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.
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