Please note that these links do exist -- but
they're in the process of being shuffled around a little because of some
asshole making an issue of my web sites in court. If one doesn't work today
-- it will very soon. I'm guessing November 30, 2005!
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 something that 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 sidearm 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 valid 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?
WAKE UP AMERICA, THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND
AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.
"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."
