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This REALLY Happened !!!

Raptor

Council Member
Got this from a friend.........

Subj: It's ONLY a Shotgun

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.

TheFirearms Act of 1920expanded 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 side arms 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

Obama is doing this very same thing, over here, if he can get it done. Hillary has stated she would take away our 2nd Amendment rights.
And there are people in Congress that will go right along with them
 

Jen

Senator
That's the way Leftests want the world to be.
I hope Karma sees to it all the home burglaries are Leftist homes..............no guns there.
Only the owner will be hurt and, according to Lefties, homeowners are the bad guys anyway. The poor deprived robber will get away with all the stuff that should have belonged to him in the first place.

Good luck, Lefty.

 

trapdoor

Governor
Bring this up, and people will bring in irrelevancies. "Oh, that's another country, nothing like that would happen here."

But the same exact "common sense" approaches are being called for here -- licensing and registration, bans on certain types of firearms (even when those firearms are not contributing factors to the crime statistics), etc. I've said it many times in this forum, gun owners cannot afford to compromise an inch when the goal is a mile taken one inch at a time.
 

Arkady

President
Got this from a friend.........

Subj: It's ONLY a Shotgun

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.

TheFirearms Act of 1920expanded 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 side arms 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

Obama is doing this very same thing, over here, if he can get it done. Hillary has stated she would take away our 2nd Amendment rights.
And there are people in Congress that will go right along with them
A man with a history of criminal conduct involving firearms, which had resulted in his gun license being revoked, deliberately shot and killed a fleeing child. He then lied to police and said it was self defense. He got his chance to argue his case before a jury of his peers. They decided he was guilty of murder. I wasn't in the court room, so I'm reluctant to substitute my uninformed opinion for an opinion they formed after hearing all the evidence. Also, note, although the jurors thought him guilty of murder, a court later downgraded his offense to manslaughter and just five years of prison, with possibility of release after serving just 2/3 of that. Does that sound right to you for someone who deliberately killed a fleeing child with his illegal firearm?
 

Dawg

President
Supporting Member
A man with a history of criminal conduct involving firearms, which had resulted in his gun license being revoked, deliberately shot and killed a fleeing child. He then lied to police and said it was self defense. He got his chance to argue his case before a jury of his peers. They decided he was guilty of murder. I wasn't in the court room, so I'm reluctant to substitute my uninformed opinion for an opinion they formed after hearing all the evidence. Also, note, although the jurors thought him guilty of murder, a court later downgraded his offense to manslaughter and just five years of prison, with possibility of release after serving just 2/3 of that. Does that sound right to you for someone who deliberately killed a fleeing child with his illegal firearm?
Child
 

trapdoor

Governor
A man with a history of criminal conduct involving firearms, which had resulted in his gun license being revoked, deliberately shot and killed a fleeing child. He then lied to police and said it was self defense. He got his chance to argue his case before a jury of his peers. They decided he was guilty of murder. I wasn't in the court room, so I'm reluctant to substitute my uninformed opinion for an opinion they formed after hearing all the evidence. Also, note, although the jurors thought him guilty of murder, a court later downgraded his offense to manslaughter and just five years of prison, with possibility of release after serving just 2/3 of that. Does that sound right to you for someone who deliberately killed a fleeing child with his illegal firearm?
You miss the overall totality of "what happened." Not because you focus on the negatives of the shooter himself, but because you ignore what happened in England entirely on the subject of firearms.
 

Arkady

President
You miss the overall totality of "what happened." Not because you focus on the negatives of the shooter himself, but because you ignore what happened in England entirely on the subject of firearms.
I'm focused on the case that was highlighted, where a guy lost his gun license because of criminal conduct with a gun, then killed a fleeing child with an implausible claim of self defense, and ended up being found guilty by a jury of his peers, getting five years in jail. I realize the details of the actual case aren't the fuel for outrage that right-wing gun extremists crave, but they're what happened, and those facts were strategically elided to synthesize the fuel.
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
Got this from a friend.........

Subj: It's ONLY a Shotgun

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.

TheFirearms Act of 1920expanded 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 side arms 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

Obama is doing this very same thing, over here, if he can get it done. Hillary has stated she would take away our 2nd Amendment rights.
And there are people in Congress that will go right along with them
Just where did Hillary say she'd take away your rights? Do you have a link to prove she ever made that statement?
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
I'm focused on the case that was highlighted, where a guy lost his gun license because of criminal conduct with a gun, then killed a fleeing child with an implausible claim of self defense, and ended up being found guilty by a jury of his peers, getting five years in jail. I realize the details of the actual case aren't the fuel for outrage that right-wing gun extremists crave, but they're what happened, and those facts were strategically elided to synthesize the fuel.
I'd be the first one to point out that if the house were dark it could be near impossible to know the age of the intruder or if he was armed.
 

