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 (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 sidearm 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
