"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 to a life
term.. with a recommended minimum term to serve of 9
years, reduced to 8 years by the Lord Chief Justice.
Martin was imprisoned in Highpoint Prison,
Suffolk. When he became eligible for parole and
early release in January 2003, the Parole Board
rejected his application without stating a
reason. The chairman of the parole board, Sir
David Hatch, in an interview with The Times described
Martin as “a very dangerous man” who may still believe
his action had been right. Martin
challenged the decision in the High Court, where the
parole board’s decision was upheld.
Probation officers on Martin’s cases said there
was an “unacceptable risk” that Martin might again
react with excessive force if other would-be burglars
intruded on his Norfolk farm. 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 refuse 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
You had better wake up,
because Obama is doing 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."