water cannon

[unreasonable]

On a state of nature:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

— Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes

Perhaps an accurate description of some London estates , which is why we agree to give up certain rights to do as we please in exchange for an acceptable level of security. Yes, even in the US of A. Just because "we, the people" are collectively sovereign, does not mean that each individual US citizen is sovereign.

Of course there is room for reasoned argument over which rights to give up, and how much security we get - and there is absolutely no reason to suggest that the balance should be the same in every society, or even for the towns, farming areas and wild wastes within a given country, depending on history, culture and the current level of gun-ownership.

I understand the annoyance of those yanks living in the wild(ish) west when metropolitan liberals nag them about gun control. If I lived in Arizona or some where similar I would own guns too. But equally, some of the pro-gun comment here, when directed at the way in which the UK (and many other countries) choose to well-regulate themselves, is completely unreasonable.