WHERE WE'RE HEADED
By Robert A. Waters
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 choir boys. 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. 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
