Astute observation, Tom. Your position isn't so different from that of libertarian Americans or gun rights advocates over on this side of the pond. We believe that certain rights are fundamental, and inalienable. They are a list of freedoms inherent to ALL mankind. Our constitution's Bill of Rights did not grant these freedoms, but instead merely codified them in law and recognized that the government may not deprive any of its citizens these rights under color of law. The rights existed before there was government. In that regard, we view the right to keep and bear arms to be just as fundamental as the right to free speech, or the right to privacy being infringed by the UK's proliferation of CCTV cameras, or any of our other rights. First they teach our children that cameras make us safe. Or they teach that some guns are bad and their ownership restricted. And when those things are proven to be the lies they are, they ban yet more guns, or they install yet more cameras, and they can do so easily now because they've conditioned a generation of children to believe it works. That's how it starts. No one complains at first because it's someone else's privacy being violated, or someone else's possessions being outlawed. The changes are incremental, and the government hopes that we will remain complacent as the restrictions become ever more intrusive. Pretty soon, the citizens have no expectation of privacy, and no viable means of self-defense. The government controls us fully. And we let it happen to ourselves, by not resisting back when resistance would have mattered. The analogy we use here is boiling a frog. Throw a frog in boiling water, and he'll jump out with barely a burn or blister. But put him in lukewarm water, and gradually raise the temperature, and he'll happily swim around, thinking he's safe... ... until he's cooked.