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/* The Fallacy and Motivation for Gun Control */ revised footnote per request
Subsequent to gun control in England:<ref>http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html</ref>
:"from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now [as of 2002] six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people."<ref>However this increase in recorded violent crime between 1997 and 2001 is explained by the Home Office as a result of changes in the definition of violent crime and new counting rules introduced in 1998. [http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/rdsolr1804.pdf Violent Crime in England and Wales] According to the British Crime Survey violent crime fell 43% between its peak in 1995 and 2006, and burglary fell 57% between 1995 and 2005. which is considered a more reliable guide to trends in crime[http://www.crimestatisticshomeoffice.orggov.uk/outputrds/page63pdfs06/crime-statistics-independent-review-06.asp Crime Statistics in England and Walespdf] , violent crime fell 24% between 1997 and 2001/02, and burglary fell 40% over the same period.[http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb1105tab201.xls Trends in BCS incidents of crime]</ref>
Gun control in [[Britain]] and [[Australia]] has been followed by a predictable shift to the left politically by voters as they lost their instrument of self-defense and became more emotionally dependent on government. In [[Britain]], for example, the enactment of a ban on most handguns in February 1997<ref>As in Australia, gun control passed in [[Britain]] based on a highly publicized but isolated and statistically insignificant act of violence.</ref> resulted in the [[Labour Party]] winning a landslide 179 seat majority in the general election later that year, the first time it exceeded 40% of the popular vote in over 25 years. The new government soon extended the ban to cover nearly all handguns, and the [[Labour Party]] has remained in power in [[Britain]] for over a decade. In [[Australia]],the passage of gun control in 1996 and its expansion in 2002 has led to a complete takeover of all nine federal, state and territory legislatures by the Labor Party, the first time a single party has ever achieved this in Australian history.<ref>The Sydney Morning Herald - [http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/either-way-its-history-in-the-making/2007/11/23/1195753310949.html Either way, it's history in the making]</ref><ref>ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - [http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/ 2007 Federal Election]</ref> Contrast that with the [[United States]], where an effort to push gun control after the [[Columbine massacre]] failed in 2000 and the government has remained as [[conservative]] -- if not more so -- ever since.
