interesting history lesson

I received this via email this morning…it is an interesting read and food for thought.

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interesting history lesson

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 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 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

Until next time…

Ask God to bless your food, but don’t expect him to make your bread.

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