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Notes -
Semi-auto rifles (ie. the one thing you need to give authoritarian overreach the potential to cause pain to said authorities; the Right Arm of the Free World, if you will) are AIUI completely banned in useful calibres?
Again depends on locality, but in England I believe that's kind of accurate. You can have self-loading .22 rifles but nothing in a higher caliber. You can also have lever action rifles so you can cos-play as your favorite Wild West hero.
But given most people don't bother to apply for gun licenses, I wouldn't imagine being allowed AR-15's or whatever would make much of a difference in the populace's ability to fight the government. You would still only have a very small number of people.
Remember this is not the US, the culture is not the same.
I know, but neither is it the same in Canada, and lots and lots of people have various self-loading rifles -- they are super-fun, and there's a case to be made that a suppressed .223 semi-auto would be much more effective and humane for a lot of the hunting in the UK than what's currently in use. (much moreso than for Canadian use cases if I'm being honest -- also we aren't allowed suppressors)
Even if not many people actually own the things, their potential existence constrains governments -- the 'firearms threat' associated with the trucker protests turned out to be mostly non-existent, but you can bet your ass that the presence of a bunch of yucky blue-collars who happened to be unarmed this time hanging around the seat of government got some wheels turning on how far the population can be pushed.
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