Self defense in the United Kingdom

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.

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 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.

If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know.

You had better wake up, because the government is doing this very same

thing, over here, if he can get it done .

And there are stupid people in congress and on the street

that will go right along with it

Anonymous

As Panama Burns

From the book

The Life, Times & Adventures of

Sir George Henry Nichols

or

The legend of Captain Outrageous

As we were trying to regroup before the city, someone shouted "Smoke!" and soon many of the buccaneers were shouting smoke.

"Those damn cowards!" Henry was growing red in the face, "don't let them cowardice dawgs burn it! There'll be nothing to loot!" he shouted as loud as he could. "Don't let them burn it!"

And so we advanced on the city quickly, they had the streets barricaded, many with cannons, but no one there to man them, the city was deserted. Morgan sent Major Searle and some men down to the water front to stop any ships from escaping, and we set out to deal with the fires.

By the time we got across town to where it was burning, several blocks were engulfed. Henry started to try and move water to the fire along a line of men. I took some men and started working the houses not yet caught, and moving as much of the goods into the streets as we could. But the place was burning furiously, and consuming one house after another. With the forest being so thick and the ground soft, most of the city was built of wood, and burned quickly. One effort was made, using powder from a local magazine, to blowup enough houses in a block before the line as to create a fire break, but the wind was blowing and the hot cinders rose high into the air, carried along by the draft, raining fire over the whole of the town, starting fires, were there were no fires. We worked hard trying to get as much into the streets as we could.

By dark, it was a spectacle, made me think of the eternal flames of hell, for the fire was all around, stretching high above my head, licking at the sky, as though the whole of the place was ablaze, and so it was. I could walk about it, inspect it, and touch it, if I dare. I watched it burn, I saw it consumed, I thought of London, and how it must have been.

It was a shame, what kind of people burn their own city? Henry hadn't burned cities, we hadn't burned cities. There was no reason to think he would now, without cause, without looting it. This I failed to understand, they burned it themselves, to burn it just so we can't take it? Is this not despair, a loss of hope, for as long as it remained whole, one can hope to recover it, but to burn it, is to give it over. How can a city like this lose all love of its women, its children, how can the fear of a king erase all hope? The ancient City of Panama, the city of gold, the anchor of New Spain, the city of myths and tales of yore, and here I stood within it, as it is consumed.

This put me into a bit of a daze, spellbound by the towering flames, sweat dripping from nose, my chin, pouring from me, as though I were a pitcher. I stood there, half naked, my clothes torn to tatters, my spirit down. I had come half way round the world for this. High adventure, wasn't it? Boys dream of high adventure, don't they? And here I was living it, in the bowels of the great empire Spain, with its dead, like a sacrifice, spread out at the city gate, and the flames of an empire stretching towards the sky, in the City of Gold, Panama.

I had a strange feeling about my being, my presents, as though I was one with the moment, with what had happened, as though the moment here would be somehow larger, a space in time that would forever be remembered. ©

What is Liberty?

Liberty? Someone tweeted what is liberty? If you read my blog, than you know I’ve said, girls = liberty. And that’s true. 

Liberty. What is liberty? Have we forgotten what liberty is? 

God is liberty. That simple. 

Don’t let anyone tell you this is not a Christian Nation, the philosophy of the Christian Tradition, which is rooted in the Jewish tradition, leads to liberty. Why? Because the truth works. 

There are three basic motivating factors, food, sleep and sex. Keep that in mind, very important. Now, consider all the wild animal shows you watch on big brother, and how vicious the wild world is. It’s tough to make a living, it just is. It’s kill or be killed. It run for you life, till you can’t run no more, then somebody eats you. That’s the way it is. The laws of evolution (?), it’s the way it works. Those animals are at liberty. Get it. 

Now, man is by nature a social creature, so he is going to be drawn together in groups. Groups, or on his own, has to provide for food sleep and sex. This isn’t easy in a wild world, with all the fussing and fighting and regardless, the stronger would prevail. That’s the laws of evolution (?), that’s the way they work. That’s liberty. 

Now God set us on a path contrary to the law of evolution and gave us a set of rules, which if obeyed, provides for food, sleep and sex. In other words, a man is at liberty to do as he chooses, because he will choose goodness, over himself. Not always an easy thing to do, but when practiced, leads to liberty and prosperity. Quite a different picture from the liberty of the wild kingdom. Either way you’re free, what’s it going to be? Consider these rules…..     

