Posted on 03/27/2002 10:31:00 AM PST by Paul_E_Ester
LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of worried Britons are sharing their beds with a gun and nearly half of them are prepared to kill with it, according to a survey.
"Guns feature alongside baseball bats and hammers among the arsenal kept by almost one in 10 worried householders," security firm Micromark said on Tuesday, citing a telephone survey of 1,000 people.
The company said eight percent of those sleeping next to a weapon had a gun, equating to about 100,000 homes.
But a Home Office spokeswoman said barring special licenses for certain handguns and shotguns, there were only 125,000 licensed firearms altogether in England and Wales.
Crime has become a hot topic in Britain, with street crime up 40 percent in January alone and controversy mounting over a government plan for the early release of non-violent prisoners.
Women were the keenest to resort to firearms, while 44 percent of people opting to sleep with a weapon chose a blunt instrument such as a baseball bat.
"Ten percent of the women who keep a weapon choose a gun, compared to six percent of men," a Micromark spokesman told Reuters, adding that the number of people sleeping with guns was rising.
"Sixty percent of respondents believe people have the right to take the law into their own hands...and nearly half would be prepared to kill in order to protect their family," the firm said.
"These are worrying signals of a public which perceives domestic crime as spiralling out of control," said Martin Burrekoven-Kalvea of the National Neighbourhood Watch Association.
British law does not support the view that an Englishman's home is his castle. Norfolk farmer Tony Martin is serving five years in jail for shooting dead a teenage burglar in his home.
He is just one of many who have taken up arms to protect their homes, according to the poll, which found that gun ownership was 10 times higher in the country than in the city.
Wow, so half would let harm come to their families in order not to risk killing a criminal
Wow, so half would let harm come to their families in order not to risk killing a criminal
I wonder how high the percentage would have been if they had asked people if they have the right to defend themselves?
Amazing! You mean to say there are only 125,000 politically/royally connected people in Britain? The serfs, of course, deserve to die.
Hmm... does that mean that half of Britain is conservative? Also, it looks like the scumbags have an easy job now. 50/50 chance of picking an easy target. Of course, that is down from 100/0 when the government took away the guns.
Now obviously the customer, your wife, is a reluctant purchaser of this product but here are a few points to hammer home that may persuade her.
HOUSEWORK
Housework in a home that has 5 wives can be divided up 5 ways. This cuts the amount of housework she has to do to less than 2 hrs a week!
SEXUAL DUTIES
She has total access to you for sexual purposes whenever she wants it.
Sex when she is not feeling like it can be divided amongst the other 4 women and she now has NO sex when she doesn't feel like. No more making excuses.
Food shopping can be much quicker because now 5 women can go through the aisles getting the shopping list completed in 1/5 the time previously needed.
BATHROOM RUNS
She will always have someone to go to the bathroom with her as women love to do this in groups.
BATHING AND DRESSING KIDS
Again these duties require almost no work as the duties can be divided amongst the extra women and the existing parents.
SOCCER RUNS
Taking the kids to their extracurricular activities can be a full time job for a two parent household and is the most common cause of "Where the hell did the years go" syndrome that crops up around HS graduation time.
TOILET SEATS LEFT DOWN
This is a big selling point for most wives. You can point out that with 4 extra women in the house she has what he military refers to as a "force multiplier". Now the number of trips to the toilet where the seat is left up has been decreased by an huge amount.
I hope this helps sell the product to your wife. It wasn't successful in my house because my wife would only agree to it if the other women had jobs and didn't want to have sexual relations with me. That is an even tougher sell to the prospective extra wives and made the search for the extra wives very difficult as they would not agree to the lack of sexual relations part.
<\sarcasm>
Shooting warning shots at burglars or trespassers is not against the law: here are a couple of nespaper quotes about burglars in the same area by some of Martin's friends/neighbours:
'Living in this area you are at the mercy of the travellers and local villains. I saw three strangers coming across my field late at night. I fired a number of warning shots over their heads and they ran away.'
Another man who shot at burglars caught stealing a safe from his property just three miles from Martin's house said he would appear only if his evidence was heard in camera after he too received threats.
If Martin had shot the burglar in what the law considered to be 'self-defence' ie directly threatened, then he would not have been charged.
My sympathy remains with Tony Martin: how can you tell the intentions of strangers who break into your house in the early hours of the morning?
LOL it's very easy to get hold of a gun in the UK, if you know the 'right' people.
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