“WHERE ARE WE HEADED, CONCERNING GUN CONTROL?”
By Dr. Hoyt W. Allen, Jr.
There has been a great deal of talk about “Gun Control” recently. I would contend that all upright citizens of the U.S.A. want the government to have control of the outlaws in all ways - not just to keep guns out of their hands. But the “sorry part” of the subject it seems “we throw the baby out with the bath water” on too many occasions. Note - I received the following article as an E-Mail by supposedly a Robert A. Waters. If you are a conservative minded person you may find it worth reading.
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 a weapon-it 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 choir boys. 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.
(Continued)
2
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 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 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, like on registers and auto. Sound familiar?
Samuel Adams once said, "..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." May we “WAKE UP AMERICA”. Could this be why our founding fathers put the SECOND AMENDMENT in our Constitution?
Our nation is in a sad condition when we seemingly do not know how to deal with outlaws. No one wants injustice, but all should desire justice, such as restoring “Capital Punishment”. When a law-abiding citizen can not protect that which is rightfully his or hers, which they have worked for - it is time to “rise up and be heard”. We need Legislatures who have some knowledge of God’s Book and enough common sense to stand up for the law-abiding citizen and punish the offender.
KYOWVA Evangelistic Association * 1541 S. 7th Street *
Ironton, OH 45638
Phone:740/532-8020 * Web Page:kyowva.com
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