I happen to know someone who owns a shooting range who used to be in the Royal Marines, and moved here to find work in the subject he knows best for this very reason.
By the way I am an avid bow/gun hunter, and have been all my life.
--- Stuart Cawthon
---
rfmp@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: It' s your Internet.
> Subject: Take Note
>
> WHERE WE' RE HEADED
> 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 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 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, 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.
Just thought you shoul know (Long and Important)
