England's gotten *far* worse since enacting it's 1995 ban on handguns

Has it? Can you quote some figures to back that up?

I've seen a lot of varying statistics for UK gun deaths. The lowest figure quoted is around 50 while the highest is around 75 per year during 2000/2001. I believe the variance may come from whether air weapons are included. The vast majority of UK firearms offences relate to air weapons (whether they're strictly firearms is another question).

In the UK just about any gun related homicide makes national news.

Rob