Please Read-Long Post But worthwhile

Bttbbob

New member
This could happen, read all of this before passing it on
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 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.
Kind of 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
 
There's a lot more to this story. For one, Mr. Martin did not report the shooting. Second, he only served 3 years.

Yes, he used a pump shotgun. And he shot them as they fled. That won't fly in the U.S. either. And then there was that little thing about shooting at a passing car that led to him losing his gun permit 6 years earlier.

"Barras was shot in the back and died at the scene, while Fearon was shot in the leg and recovered after treatment in hospital."

"Martin had been burgled so many times that he had set up an elaborate network of look-out ladders and traps, even removing a stair to hinder intruders."

"But it emerged the pair had been shot as they tried to flee through a window."

"Jurors also heard that Martin had a history of gun-related misbehaviour, including firing upon a car six years before - an incident which led to his shotgun certificate being revoked."

"He began an appeal immediately. In court he argued he had suffered from a paranoid personality disorder which diminished his responsibility. His barrister told the court Martin had suffered sexual abuse as a child and "considered himself a boy of about ten"."

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Norfolk | Tony Martin: Crime and controversy From the EDP24 site:

"October 30, 2001
Tony Martin's conviction is reduced to manslaughter. His setenced was reduced to five years — meaning he will be eligible for parole in a year.

Freedom
Tony Martin was released from custody on July 28, 2003. A Prison Service spokesman said he was released from an undisclosed location, adding: “He is now a free man.”
Martin served two-thirds of a five-year jail term for shooting dead teenage burglar Fred Barras and wounding his accomplice Brendan Fearon during a raid at his isolated farmhouse at Emneth Hungate, near Wisbech in August 1999."
 
Treo, as much as the OP makes a compelling case for the realities of what gun control, which i believe is a very real concern in our country today, will do to society, your added information puts a completely different light on the particular incident. Thank you for posting.
 
Agree that all the facts shed much needed light on the story, however, I'd still rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6... Secondly, what guns are you talking about, I don't have any guns!
 
Before I read anything I always look at the citations, to be able to judge the credibility of the source.

There were no citations above, however.

So for all I know this could just be a faerie tale.

If you live in a rathole like NYC where you are prevented from having firearms in your home, best thing is to move. Plain and simple.

Kitty Genovese learned all about that in NYC the hard way, when none of her neighbors felt safe enough to help her, since none of her neighbors was allowed to be armed.

citation: Murder of Kitty Genovese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Agree that all the facts shed much needed light on the story, however, I'd still rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6... Secondly, what guns are you talking about, I don't have any guns!

There are no "facts" its just a story. Facts need citations.
 
What Treo said - he did a lot of stuff that would get him in trouble anywhere. The "what if" story in the OP was a long way from accurate. The perps weren't entering his bedroom with weapons raised, etc., etc.

I certainly support his right to defend himself and his home, and I'm quick to decry the UK's gun laws, but Mr. Martin screwed up.
 
Yep... Martin screwed up... but that doesn't change the underlying message in the story. Liberal politicians slowly and deliberately whittled away at the gun rights of the citizens of England. It took YEARS and YEARS but the government won!

As of 2007, there were approximately 270,000,000 (270 million) guns in the hands of private citizens in America (gunpolicy.org: Karp, Aaron.2007.‘Completing the Count: Civilian firearms.’ Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,27 August. (Q4).

270,000,000 guns equals nearly one gun per every citizen in the country. 1 out of every 4 civilians in the U.S. owns guns. The average gun owner owns 4 guns. I believe a civil war would erupt if our government attempted to confiscate our firearms. Civilians own more guns than the military and police combined... and a great number of the military and the police would stand on the side of the gun owner. But the government isn't going to try to confiscate our guns...

The government is just going to keep whittling away at our rights. Timeframes are not the issue... as evidenced in England. Only the goal of total disarmament matters. Unless our voice is heard - loud, clear, lucid, united - our rights will always be under constant attack. Our founding fathers saw and acknowledged this when they added the Second Amendment; however, the prevailing political winds are blowing us back to the european way of thinking. Just ask NATO...
 
Leaving aside those of you who have children or other family members living in other parts of your home, in my house it is only my wife and I. Any situation such as described in this thread will not happen in a confrontation started by me. I sleep with a locked bedroom door further sealed with a large door stopper. If there is a "bump in the night", I call 911, I activate my car alarm (cell and car keys by bed), retrieve my shotgun nearby and position myself in my bedroom in, what I consider, my best tactical position and wait. If the police arrive, the flashing of car lights and the horn should easily tell them what house they are looking for. Everything in my house is replaceable and insured---I am insured but not replaceable. The "bumps in the night" may be better at this "gun stuff" than me and may be better armed. For the sake of "stuff", I am not leaving the bedroom to confront them and protect "stuff". If they decide to and can defeat my locked bedroom door I will have two decisions to make after such an action---who do I call to repair the bedroom door jam, and who do I call to replace the carpet.
 
IOW you're worth more dead than alive?

Bottom line as far as I am concerned--everything in my house sans the wife and me is replaceable and does not change my life one iota, plus the valuable stuff is insured. Contrary to many of the Dirty Harrys, who cannot wait to trade volleys, and the "I worked hard for my stuff and nobody is going to take it from me" group I think a bit more about myself and my wife than they apparently do---"stuff" is not part of my home defense equation---imminent danger to our lives is--and for that I am prepared. Again though, all bets are off if children or others live in other parts of the house.
 

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