Arkady

President
I'd be the first one to point out that if the house were dark it could be near impossible to know the age of the intruder or if he was armed.
Keep in mind, this man got a trial in front of jurors, with all the protections that affords. I don't know the English system, but in a murder trial in America, that would mean plenty of opportunity for him to get prejudicial evidence excluded for his benefit, and nearly all the rules being deliberately tilted in his favor, including a requirement for a UNANIMOUS verdict, before he was found guilty. His lawyers would have had every opportunity to argue that the house were too dark for him to perceive the age of the intruder or whether the intruder was armed. So, if even after hearing all those arguments, every single one of those jurors came away convinced, BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, that he was guilty of murder, it suggests that they saw plenty of evidence to convince them this wasn't a legitimate case of self-defense -- such as the fact that he shot the child while he was trying to flee through a window. The jurors had the option of reducing the verdict to manslaughter, but instead found him guilty of murder (a judge later reduced it to manslaughter, on the basis of the killer suffering from paranoid personality disorder, reducing his responsibility).

I don't like to substitute my own judgment for that of people who did their civic duty and sat in a courtroom for days or weeks, hearing all the evidence, up close in personal, with an opportunity to weigh how credible people sound under real-time cross-examination, etc. If twelve people who dedicated dozens of hours of their lives to understanding the case all say the guy committed murder, and that they think it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, it seems presumptuous for me to say he didn't, based on nothing but the five minutes I spent reading a write-up about the case.
 

trapdoor

Governor
I'm focused on the case that was highlighted, where a guy lost his gun license because of criminal conduct with a gun, then killed a fleeing child with an implausible claim of self defense, and ended up being found guilty by a jury of his peers, getting five years in jail. I realize the details of the actual case aren't the fuel for outrage that right-wing gun extremists crave, but they're what happened, and those facts were strategically elided to synthesize the fuel.
In so doing you are committing two fallacies: One is ignoring the concerns of the gun owners in this country that the incremental form of gun abolition that took place in the United Kingdom will happen here; the other is the pathetic and legalistic re-labeling of a 16-year-old criminal as a "fleeing child."

The outcome for the shooter would have been the same in England if the gun had been properly licensed. This man had experienced multiple break-ins, losses amounting to thousands of dollars, and threats to his life -- and for highly technical reasons he was expected not to defend himself.
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
Keep in mind, this man got a trial in front of jurors, with all the protections that affords. I don't know the English system, but in a murder trial in America, that would mean plenty of opportunity for him to get prejudicial evidence excluded for his benefit, and nearly all the rules being deliberately tilted in his favor, including a requirement for a UNANIMOUS verdict, before he was found guilty. His lawyers would have had every opportunity to argue that the house were too dark for him to perceive the age of the intruder or whether the intruder was armed. So, if even after hearing all those arguments, every single one of those jurors came away convinced, BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, that he was guilty of murder, it suggests that they saw plenty of evidence to convince them this wasn't a legitimate case of self-defense -- such as the fact that he shot the child while he was trying to flee through a window. The jurors had the option of reducing the verdict to manslaughter, but instead found him guilty of murder (a judge later reduced it to manslaughter, on the basis of the killer suffering from paranoid personality disorder, reducing his responsibility).

I don't like to substitute my own judgment for that of people who did their civic duty and sat in a courtroom for days or weeks, hearing all the evidence, up close in personal, with an opportunity to weigh how credible people sound under real-time cross-examination, etc. If twelve people who dedicated dozens of hours of their lives to understanding the case all say the guy committed murder, and that they think it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, it seems presumptuous for me to say he didn't, based on nothing but the five minutes I spent reading a write-up about the case.
I'm not sure it was a jury trial. Even that detail wasn't in the story. It could well have been a trial before a panel of judges. Like you, I don't know much of the British judiciary.
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
In so doing you are committing two fallacies: One is ignoring the concerns of the gun owners in this country that the incremental form of gun abolition that took place in the United Kingdom will happen here; the other is the pathetic and legalistic re-labeling of a 16-year-old criminal as a "fleeing child."

The outcome for the shooter would have been the same in England if the gun had been properly licensed. This man had experienced multiple break-ins, losses amounting to thousands of dollars, and threats to his life -- and for highly technical reasons he was expected not to defend himself.
Do you think that shooting someone who is running away from you is a case of self defense?
 
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