A Law Built On A Lie

Xavier Thoughts: Gun Bans in the UK provides a video article which demonstrates the outrage felt by many British Citizens over the confiscation of otherwise-legal firearms. (I won't link directly to the video. Xavier found it, and posted it first. He deserves the traffic. Please go view the video, then come back here for comments.)

This confiscation was intended to make British Citizens safer, they said. The theory was "Less Guns, Less Crime" although I am unable to determine the amount of threat to public peace has been reduced by, for example, making it impossible for Olympic .22 Pistol Shooters to practice for an international sport in their own country.

The result has been that honest citizens have been disarmed, even in the supposed sanctity of their own homes. And the consequences of that is, honest citizens can't fight back when attacked by armed hoodlums.

Extending the illogic to the ultimate absurdity, Brits are seeing that they cannot defend themselves with a shotgun, with a kitchen knife, with a sword, with a club ... even by beating the home invader senseless with bare fists when said home invader is found naked and chasing your screaming nubile daughter around her bedroom in the middle of the night while he is armed with a large knife and a hard-on.

To illustrate the illegality of defending your home with a shotgun:
I have written before about Tony Martin, a British Subject and victim of the unjust laws which deprive Britains of the right to defend themselves and their homes.

Martin, a farmer, had been burglarized several times and was not able to call on timely and effective support from the police. In frustration, he sat up of nights with a (legal) shotgun to guard his home. When another (or the same?) set of burglars broke in, he opened fire, killing one and wounding another (armed) career burglar. (Between the two of them the burglar had more than 50 burglaries to their 'credit', although one of the pair was only 16 years old.)

Martin was charged and convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison. This was later reduced to a charge of Manslaughter. Martin has served his reduced (3 years of a 5 year sentence) term and has been released.

However, he remains an iconic symbol of the injustice served upon victims of crime in England.

In the video, Martin is very much a dominant subject; he is known to have been unrepentant, cleaving 'in his bitterness' to the conceit that he was right in defending his home and his person with deadly force.

In America, the "Castle Defense" laws proliferate; in England, the same laws which sentenced this beleaguered man to Life in Prison remain unchanged, and honest citizens continue to be charged and imprisoned for defending their home and their person.

In the video, Brits march in silent protest against the willful efforts of their government to deprive them of their right to self-defense, and the incompetence of police to defend them from armed predators.

When you watch the video, you will see that the protesters are saying all of the things which we on this side of the Atlantic Ocean have been saying for years. Essentially, they realize that they have been lied to by the politicians and, by not standing up for their rights at the very first moment of infringements, they found themselves on the slippery slope which Americans are attempting to avoid today.

And they make their "Mea Maxima Culpa" statement loud and clear.

Their message to America is unequivocal in the sound-bites:

"Our Freedom Isn't Safe."

"Everything is going ... our traditions ... and this is what we're fighting for".

(Narrator: "... [T]hey only have themselves to blame for government policies which threaten their way of life, their security, and the future of democracy in Britain.")

"We've been very apathetic for years, and now it's time to fight for it."

"It's a disgrace, and we've seen these fundamental liberties eroding in the last twenty-odd years in England ... all sorts of legislation which should never have appeared. "

(Narrator: "Sportsmen and shooters, fooled by Politicians ... now realizing, perhaps too little and too late, that their traditions are no more secure than their freedoms.")

"...[T]his about the liberty of the individual to choose for him or herself what they do."

(Narrator: "A future that's in doubt, and the largest peaceful protest in British history to try to choose that has got many asking, 'where were these voices six years ago when there was an outright ban on handguns? When pistol shooters were forced to surrender their handguns, confiscated by their government to be destroyed. ... Gun bans that, as was predicted, have simply backfired.")

"We need to be armed, you know we're not safe any more, everything is changing."

"The authorities have no way of controlling criminals, so they control the honest citizen, because we're an easy target."

[Anonymous Policeman: "It's totally out of control. ... For the first time ever, Bobbies are carrying firearms; but they're still out-gunned by criminals, who can get anything they want. ... Why are British Subjects not be be trusted?"]

And finally, the words we dreaded to hear:

"America: It Can Happen To You."

The question is, are we likely to heed this cautionary tale and avoid the fate of the Brits, or will we also put our trust in perfidious politicians with an agenda?

UPDATE: 01-May-2008
Re-reading this article today "as published", I discovered that a section was inadvertently deleted during 2nd-draft editing. I apologize for the unprofessional and choppy result. I've filled in the blanks a bit, hopefully it's a bit more readable now. I usually read the published version so I can catch this kind of error, but I failed to do so last night. I had a lot more to say about other subjects, which is less a justification than a thin excuse. Yes, it will probably happen again.

I've also made minor additions to the context, and cosmetic changes in the Quotes to improve readability.

Brits lose another 'subject'

The Hobo Brasser sent me another one of those "Second Amendment Lists" today. I read it, nodded, thought briefly about blogging it and then thought again. Everybody who reads this blog has probably already read a copy by the time I get it, so why bother?

Then I read the article in the Times Online which suddenly put a whole new face on it.

First, here's the List:

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Gun Lock: The original point and 'click' interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6 If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free Men Do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights reserved.

11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and liberals.

15. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive

17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the "Gun Control Laws" we have; don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

26. ".. A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

Sounds familiar, right? Pretty much a no-brainer for you and me. Cleverly worded, but the message is one we've been hearing and voicing for years.

The link at the top (right-click on the article title) points to the article describing how an East Londoner was rewarded for his refusal to let the Goblins in his neighborhood intimidate him.

