98d2ff28   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.gossip.celebrities, rec.arts.tv   
   XPost: alt.connecticut   
   From: heaven@dead.net   
      
   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   
   Hungerfordmass 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.   
      
   Kind of 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.   
      
   You had better wake up, because Obama is doing this very same thing,   
   over here, if he can get it done.   
      
   The UN Small Arms Treaty that Hilary is negotiating would take away   
   our   
   2nd Amendment rights.   
      
   And there are stupid people in congress and on the street that will go   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)