Our Future??

[Don Buckbee]

Subject: The Future??

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 s entences 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 (AK-47),
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

[wookie810]

Absolutely awful. I just thank God I don't live in England. I certainly hope that this won't become our future. So would they have still given him life if he had rushed out there with a baseball bat and clubbed him to death?

[FJF0311]

And yet on this very board, are people trying to get others to drop their NRA memberships! I have read many newspaper letters to the editors from both England, and Australia, about how they wished they had a organization as strong as the NRA. They credit their defeat due to their fragmentation. Why, oh why, do we want to emulate them?