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- You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your
bedroom door.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds
a weapon--it looks like a crowbar.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar
has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession
of a Firearm.
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- 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."
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- 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 choir boys. 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.
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- As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national
media picks it up, then the international media.
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- 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.
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- A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't
been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted.
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- 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.
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- It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all
charges.
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- The judge sentences you to life in prison.
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- This case really happened.
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- 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.
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- How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in
the once-great British Empire?
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.)
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- Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton
used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public
school.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000
handguns from private citizens. How did the authorities know who had handguns?
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- The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like
cars.
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- Sound familiar? _____
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- Robert Waters is the author of: "The Best Defense:
True Stories of Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves with a Firearm"
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