Last January he was assaulted by "a gang of youths" (we call them 'Goblins'; in London they call them "Yobs" and feel they are fueled by alcohol and lack of curfews!), who slashed his face and his neck with knives.

He called the police, gave them names and descriptions, and carefully bagged his blood-soaked clothes to the cops would have physical evidence.

The police did ... nothing.

His fiance' called the police EVERY DAY for five weeks after the assault, with the result that the police ignored them, failing even to come pick up the clothes.

This week, the Goblins came calling again. This time they had a gun. They shot him dead on his doorstep, in front of his fiance' and their three-year-old son.

The media finally got into the act, and raised enough of a ruckus that ... the police showed up. They picked up the bag of bloody clothes, which had been sitting in the victim's cupboard for SEVEN MONTHS. Then they went away again.

As of four days ago, the word was that the police were investigating.

The police are investigating their own handling of the original assault.

The fiance's father said:

"I think Peter would still be alive now if the police had acted earlier. We were told the police were overstretched. I said to them ‘Where in the pecking order is attempted murder?’ As far as I am concerned attempted murder is quite a serious thing."

I agree. I bet you agree, too.

Let me see; the Brits made private ownership of guns illegal, to 'combat crime'. Crime still occurred, so they outlawed knives, too.

In response, the Goblins attack this poor man with Knives. When it became clear that the victim wasn't going to yield to their intimidation, and understanding that the police weren't going to arrest them for using one illegal weapon, they used another illegal weapon to murder him.

Chances are they'll skate on the murder charge, too.

You're thinking I'm being too harsh on the police. You may change your mind when you read this paragraph in the article:

It was revealed today that a 14-year-old arrested over Mr Woodhams’ murder this week had also been held in connection with the earlier stabbing.

Still think I'm being too harsh? These police are 7,000 miles away from me, and at that distance I'm not capable of physically pointing a shaking finger in their faces and screaming "J'Accuse!" with spittle flying all over their neat bobby uniforms. Still those yo-yo's in blue are as responsible for that poor man's death as the "14-year old" child ... who the police had ALREADY pegged for another knife assault.

Why wasn't the victim allowed to arm himself, since he was an obvious target? You tell me.

I know what the stinking British Government says about their Unilateral Personal Disarmament.

But I keep thinking about the sad case of British farmer Tony Martin who killed a burglar and spent several years in prison over it. (During his trial, Martin asked what else should he have done when he was invaded in the dark of night by two criminals ... for the second time. The State said he should have "shouted for help". Martin at the time lived on an isolated 350 acre property, nobody could possibly have heard him. The police couldn't possibly have arrived in time to protect him if he had called them, and if they 'chose' to respond. The dead burglar's accomplice was arrested and spent 18 months in jail while Martin was sentenced to life in prison. The government gave the accomplice, who had 34 other offences on his record, 5,000 pounds to finance his civil lawsuit against Martin. Martin was finally released a couple of years ago, but he couldn't go home. He lives in hiding, with the full expectation that his life will be taken by other criminals as soon as they learn where he is. The police have no other way to protect him except to keep him in an 'unofficial prison' for the rest of his life ... which means until the police allow their own security to be breached. How hard can that be?)

The Brits have a shameful history of covering up their own ineptitude when investigating the murder of their subjects (not 'citizens' .... 'subjects' ... see Rule 1, above.) Two years ago, a white 15-year-old Glascow subject, Kriss Donald, was murdered by an Asian Gang. The police chose not to investigate it because it wouldn't be politically correct.

I cite these few cases ... there are literally thousands of them available ... to demonstrate the Hell On Earth that life has become for an honest man in a nation (a former EMPIRE!) gone mad with misguided social engineering.

Going back to the list, the rules hi-lited in red are only those which most directly apply to the East London victim's situation. In truth, all of them apply.

When we ignore these truths, as simple and trite as they seem, we leave ourselves as vulnerable as those poor British Subjects who are forced by their Socialist, Totalitarian government, under threat of lifetime incarceration, to trust their personal safety to the care of an uncaring, incompetent, intrenched bureaucracy.

There's one more thing I have to say, and then I'll go outside and kick the neighbor's cat:

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.

Heston, "Winning The Cultural War"

Harvard Law School
Forum February 16, 1999

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. 'My Daddy,' he said, 'pretends to be people.' There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty … your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, 'We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.'

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from 'ridiculous' and 'duped' to a 'brain-injured, senile, crazy old man'. I know ... I'm pretty old ... but I sure thank the Lord ain't senile.

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 -– long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, 'Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!'

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys-subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, 'The End of Sanity,' Martin Gross writes that 'blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something, without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it.'

Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDS -- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not ... need not ... tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team 'The Tribe' because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know ... that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said 'Negroes.' Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said 'black.' But it's a no-no now.

For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly 'Native-American.' I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation Native American ... with a capital letter on 'American.'

Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word 'niggardly' while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, 'niggardly' means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.

As columnist Tony Snow wrote: 'David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly,' (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance.'

What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.

You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your
counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge.

And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are-by your grandfathers' standards-cowards. Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.

I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, 'Don't shoot me.'

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?

The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that Disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous law that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of
the police dogs at Montgomery and the water Cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not Complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.

A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called 'Cop Killer' celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so-at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend.

What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of 'Cop Killer'-every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.

I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF I'm ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF I'm ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF...

It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces Of Al and Tipper Gore. SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ....'

Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said 'We can't print that.' 'I know,' I replied, 'but Time/Warner ís selling it.'

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk.

When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you ... petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

Thank you.