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shall have no other gods before me. 

By revealing himself to us as the one true God, we are by default empowered, which in turn brings peace of mind. Empowered because we understand that we answer to no one except God; therefore you cannot enslave me because I belong to the one true God, and I cannot serve his greater Glory if I am enslaved. Nor shall I be molested or led astray because God has shone me the way, and no other, regardless of rank can change that which God has put in place, thus God gives me rank over the wicked. If I can adhere to this teaching, I am granted purpose and meaning in my life, to seek and serve him who has created me and has revealed himself to me. And with these things in place, I can’t help but have peace of mind, for what else can matter? I am given authority to be alive, to protect myself and be my own person.   

You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth: you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation, but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

This one is tuff, and can be confusing if not approached properly. First of all it has nothing to do with figurines, statues, stain class windows or any of these things, and if you follow me, I’ll show you why. First let us take at look at these things, statues, figurines, paintings, stain glass. The ability to create such things is a great talent, with a compulsive desire to create. We can only assume this talent is a gift from God. So the question arises, why would God give to man a compulsive desire to create such things? Well, one reason the Church offers up is: this ability is a form of language, to communicate things that otherwise would not be communicated. Art is a language, no different than music, math and linguistics. While linguistics tends to be confined to a particular culture or peoples, art and music tend to be universal. Artwork was used extensively by the early Church to communicate the life of Christ to people whose language was different from those teaching. It was also used to tell the gospels stories among people who couldn’t read. This commandment played a big part in forming the way the Hebrews looked at and responded to the world around them. God didn’t say you couldn’t have a figurine, he said you (sin is personal) could not make it an idol, which is an abstract idea, thus introducing the Jews to the abstract, the beginning of creative and critical thinking. But in a larger sense, when the world became an overwhelming experience, because of rising water in a flood, a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, a tornado, a large meteor from the sky, what ever was to come along, the Jews could be sure it wasn’t God, it was part of God’s creation, but God was bigger and beyond whatever it was. (Geneses 1.1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth). With this idea in place, it can be concluded that all things belong to God, and therefore unfold according to God’s plan, a single plan, one God. Without the fear of false gods or idols to hinder you, or limit your thinking: this plan could be understood with a study of the truth, thus the birth of the modern idea of science. Plainly said, it simply forces us to think big! 

You shall not take the name of your Lord thy God in vain.

Just what does this mean, vain: 1. without real significance, value or importance. In other words, without knowing you said it, where there is no thought of God. When I was seven, my father bought me a BB gun and gave it to me with a few rules. One of these rules were “you can’t shoot song birds, if I catch you shooting song birds, it’s your ass.” Well I learned one bird from another because when my Dad said it’s your ass, I knew what he meant, and I knew he meant it! At the time I thought Dad liked songbirds, but I’m a grown man now and my Dad is dead. He didn’t give a damn about a song bird, I know that now, he wanted to make sure that I always knew what was in my sights before I pulled the trigger. In the same way God, by denying us the use of his name without cause, which he finds offensive, has demanded we be present to who we are, what we say and what we do. That we be actors in this life and not spectators. That we be true to thy own self.   

Now lets develop this Idea a little, this means you are created in such a way, as to be present, anytime you’re conscience, if you choose to be. This is a very important concept here, because it brings into play the idea of the will.  What is the will? The will is the conscience’s power over the body. The conscience is confirmed because it can choose contrary to the way it feels. Thus the will exists because the conscience exists.  Now consider this for a moment, look at the world of mammals, or animals, no were among them do you fine one that can choose contrary to the way it feels. It’s how they work, it is what makes them work and respond to the world around it. They are hard wired. If you want to change an animal’s behavior, you change the way he feels. Yet, among human beings alone is behavior observed contrary to the way the creature feels, and indeed, encourages their young to act contrary to the way they feel. Thus, this is the witness to the will, which in turn is wittiness to the conscience. Now this is very basic, and very simple, you have to consider it for yourself.  Now you might say, well?  All the commandments, cause you to know what you are doing, to be present, yes I agree, but!  The second commandment addresses this idea at the very level of the being, the place in the mind were who and what you are manifest itself into language, where it can be spoken, are not. This is where the human being exists, where the gray mass comes forth into language in such away it can be understood by the conscience, and the conscience of others, if spoken. This is the very core of your being, and the second commandment demands you be present, at the guard at all times.  Liberty  

 Remember to keep holy the Sabbath. 

