Interesting story that illustrates UK gun control versus armed Americans.
http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/the-hession-rifles-story/
..."Then came the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. As the German war machine advanced, the British Expeditionary Force evacuated back across the English Channel. The retreat was costly. In their haste British troops abandoned most of their equipment. The massive loss of military arms, combined with the fact that the English people had been mostly disarmed, left the British people almost helpless before the advance of the Third Reich.
Luckily, they had gun-owning friends across the Atlantic. In 1940 a group of Americans, headed by C. Suydam Cutting, moved quickly to help rearm England’s citizens. They established the “American Committee for Defense of British Homes” and ran an ad in the November 1940 issue of American Rifleman that read in part: “British Civilians, undergoing nightly air raids, are in desperate need of Firearms – Binoculars – Steel Helmets – Stop-Watches – Ammunition.” The ad then said, “If you possess any of these articles you can aid in the battle of Britain by sending these materials to American Committee for Defense of British Homes.”
...
Winston Churchill was appreciative. He wrote in Their Finest Hour: “When the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms, special trains were waiting in all ports to receive their cargoes. The Home Guard in every county, in every village, sat up through the night to receive them ... . By the end of July we were an armed nation ... . Anyhow, if we had to go down fighting … a lot of our men and some women had weapons in their hands … .”
http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/the-hession-rifles-story/
..."Then came the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. As the German war machine advanced, the British Expeditionary Force evacuated back across the English Channel. The retreat was costly. In their haste British troops abandoned most of their equipment. The massive loss of military arms, combined with the fact that the English people had been mostly disarmed, left the British people almost helpless before the advance of the Third Reich.
Luckily, they had gun-owning friends across the Atlantic. In 1940 a group of Americans, headed by C. Suydam Cutting, moved quickly to help rearm England’s citizens. They established the “American Committee for Defense of British Homes” and ran an ad in the November 1940 issue of American Rifleman that read in part: “British Civilians, undergoing nightly air raids, are in desperate need of Firearms – Binoculars – Steel Helmets – Stop-Watches – Ammunition.” The ad then said, “If you possess any of these articles you can aid in the battle of Britain by sending these materials to American Committee for Defense of British Homes.”
...
Winston Churchill was appreciative. He wrote in Their Finest Hour: “When the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms, special trains were waiting in all ports to receive their cargoes. The Home Guard in every county, in every village, sat up through the night to receive them ... . By the end of July we were an armed nation ... . Anyhow, if we had to go down fighting … a lot of our men and some women had weapons in their hands … .”
