Check out this link, and then read the story below.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000625542412043&rtmo=aq4CTWTJ&atmo=99999999&p
g=/et/00/4/20/nmar20.html



 WAKE UP AMER  A, THIS IS WHY OUR
 FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND
 AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION

Where We're Headed
    By Robert A. Waters
****************************************************************

 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.

 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. Kinda like cars.

 Sound familiar?

 WAKE UP AMERICA, THIS IS WHY OUR
 FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND
 AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.



 - att1.htm