Why we have our 2nd Amendment right... Interesting story with a twist&

[criminalpoet 0]

Got this in an e-mail earlier and thought some here might enjoy reading it....

 

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 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. 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

 

If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you

know.*

[DogMan 2,343]

I got the same email and posted it here a few days ago. The case is a good reminder for us all. Personally, I don't care if he shot them in the back, front, top, or bottom. I just wish he had killed them both.