily for collecting evidence, statements, cordoning off the Crime Scene etc than actual Crime prevention, then you have to ask just who the thick bastards are supposed to be protecting.
Police here have just about given up on pro active prevention, (unless it's Traffic Crime) They don't stop burglaries or robberies happening, they catch burglars, and robbers, but only ever after the event (if at all)
So Criminals have A/ An unarmed populace
B/ Easy access to cheap arms
C/ A Police Force who's record in apprehending
violent armed Criminals actually robbing, or
holding someone up is virtually nil.
But I (being a Law Abiding Citizen) can't legally carry so much as a 4 inch folding pocketknife in public without running the risk of a mandatory 5 year Prison term.
Our Olympic pistol shooting team have had to train abroad for 2012, because all Handguns are verbatim here. (Unless they're hanging off a Copper's belt) And gun crime is rising all the time, so it's time to think of another approach.
For a Nation like Britain, one of whom's biggest exports is Arms, to allow their own population to be so blatantly plundered by gun toting blaggers, muggers, footpads, gangs of every size and denomination isn't just negligent, it's insulting!
And woe betide any beleaguered citizen who ends up in Court for kerb stomping some hooded scally who tried to rob him
"The Court takes a dim view of people who take the Law into their own hands, a very dim view indeed"
Well, just whose fucking hands should the Law be in then? My four inch penknife, found in the bottom of my pocket in a random Stop/Search, immediately becomes an "Offensive weapon". No. It. Fucking. Isn't.
If I were to take it out in a busy shop, and start waving it around, then it would be an offensive weapon. If I were to stab someone with it, then it would be an offensive weapon. But sat in my pocket, it's just a penknife. (With a 5 year tariff)
Ideally, I'd like the public to be allowed to carry Swords for the protection of their person. To draw steel on an unarmed person would obviously be an offence. But if two people decide to get all Zorro on each other, and they're both grown ups, all well and good. If you can't actually use your sword, then you should still be allowed to carry it, but you might want to think very hard before pulling it out.
No-one is going to risk pulling their sword out casually on a complete stranger over a spilled pint anyway. (No weapons in the Pubs) not if they are risking three feet of cold steel resting in their guts.
Duelling would inevitably become popular, so there would have to be some rules drawn up accordingly. Good TV too, I would have thought.
But that's never going to happen. So let us have some fucking irons then! Two sawn off barrels full of Swanshot is a great social leveller
in some of the rougher ends of Town, and goes a long way towards mutual respect and understanding between the naturally suspicious island bound, xenophobic inhabitants of these Jewelled Islands.
And a pair of sawn off Purdeys adds a certain wry "fuck you" to the
elitism and snobbery of the ruling classes.
Purdeys? Sawn off? But...but....you can't hit a rising Grouse with only four inches of barrel. It's. . . wrong!
"Shaddup and get in the fucking car, you slaaaag!"
Don't know whwere I'm going with this now, so . . . .