I"m Worried and another Good Example

[GameHauler]

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 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 Rya

 

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 sidearm 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

 

 

 

America it is time right now to wake up

[KGAINES]

Dear Mr. Gaines,

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing your concerns with me about H.R. 45, the Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

 

 

 

I agree with you that we need to ensure that responsible, law-abiding citizens retain their ability to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

 

 

 

If enacted, H.R. 45, the Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009, would prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless they hold the proper firearm license. The transfer of a firearm would not be allowed unless the recipient presents a valid firearms license and the dealer uses a tracking authorization number for record keeping purposes.

 

 

 

H.R. 45 was introduced on January 6, 2009 by Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, and is currently pending before the House Committee on the Judiciary.

 

 

 

Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should H.R. 45 come to the House floor for a vote.

 

 

 

Additionally, you may know that last year I joined 249 of my colleagues in the House and 55 Senators in sending an amicus brief to the Supreme Court reminding the Court of the importance of Second Amendment rights in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. In this case, several D.C. residents challenged the District's 1976 law banning handguns and requiring rifles and shotguns to be registered, stored unloaded, and either locked or disassembled. I believed the ban was unconstitutional, and I am pleased that the Supreme Court agreed, on June 26, 2008, when it issued its decision.

 

 

 

In addition, in the 110th Congress, I cosponsored H.R. 6691, the Second Amendment Enforcement Act. The bill aimed to restore the right of self-defense in the home and authorize residents of the District of Columbia to purchase guns.

 

 

 

H.R. 6691 was introduced by Representative Travis Childers of Mississippi on July 31, 2008 and referred to the House Committees on Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform. On September 17, 2008, H.R. 6691was incorporated into H.R. 6842, the National Capital Security and Safety Act, which was approved the House by a vote of 266 - 152. You will be pleased to know that I voted for the bill.

 

 

 

Again, thank you for taking the time to write to me about this issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if you have additional comments or concerns.

 

 

 

If you would like to receive email updates about how I am working on behalf of Arizona's 5th Congressional District, I invite you to sign up for my newsletter at http://www.mitchell.house.gov.

 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Harry E. Mitchell

Member of Congress

[KGAINES]

I have received several responses through the mail, most are better than this one in the support of the second amendment.

Why should the Supreme Court, Congress, or the President need to be reminded about the Second Amendment. It pisses me off that the SECOND FREAKING AMENDMENT needs to be fought for over and over, it was the second one, even if you got bored and only read a few of them I am sure that would have been one of the ones you read.