EuGuy:

I do nevertheless think that bureaucrats sometimes abuse their position and stray outside their rules for how to conduct business to, for instance, revenge a critic. But I am (not?) sure this is a widespread phenomenon, why I fail to see how this sets western Europe apart. "The wise man who desires the renewal of his shotgun licence will hold his tongue and refrain from advocating armed self-defense." Maybe so - but I do not understand the connection with free speech?

As an analogy, I'm sure that in America someone maintaining a license to run a day-care facility would hesitate to advocate loosening the restrictions on child-pornography, and might thereby invite hostile scrutiny of his business by the government.

My point was merely that fear of retribution by bureaucrats (e.g. a police inspector refusing to renew your firearms certificate) is the main reason European gun owners do not raise the issue of armed self-defense in the European gun control debate. The police inspectors would suspect that the gun owner might be willing to use his own firearm in self-defense, and therefore cancel his license and confiscate the weapon.

That's not a free-speech issue; it's a consequence of European self-defense law. If you're carrying a walking cane and police ask you whether you would use it in self-defense against a mugger -- and you answer yes -- then you can be charged with the crime of "carrying an offensive weapon." To be legal, you have go about with the notion that you will accept any assault against your body or property rather than hitting back with the cane. True, you might be _forgiven_ for doing so if you argue, after the fact, that it was sheer terror that drove you to behave so badly, but the act of armed self-defense itself is simply not legal there, and anyone who advocates it is treated by bureaucrats as someone advocating a terrible crime.

When Tony Martin came up for parole after his conviction for shooting two burglars, he was denied on the grounds that he admitted no remorse. The government argued, "We feel he is still a danger to burglars, and it is our duty to protect burglars even as they are committing their crimes."

_That_ is why the debate is different in Europe. People who would advocate armed self-defense against crime would be treated no differently than someone advocating racial violence.