Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 09/30/2005 12:16:07 PM PDT by David Hunter
A Conservative councillor who left two children alone in his home for three hours with access to a Bren gun and a musket narrowly escaped jail yesterday.
John Smith, 49, was told by a judge that his behaviour had been "deplorable and disgraceful". He was given an eight-week suspended prison sentence.
Sheffield Crown Court was told that police forced entry into his locked house and found two distraught boys aged eight and four.
Officers found the Bren gun with a loaded clip at the top of the stairs, a rifle in a bedroom, exposed wires on a light switch and electrical socket and a knife with a serrated edge easily accessible in the kitchen.
Judge Patrick Robertshaw told Smith: "The care and nurture of two defenceless infants had been entrusted to you and you discharged that trust with reckless, selfish, gross irresponsibility."
Chris Tonge, prosecuting, said that Smith, a councillor for three years on Labour-run Barnsley metropolitan borough council, left the boys locked in his untidy home at Barugh Green, Barnsley, while he met tradesmen.
Smith admitted two offences of child cruelty. Neither gun was capable of being fired, he said, but he regretted the incident.
Doesn't the idiot journalist understand that a working Bren gun, (a fully automatic WWII light machine gun), has been strictly prohibited for private ownership in the UK since 1936?
Oh my god, that deactivated Bren gun is loaded with a clip full of inert rounds! LOL
Mmmmmmm.....Bren gun.....lovely piece of work those...makes my heart go pitter-patter. That and the Lewis MkI....
It was leaving the children unattended that was the crime, not that they were left alone with inoperable weapons!
The Brits consider an eight year old an "infant"? What are they trying to raise, a generation of wussies? A decent eight year old should certainly be competent to be left alone for 1-3 hours and maybe even to babysit, depending on personality. As far as exposed electrical wiring, it chlorinates the gene pool. ;-) Seriously, I learned as a four year old not to touch exposed electrical wiring, and have not done so since. As long as it's not a fire hazard, they're probably making too big a deal of it. Oh, yeah, I forgot, they use 220 over there for receptacles and lighting. That stuff will kick your a$$.
Yes, its a good sturdy old gun. I bet those coppers crapped themselves when they found it!
Good thing no inert or deactivated children were hurt by them.
Bren guns don't have "clips". They have "magazines". Garand M1s used clips.
I suppose it depends on the child, but certainly at that age I was often left alone at home for longer than that. The whole article reaks of anti-gun hysteria.
It sounds like the Police freaked out when they found the deactivated weapons. No surprise there considering that they're British. They probably called the armed response team out and a ballistics expert to make sure that the guns weren't dangerous, since most British coppers don't know an M9 Beretta from a 9mm Uzi!
Oh, yeah, I forgot, they use 220 over there for receptacles and lighting. That stuff will kick your a$$.
Actually, its 240-250 volts over here.
Yep, they want a bunch of Metros...that will say how high, when nanny says JUMP
that's right, in the UK apparently you're an infant until you are 16, at which point you're an adult.
ping
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
I know mate, but in Britain people tend to use "clip" and "magazine" interchangeably. That is probably due to incorrect usage in films and the fact that few people here shoot and so don't know how a clip differs from a magazine.
A knife with a serated edge....oh no...a bagel knife
and with children in the house no less...
Yhe article does not say but why did they break into the home? Sounds like someone snitched.
"The Brits consider an eight year old an "infant"? What are they trying to raise, a generation of wussies?"
They already have. Sad, but true, and if we don't wtch it, we will also.
It doesn't say if he was their father or a relative of theirs. Maybe his ex-wife or the children's parents went to his home to collect them, saw them through the window and called the Police rather than waiting for him to come home.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.