Let me apologize in advance for wasting your bandwidth if this subject does
not interest you. Please delete now so you are not offended.
I do feel strongly about the subject of gun control, and this is something I
have not come to lightly. I still think no one needs to own a functional
machine gun, and teflon bullets, but I also very strongly believe that there
are people in America that will continue to whittle away my rights to
freedom as an American in the name of "crime prevention" until the only ones
with rights are those that take them by force...eg. the criminals.
Regards,
Robert Houston
You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom
door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled
whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving
your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick
up
your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door
and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds a
weapon--
it looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike,
you
raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One
writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and
lurches
outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few
that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them
useless. Yours was never registered.
Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest
you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you
talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will
probably
plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you
ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if
that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."
The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.
Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two
men you shot are represented as choir boys. Their friends and relatives
can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the
article,
authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been
arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable
Rogue Son Didn't
Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career
criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters.
As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it
up, then the international media.
The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the
thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win.
The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized
several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police
for
their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last
break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The
District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the
burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as
your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand,
your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors
paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.
It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.
On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed
one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and
is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once-great
British Empire?
It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law
forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun
sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act
of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all
firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the
carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of
all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the
Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally
disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting
everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.
The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun
control",
demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned
handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)
Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a
semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public
school.
For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally
unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with
which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week,
the
media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all
handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the
few sidearms still owned by private citizens.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took
away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed
self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to
grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that
self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who
shot burglars or
robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were
released. Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted
as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands." All
of
Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and
several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs
who
had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques,
had
seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were
given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good
British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were
visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they
didn't comply.
Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from
private
citizens.
How did the authorities know who had handguns?
The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like cars.
Sound familiar?
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