This Essay does not require that the reader have any affection for the British right to arms presumably, the reader does have affection for some civil liberties, and the Essay aims to discover principles about how slippery slopes operate. ![]() The investigation of the British experience offers some insights about the current gun control debate in the United States, and also about ongoing debates over other civil liberties. This Essay pays particular attention to how the public's "rights consciousness," which forms such a strong barrier against repressive laws, can weaken and then disappear. Instead, the object is simply to examine how a right that is widely respected and unrestricted can, one "reasonable" step at a time, be extinguished. In studying the destruction of the British right to arms, this Essay draws conclusions about how slippery slopes operate in real life, and about what kinds of conditions increase or decrease the risk that the first steps down a hill will turn into a slide down a slippery slope.įor purposes of this Essay, the reader will not be asked to make a judgement about the righteousness of the (former) British right to arms or the wisdom of current British gun prohibitions and controls. As the century closes, the right has been almost obliterated. (p.400) When the twentieth century began, the right to arms in Great Britain was robust, and subject to virtually no restrictions. This Essay aims to refine the understanding of slippery slopes by examining a particular nation that did slide all the way down the slippery slope. ![]() In response, proponents of today's reasonable restrictions argue that the jeremiads about slippery slopes are unrealistic or even paranoid. Is it possible for a nation to go from wide-open freedom for a civil liberty, to near-total destruction of that liberty, in just a few decades? "Yes," warn many American civil libertarians, arguing that allegedly "reasonable" restrictions on civil liberty today will start the nation down "the slippery slope" to severe repression in the future. ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: GUN PROHIBITION IN ENGLAND AND SOME LESSONS FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES IN AMERICA ![]()
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