Why we have the 2nd Amendment

[thedrifter]

IT WILL SOON BE IN AMERICA!

By Robert A. Waters -

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 upthe 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 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. 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,
youtold 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 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-sen! sitized 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 tobeat 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. 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 fires in people's minds." --- Samuel Adams


Sempers,

Roger

[firstsgtmike]

Originally, I considered this an update to the above posted article.

However, the above article referred to a "life sentence" and this update calls it a Five Year sentence.




IN DEFENSE OF SELF-DEFENSE

British farmer Tony Martin is a political prisoner. He’s currently serving a five-year sentence for shooting a burglar, and now he’s been denied parole on the ground that he might be a danger to future burglars who break into his home:

Pushpinder Saini, for the parole board, argued that it had not acted irrationally and burglars were entitled to protection from violent homeowners and were not to be treated as “fair game”.

Actually, I think that shooting burglars — at least where, as in Martin’s case, a reasonable person would fear for his safety — is a good thing. In societies where people are encouraged to defend themselves, crime goes down. In societies where self-defense is discouraged, crime goes up. That has certainly been the experience in Britain. As Joyce Malcolm notes in her recent book Guns and Violence: The English Experience, (Harvard University Press, 2002), British crime rates fell steadily from the 14th century until the mid-20th century. Then British authorities began restricting people’s ability to defend themselves — previously regarded as a natural right — and confiscating guns. British crime rates have climbed steadily ever since, and are now, in many categories, higher than those in the United States.

So why is Martin a political prisoner? Because self-defense is a threat to the political notion that the state enjoys a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. If your goal is a populace that is dependent on the government, then keeping it dependent on the authorities for even the most basic of necessities, personal safety, is an important step toward that goal. And people like Tony Martin are a threat to that program. That’s why people who favor an overweening government, whether in other countries or this one, invariably oppose the right to self-defense. And it’s why people who favor freedom should be appalled at the Tony Martin case.

So why hasn’t Amnesty International weighed in?

[Yucca-Man]

Originally posted by firstsgtmike
Pushpinder Saini, for the parole board, argued that it had not acted irrationally and burglars were entitled to protection from violent homeowners and were not to be treated as “fair game”.

Too bad; they are obviously willing to view the homeowner as "fair game"

In societies where people are encouraged to defend themselves, crime goes down. In societies where self-defense is discouraged, crime goes up.

Britain now has one of the highest per-capita uses of video monitoring in the world. What good does that do the average citizen who is mugged or carjacked? If they survive the attack they will be able to see it on video if the case makes it to trial. Of course they may have permanent injuries from said attack but that's apparently not a concern of the government, which seems to be doing all it can to reduce the number of Bobbies on the streets.

So why hasn’t Amnesty International weighed in?

So-called 'simple' political reasons I'm sure...

[mrbsox]

"WE THE PEOPLE..."

... the Constitution starts out;

BIG and BOLD, because it's supposed to be about "THE PEOPLE". The common man, and woman, that are what make America what it is. Law abiding citizens, that reap the rewards of what they have sown, in a FREE Country.

".. the rights of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

Sounds pretty cut and dried to me. Since I travel a lot, I've reviewed most of the gun laws in various States. Anywhere from 'your an outof towner' if you DON'T carry, to you cannot even POSSES a firearm in public. One State does allow you to OWN a shotgun, but it MUST remain in your home... DISASSEMBLED.

I WILL defend myself, and my family.
"Better to be tried by twelve, than carried by six".

Now, a question or 2 for one of you 'legal eagles'.

If I am in your State, where I cannot LEGALLY carry a weapon, due to State law, does that mean that the State assumes responsibility for my well being, since I cannot defend myself or my family?

If the Constitution allows for 'keeping and bearing arms', can violating a STATE LAW, be a FELONY?


Just asking, and venting !!

Terry

[Devildogg4ever]

I'm glad that others have been noticing the same as I! I also have a feeling some of us are noticing alot more, too! People need to keep alert and let everyone know.

[leroy8541]

I hate to sound like a recruiter here, but there is a fairly huge group that is all for our 2nd amendment rights. The NRA. I have been a loyal member of this Association for several years now, the dues are 25 dollars a year, in my mind money well spent to help protect our constitutional rights. We cannot fight this battle one by one the "other side" doesn't. we have over six thousand members if we were all members of the NRA that would give fire arm owners in this country a BIG voice in Washington.

[Rover]

For those not aware of the background, may I suggest a visit to this link.

http://www.tonymartinsupportgroup.org

Rover

[Barrio_rat]

Originally posted by mrbsox
I WILL defend myself, and my family.
"Better to be tried by twelve, than carried by six".

Now, a question or 2 for one of you 'legal eagles'.

If I am in your State, where I cannot LEGALLY carry a weapon, due to State law, does that mean that the State assumes responsibility for my well being, since I cannot defend myself or my family?

If the Constitution allows for 'keeping and bearing arms', can violating a STATE LAW, be a FELONY?

Just asking, and venting !!

Terry

Some good questions there. It's a wonder why the NRA and/or other groups/individuals have not challenged some of these laws. I believe (from the readings I've done) that this is an area that could backfire on the gun owners. The Supreme Court has already stated that the states area able to impose "reasonable" control of firearms over their citizens. Some states have gotten carried away with this as well as a few cities. It's hard for me to understand how where I live now I am in law enforcement yet, in the state of California I'd be a criminal - based on the type and amount of weapons I own. So, if this were to go to the Supreme Court and IF the Supreme Court followed the Constitution of the United States, all states, counties and cities would have to change their laws or do away with some entirely. BUT, if the Supreme Court were to side with the states, many other states may go gun grabbing and we'd all be in a world of hurt. That's a gamble that many are not willing to risk. Until this issue does go before the Supreme Court, the Fed is unable to "impose" any laws or counter any current laws of the states, counties or cities.

Here in Oregon, we have contradicting laws. One of the biggest is on assault. On one hand, you have the right to defend yourself. On the other, as soon as you "harm" another person (eg they fall to the ground or worse) you have committed assault and could face up to 5 or 7 years in prison. I actually know a few who are in for just this!

In Multnoma County (Portland) it is illegal to posses or transport a firearm that is fully assembled - other than a legally concealed firearm. Yet the Oregon State Constitution provides that all citizens may legal carry an open weapon (sidearm or long gun). If you do this in any major city, you WILL be detained by police.

Most of these "anti-gun" laws only affect the law abiding and have little effect on crime or the criminal - other than crime goes up and the criminal is more free to commit crimes.