Some folks in the UK love to lecture Americans on guns. Now, many of us don’t actually care what they have to say. The British tried to enforce gun control on American shores once before, and they got shot at Lexington and Concord for their troubles. They don’t get a say in our local governance these days.

Frankly, based on the soaring crime problem in London, they need to focus more on their own troubles.

You see, we already noted on Monday that London was now more dangerous than New York, but now we have hard numbers on just how bad it’s gotten.

Gun crime offences in London surged by 42% in the last year, according to official statistics. The Met Police’s figures showed there were 2,544 gun crime offences from April 2016 to April 2017 compared to 1,793 offences from 2015 until 2016. Knife crime also increased by 24% with 12,074 recorded offences from 2016 to 2017. The Met said although crime rates were rising they remained at a much lower level than five years ago. Scotland Yard registered annual rises across a number of serious offence categories in the past 12 months, following several years of falls. The total number of offences during the 2016 to 2017 financial year was 774,737, an increase of 4% from the previous year when total offences stood at 740,933. Knife crime offences that resulted in an injury also increased, by 21% to 4,415 from 2016 to 2017, compared to 3,663 offences the year before. The force said robbery offences, which increased 12% year-on-year, were at about half the level of 2006-2007 and there were 58 fewer homicides this year compared to 10 years ago.

Officials note that the increase isn’t confined to London either. It’s across England and Wales as a whole.

It’s not possible, though. I mean, England has successfully implemented tough gun control laws. No one can get a gun, so how can they commit gun crime?

What’s that? Criminals don’t follow laws so they’ll continue to be armed, which means all gun control laws really do is disarm the law-abiding and make them defenseless prey? Yep, pretty much.

Further, gun restrictions can also lead to increases in crime with other weapons. The average citizen isn’t going to carry a knife or a club with them for self-defense for a variety of reasons. That means they’re nothing but prey for the two-legged predators that prowl London’s streets. Absent a firearm, they have no means to meet a knife-wielding thug wanting their wallet and watch.

Yes, we have plenty of crimes committed with a firearm. However, we also protect the right of the individual to carry a firearm (more or less) in self-defense. That is why our crime rate is dropping while London’s is going up. More and more people are carrying guns, providing a disincentive for crime. It’s much easier to just get a job than to risk being shot.

This is a good thing. This is what we, as a society, should want. People deciding to exchange honest labor for honest pay, not taking from the innocent by force.

However, there are those who look to England as some kind of Utopia we should be trying to emulate.

Looking at these numbers? No thanks.