Considering how many people on the left of the political spectrum are in favor of gun control, I found this article - Victorian Gun Crime - about the history of gun control in England - to be tremendously ironic. To boot:

Proper restriction was not introduced until after the First World War. The Firearms Act 1920 decreed that gun ownership required a certificate that the local chief of police could withhold from anyone he deemed “unfitted to be trusted with a firearm”. However, the accompanying guidelines made clear “a good reason for having a revolver” included “if a person lives in a solitary house, where protection against thieves and burglars is essential”.

The legislation had less to do with armed robbery and more to do with the Lloyd George Government’s fear that a combination of disaffected soldiers returning from the Western Front, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the surge in trade union membership might be harbingers of trouble. It was thus better if firearms were monopolised by the State and the more responsible classes.

So, gun control in England came about as result of a Red Scare and the fear that those darn unions might get out of line? Hilarious.

But hey, the cities over there must be crime free now that the entire (law abiding) population has been disarmed, right? Er,no….

There were a quarter of a million registered firearms in private hands before the First World War and the true figure was almost certainly far higher. In those years the average number of crimes involving firearms in London was 45. In 2006 it was 3,350.