fwellers

My wife forwarded this to me.
It makes me want to go out and open carry !!



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 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




If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know. You had better wake up, because your new president is going to do this very same thing over here if he can get it done. And there are stupid people in congress and on the street that will go right along with him.

BlueNinjaGo

Interesting read. It's why I'm in America!

__________________
Bersa Thunder .380 cc
Springfield XD 9mm sc

Torrid

Damn, if that last line isn't true. I don't know how we found such idiots.

nhunterjr

The whole attitude of gun control protrayed in this article scares the daylights out of me. How did the British, in many ways so admirable get so fouled up?

palmpalm

That's why I intend to move to the USA!

logan

Wow, I never knew it was that bad there. I recently met somebody from England and he was telling me that knives were the main problem there for murders. I guess that's because there's not many guns left anymore. He thought it was pretty cool to be able to see and touch my guns. Now I know why.

__________________
Logan
NRA Member - FL, MN, NH and PA Carry Permits = 33 States
Glock 19 and Ruger LCP

"Guns are dangerous. The only thing more dangerous is not having one."
"You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive."

Alarnik

Really interesting article. Definitely shows how crazy control can get.

A couple of updates on it:
- Tony Martin was released in 2003 after his crime was downgraded to manslaughter due to his pleading insanity
- One of the major problems with his self-defense claim was that he shot Barras in the back as they were allegedly trying to flee
- His house had been burglarized several times previously, resulting in his loss of GBP 6,000 in goods, with no arrests made.

This was summarized from a BBC article Tony Martin. The Wikipedia article, though spotty on some things, has other links.

Not trying to show anybody up, but it's always good to have all the facts

tbrenke

Alaenik,
while I can see the argument about shooting in the back, the prior story said it was in the dark and he had just woke up. a stranger in your home is not there to wash your dishes. just watching the news can show you how bad it can get. if your trying to flee my home then please YELL that that is what you are doing because according to the news your there to rape all the females in my home and kill me. I will shoot to defend my home and in WA, the castle doctrine will allow me to do that.

God bless the USA.

__________________
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -1792, James Madison
There are always too many Democratic, Republican and never enough U.S. congressmen.

fwellers

This part really gets me.

But the controversy did not end there.

Fearon, who had more than 30 criminal convictions, is now trying to sue Martin for damages as a result of being shot.

He has asked for a reported £15,000 for loss of earnings, claiming he can no longer enjoy sex or bear to see shootings on television.

Fearon is himself currently in jail, after being convicted in February of this year on drugs charges and jailed for 18 months.

The case is likely to be heard once both Fearon and Martin have been freed.

Look at the bogus butthead !!

Alarnik

fwellers -

Amen. I don't disagree with you in the least; just wanted you to be aware of how his actions were being presented, in case you ever brought this subject up with a gun-controller.

Yeah, the guy looks like a real tard. I'm sure he'll end up in jail again, if he isn't there right now. It's amazing how many times someone can be convicted, imprisoned, and then released. I'm glad he dropped his case against Martin.