Posted on 04/30/2012 9:14:13 AM PDT by MindBender26
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 choirboys. 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. Kind of 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.." --Samuel Adams
What are we doing to tell the world the truth, "When guns are outlawed, then only the outlaws have guns"
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these the right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Defending one’s own life is a natural, God-given right.
It’s too bad the British were brainwashed to surrender this.
Communism requires its citizens to be unarmed. And if per chance you have a gun and defend yourself, you have committed a violent crime. Communism protect the criminal. We are damn near there.
The only reason private citizens can still own guns is the 2nd Amendment. The staunchest, and most effective, defender of the 2nd Amendment is the NRA. Private gun ownership of guns is the biggest impediment to the liberals goal of a totalitarian socialist state and they know it. Many of them have said publicly repeal of the 2nd Amendment is one of their highest goals. If Obama is reelected expect a renewed and furious attack on private guns and the 2nd Amendment. I am a Life Member of the NRA and a Florida CCW holder and donate money their legal fund. Gun owners have been having a few good years but liberals never give up and never go away. We could lose it all is we relax our vigilance any.
Florida already has self defense laws, including castle doctrine and stand your ground laws.
Prosecuiter Angela Corey has just nullified them.
Based on his record, I don't expect any better behavior from the presumptive GOP nominee.
Just wondering... does England have something like the 2nd Amendment codified into whatever their equivalent is of our constitution?
‘The “Aftermath Of Travon”: How The English Lost The Right To...’
How can you lose a right??
Unfortunately no.
The police where well aware of the mental instability of both ,Ryan and Hamilton, and chose to do nothing about the two lunatics. It was the excuse the idiots where looking for. The mass hysteria that followed was wiped up by a useful Idiot on Talk radio. The ownership of almost any Gun is still permitted, as long as it is converted to a carbine, licensed and kept locked away. [s]The strange thing is how gun and knife crime spiralled almost instantly after the ban, considering that concealed carry was already illegal in a public place.[/s]
When 'rights' are merely bestowed by man, they can be added to or removed at whim. The only rights that are inviolate are those given by God. IF there is no God, there are no inviolate rights.
Romney was not my pick, Newt was, but I don’t think he’s a communist bent on destruction of the country. I think Obama is. Romney has said he had to work with very liberal state legislature and sometimes compromised his beliefs to get things done. Even if that’s not entirely true I still believe he would have to be a better President than the Kenyan.
Better in what sense? That he will reverse the direction the current administration has taken on the 2nd Amendment, health care, larger and more invasive government, etc., or that he will merely slow down the progress towards a socialist society with its ruling elite?
Remember the next time you have to go the DMV; The DMV was started as a registry of automobiles and their owners. Now look what it has become.
It is the nature of government to grow; It is the responsibility of a citizen to keep that from happening.
If our 'press' had their way, this is how we'd be forced to live too. Thank God for the NRA and our wise founding fathers...
Samuel Adams was too kind and didn't utilize the term 'useful idiots'.
It is better to die on your feet. Than live on your knees. Simply put. It would mean war.
“merely slow down the progress towards a socialist society with its ruling elite?”
At this point that may be the best we can expect. Despite watching it fail and destroy millions of people in the 20th century the United States seems determined to become a socialist state. Unless we can prevent stupid people and parasites from voting, and I don’t think we can, the United States will become a socialist state and subsequently fail completely.
I wonder if this Travon person is related to that TraYvon kid?
Then let it fail now! If we are men, we should not make our children fight the war we are unwilling to fight when we had the chance.
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.