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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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"What kind of
sentence will I get?" you ask. |
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"Only ten-to-twelve
years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave
yourself, and you'll be out in seven." |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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The judge sentences
you to life in prison. |
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This Really Happened |
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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. |
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How did it become a
crime to defend one's own life in the once-great
British Empire? |
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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. |
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Later laws passed
in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon
by private citizens and mandated the registration of
all shotguns. |
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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. |
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The British public,
already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun
control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The
seizure of all privately owned handguns was
one of the objectives
even though Ryan used a rifle.) |
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Nine years later,
at Dunblane,
Scotland, Thomas
Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16
children and a teacher at a public school. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Indeed, after the
Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as
saying, "We cannot have people take the law into
their own hands." |
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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. |
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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. |
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How did the
authorities know who had handguns? The
guns had been
registered and licensed. Kinda like cars. |
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