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It is now closer to reality than you think
Dec 10, 2008

Focus:Civil Rights
Action Request:Think About
Location:Illinois, United States
It is now closer to reality than you think
 
 
   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 sidearm 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. Kinda 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.
Visibility: Everyone
Posted: Wednesday December 10, 2008, 10:59 am
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Jeff S.
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male , married, 2 children
Clifton, IL, USA
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