GUN LESSON
FREEDOM VS. GUN CONTROL– For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know. 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 twopeople have broken into your house and are moving your way.
With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up yourshotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. Inthe darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishesit as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks boththugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to thefront door and lurches outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, youknow you're in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that areprivately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours wasnever registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar hasdied. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of aFirearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities willprobably 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. “Behaveyourself, 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 arerepresented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind wordto say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledgethat both “victims” have been arrested numerous times. But the next day'sheadline says it all: “Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die.” The thieves havebeen transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As thedays wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then theinternational 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 timesin the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack ofeffort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told yourneighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this toallege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, asyour lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger atthe injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of youas a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you ofall charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.
On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed oneburglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now servinga 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 lawforbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales wereto be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expandedlicensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.
Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon byprivate citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerfordmass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with aKalashnikov 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 ownedhandguns 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 uplaw-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up allpretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The DunblaneInquiry, 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 mostgun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defensecame to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses topeople who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered areason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists werecharged 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 elderlypeople were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear ofthe consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of hiscollection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given threemonths 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 andthreatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police laterbragged 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.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
— Benjamin Franklin
–from Capn Bill