God wants a relationship, with you. Once a week you’re invited into his house. Not you neighbor, not the holy people in the front row, you. These laws are personal, like your relationship with God, personal. Ya have a whole day, once a week to think about God. How do you think about God? Well you can go to Church, and I recommend it. But consider during the day, if God created everything as we see, hear, smell, taste and touch it. Then you have to admit, God’s quite an artist. And how do you know an artist, you study his work, look at it with awe and marvel, and be grateful you got to see such a thing as this, and spend the day with him. The amount of time this created to contemplate larger things, leads to larger things. Growth in oneself. Liberty  

Honor Thy father and thy mother, that your days maybe long upon the earth.

(If you notice, the gift is attached, “that your days maybe long upon the earth.”)  I also look at this and see the foundations of the Patriarch and the Matriarch, thus creating rank and structure in the family, which spills over into the community, and into the nation. Empowering parents to educate their children, thus creating the idea and practice of collective knowledge.        

Think about that. This is the foundation of all education. And you might think it’s aimed at the youth, but indeed both, because the default is, parent’s be worthy. And we all know, understanding leads to liberty.   

You shall not kill.

This is the foundation of the sanctity of life. You can’t kill me because God says you can’t, this makes me special to God. Thus I am sacred. Now just when was it I became sacred, and when exactly do I stop being sacred? The original Hebrew word refers to murder: You can not kill out of conveyances. But if ones lives by the sword, than one dies by the sword. That is to say, you have the right to defend your life and what’s yours. Liberty.   

You shall not commit adultery.

By default, if you keep this commandment, you have the foundation of the family; you have the foundation of trust, because if you can’t trust the one you’re sharing a bed with, children with, then who can you trust? With whom can you do business? Form alliances? Trust begins in marriage and indeed is the cornerstone of marriage. Fidelity helps keep the family free of disease, and this extends into the community. Fidelity goes along way to keeping peace within a community. The family is the foundation of many communities, companies, and nations. Without the family you have tyranny. Marriage defines who’s having sex with whom, and whose kids are whose. . It establishes a branch, with a history and tradition of collective knowledge and wisdom which can be passed on and added to. Sex, being a primary motivator, and if women are recognized as the gift they are, leads to liberty.   

Thou shall not steal. 

This is the foundation of free enterprise. Simply by denying us the right to steal, by default, you have the right to possess. To trade, if you can trade, you can build wealth and trade it for wealth others have built, and thus you can grow as a community, as a nation. Jesus said ‘give to the poor,’ you cannot give what you do not possess. Everything we possess comes from obedience to this commandment. And you have the right to defend what is yours because if you are not willing to defend it, is it really yours? Liberty and prosperity.    

Thou shall not bear false witness. 

This is the foundation of law, of justice. You cannot have justice without truth, if you are not willing to witness to the truth, then how can you have justice, and of what use is law. One is depended upon the other. Liberty   

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor goods, harvest, ass, house, nor his wife.

This is the very bedrock of happiness, if you can keep this commandment, it means you have come to terms with who and what you are, and you are satisfied and pleased with what God has done and is doing for you in your life). Liberty.   

Now do you want to spend your time consumed with envy, worrying about what your neighbors have and you do not, what you could be and what you are not. Do you want to spend your time looking over your shoulder because you are a liar, a cheat, a thief, a killer, and the people you offended are hunting you down like a dawg, with a price on your head, with no regard for your life. Do you want to spend your time worrying about the man who’s wife you abused or running from women who blame their children on you, or spend your time dripping with disease. Do you want to spend your time learning everything you need to know from scratch, with no thought of teaching you, or helping you, to spend your time without the love and admiration of one’s parents; of ones’ children? Do you want to spend your time working at your task, with no break, with no time for family, community, or rest? Do you want to spend your time looking for and trying to satisfy all the gods the world has put up for you to admire and pay tribute. Do you want to spend your time in fear of displeasing these strange gods and having their wrath rain down upon you, because you don’t know who they are, or what to do to please them, to spend your time in hopelessness, because these gods offer you nothing beyond your grave?   Yes, I do believe these Ten Commandments were indeed gifts. If you walk thru a cemetery and look at the tombstones, what do you find? The day a person was born, and the day they died, that’s what you find. A person’s life is made of time, that’s all you have. If you consider the time, that simple obedience to these commandments free up, your God has truly given you the path to liberty.   ©

As a note; I do not believe in evolution, I believe "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." 

George Henry Nichols