For decades anti-gun advocates tried to fool Americans into thinking that stringent European gun control had produced very low violent crime rates. In fact, any observant American traveler could see that this was false. More than a decade ago my visits to Europe spotlighted the visible signs of crime's impact on European society: "Passing a Venice jewelry store last week I saw a security guard standing outside with not just a holstered revolver but a submachine gun....In France, Italy and the Czech Republic cops never patrol singly. Patrols of only two officers are unusual while patrols of as many as four to six officers are routine....

"Every four or five blocks in major cities you will find a cambio,’ i.e., a money changing office. And all cambios, large and small alike, feature bullet proof enclosures in which the cashiers sit.

"Spanish, Italian and French banks are the same, only more so. One design I observed made it impossible to enter the bank except through two successive bullet-proof doors. To get in the outer door you must be buzzed in. At that point you face the second bullet-proof door. Before it can open, the outer door must close and lock. Even if the bank personnel wanted to admit a group of people, no more than two or three adults could crowd together inside the outer door. So there is no way for a gang to enter. Once inside you find the normal array of bank officers and other employees -- except for the tellers. The tellers are all ensconced in a separate bullet-proof enclosure."

Moreover robbers have no way to make the bank personnel let them out. The personnel literally cannot do it. The double door entrance-exits never open together. Remember, neither door can be buzzed open unless the other is closed. The robbers can force the bank personnel to open the inner door, but they cannot be buzzed through the outer door until the inner has closed behind them. At that point they have no way to force the personnel to open the outer door. They are trapped between the bullet-proof doors to wait there until the police arrive.

These precautions (the like of which I have never seen in America) prove the prevalence of violent crime in Europe. Since WWII crime has grown enormously, though unevenly, in nearly all developed nations. This persisted – perhaps even accelerated – despite increasingly severe gun bans, and anti-self defense laws and court decisions.

Decades of uncontrolled crime have led many in Europe to a political backlash which is chronicled in a paper law professor Renee Lerner delivered at a 2005 symposium I honchoed at George Mason UniversityLaw School. She writes: "England finds itself in the position of having one of highest crime rates in the industrialized world [twice the U.S. rate] – with especially astronomical burglary rates – combined with the strictest gun control regime. Under these circumstances England was ripe for a cause celebre, and it surely has one in the case of Tony Martin ... a farmer who fired his unlicensed shotgun at two would-be burglars, killing one and wounding the other. He was ultimately convicted of manslaughter, and the surviving burglar [financed by the government] is now suing Martin for civil damages."

Such things happen all too often in England. On March 23, 2004 a Scots newspaper article reported: "A man who stabbed to death an armed intruder at his home was jailed for eight years today. Carl Lindsay, 25, answered a knock at his door in Salford, Greater Manchester, to find four men armed with a gun. When the gang tried to rob him he grabbed a samurai sword and stabbed one of them, 37-year-old Stephen Swindells, four times. Mr Swindells, of Salford, was later found collapsed in an alley and died in hospital.

"Lindsay, of Walkden, was found guilty of manslaughter following a three-week trial at Manchester Crown Court. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment." This was not as harsh as it might seem. It turns out that Lindsay was not an innocent victim, but rather was a drug dealer whom the intruders were trying to rip off. The surviving three robbers each got 14 years.

"After the case, Detective Chief Inspector Sam Haworth said: ‘Four men, including the victim, had set out purposefully to rob Carl Lindsay and this intent ultimately led to Stephen Swindells’ death. ‘I believe the sentences passed today reflect the severity of the circumstances.’"

Popular anger against the vast increase in violent crime over the past few decades was epitomized when a BBC radio program asked listeners to suggest new laws "to improve life in Britain." To the media’s (and politicians’) horror, voters from all over England championed a law (now called "Tony Martin’s law’) allowing people to use "any means to defend their home from intruders."

Labor Party (i.e., liberal) Prime Minister "Tony Blair said he would support changing the law to give people in their homes and shops more rights to protect themselves." But all the Blair government did was provide that injured burglars may not recover damages against householders who injured them unless the householder used "grossly disproportionate" force.

The opposition Conservative Party seeks to extend this to criminal prosecutions, meaning that a householder cannot be prosecuted unless he used "grossly disproportionate" force in resisting burglary.

Prof. Lerner notes that in Belgium "right-leaning parties have campaigned steadily for" adopting "Dutch (and German) law." In those nations’ a householder who kills a burglar may have no criminal penalty even if did he use more force than was strictly necessary. Acquittal may be based on showing that he was terrified by a situation of sudden peril. "According to [these] reformers ‘every right-thinking person understands that it is not easy for someone confronted by an immediate illegal attack to do a rational evaluation of what" force is or is not excessive. As the proposed law puts it: "‘One who exceeds the limits of legitimate defense is not punishable if the excess was the immediate consequence of a violent emotion caused by the attack.’" (Prof. Lerner’s translation.)

Note that this law is more liberal toward victim use of force than American law is. French, Dutch etc. law allows a victim to kill because of bare (i.e. unreasonable) fear or outrage at the crime. In the U.S. that would be called "vigilanteism" and would be pinishable as manslaughter.

Another proposed reform would have Belgium follow France, Germany, and Holland in allowing deadly force to be used to prevent not just attacks on the person but also violent theft. This proposal is fueled by public indignation over convictions of victims for killing criminals. In one "famous incident in September, 1999 a jeweler in Flanders fired on thieves who were running away and killed one. He was convicted of murder. Two other causes celebres also involved Belgian jewelers both of whom were victims of ram-raiding, the practice of using a truck or van to run through a shop window to steal goods. The jeweler Tybergiem, from Harelbeke, was found guilty of manslaughter. Although he was given no criminal sentence, he had to pay the costs of the proceedings and even damages and interest to the thief’s next of kin The jeweler Moortgat from Alost was acquitted in the [trial] court on the basis of self defense. Public indignation in the case stemmed from the prosecutor’s appeal from the judgment causing Moortgat and his family to live in ‘great uncertainty’ for a year until the appellate court pronounced acquittal."

As this is written new laws giving householders more self-defense rights are still being pushed in England and Belgium. Such a law was enacted in Italy and went into effect early in 2006.