Rights, Privileges, England, and Just Who Has the Guns? (A good pro-gun article)

[Desertdog]

Second Amendment Rights
Rights, Privileges, England, and Just Who Has the Guns?

March 27, 2004

by Jan Ireland

Self defense is a right given to humanity by God. Because it is a right, it cannot be taken away by man, state, country, or the United Nations. But it can be surrendered, which is what gun control bites are designed to bring about.

It is not necessary to believe in God to recognize the instinctive drive for survival in the human species. We see it in the recovery from illnesses that should have been fatal; survival from a high fall that should have killed; mothers lifting automobiles single handedly to rescue a child underneath. The drive to protect and continue the human race is inherent.

Part of the ruse in gun control is the language used to quiet that drive. Gun “owners†in England suffer from that ruse now. Perhaps we should clarify that the “England†many Americans refer to is a bit of a misnomer. The United Kingdom is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Gun laws are nuanced differently throughout those areas.

But in all cases, registering guns for so-called safety; granting access to guns only from locked cabinets at Rifle Clubs; “approving†a few visible rifles or black powder guns; removing self defense as a legal answer – are all examples of rights having been surrendered. Ask Tony Martin how he feels about having been imprisoned for using a firearm to protect himself and his property, after multiple robberies.

That a “Second Amendment†is not ensconced in English historical documents is immaterial. The tremendous contributions England has made to history are immensely laudable. America is closer to England than any other country on earth, and owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to our closest ally. Many of the original supporters of the Second Amendment were from England.

That the distinguished historical contributions of England happened not to include a “Second Amendment†has no bearing on whether or not that right exists. We need only note that the American Founders thought it important enough to encase in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.

History has many times lived through the destruction caused by gun control extremists. They pop out at every gun-related tragedy, hoping to bring about just one more “reasonable†limitation on guns – and therefore self defense.

It bears repeating. History is replete with examples of despots – who first disarmed the populace. What the state grants you one day, it can take away the next.

In response to a recent article (“Second Amendment Set To Go Global With First Stop Englandâ€), I heard from a reader in England who misunderstood the difference in rights and privileges. He holds that he “owns†several guns, that there are more than a hundred members in his rifle club, and that none of them are criminals. I don’t doubt this at all.

But he also mentions a Firearms Certificate.

I have to contend – the state is letting him “play†with his guns. How would the state react if he wanted to use “his†guns in a way the state did not sanction? And what does he say to someone who wants a “certificate†but is denied? Likely nothing, since speaking out could very well have him deemed “inappropriate†for further “owning†of guns.

America has a plethora of gun regulations, and they vary widely from state to state. John R. Lott, Jr., has written THE BIAS AGAINST GUNS: Why Almost Everything You’ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong. It is a collection of superb research – empirical proof of how guns are used to save lives and protect property in America.

Laws should not be broken – neither in America, nor in England. That does not mean the truth about imprudent laws cannot be brought forth. The branch office being opened in England by Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms needs the support of all gun owners, in all of Great Britain.

Self defense is at stake.


Jan Ireland

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/j/ireland/2004/ireland032704.htm

DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE IN THE FORUM!

 

[AZRickD]

For those who are curious, I recommend a book by Anglo historian Joyce Lee Malcolm titled" "Guns & Violence: The English Experience"

Amazon.com

The link will take you directly to the appropriate Amazon.com page.

Interesting reading. It will illustrate how Brits, who once had a "duty to resist" criminal attack, now have a duty to let the criminal dictate the situation. I, and the book, will point you to a policy change by the "Home Office" in 1953. All things follow from that.

Rick

 

[another okie]

England does have a "Second Amendment." Their Bill of Rights of 1689 protects the right of each "Protestant" to have arms. They just ignore it. Just words on paper, and that's all our Second Amendment will mean if we don't stand up for ourselves.

 

[Mk VII]

no Parliament can bind its sucessors to or from a particular course of action. Consequently nothing Parliament does can be illegal as Parliament is the supreme arbiter of its own actions. This was originally done to counterbalance the power of the King, who might suborne individual judges.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I'm sure that Kerry creature would dearly love to inflict English-style "firearms ownership" on America.

 

[another okie]

MK VII's statement is correct. Parliament is supreme in the UK and there is no written constitution of the kind Americans are used to. The courts cannot, in theory, declare laws unconstitutional. However, the courts and government agencies can and do sometimes just ignore laws they don't like.

The 1689 Bill of Rights has never been repealed. It is true that laws contradicting it have been passed. What this means for the Bill of Rights depends on your philosophy of law.

I also must point out that many analysts feel that the various international agreements the UK has signed do supercede British law, though convincing an Old Bailey judge of that might be rather difficult.

 

[PATH]

Were you folks aware that you must have a permit to operate a television in the United Kingdom. Vans drive through neighborhods to see who is recieving a TV signal and there is a stiff fine for watching TV without a permit.

I know it sounds crazy but it is true. Since there is no first amendment protection as it were why would there be any 2nd amendment type protections. The UK is becoming an Orwellian Paradise! All hail Big Brother!

 

[pbman]

I know the author fairly well, she used to volunteer for the local republican party when she lived here in oklhoma. She was a real dedicated volunteer, and she gave me a nice couch when she moved.

I had heard she was doing some writting, but this is the first time i have seen any.

 

[Mk VII]

we've always had a TV licence, from the dawn of broadcasting. (At one time you had to have a radio licence too but they dropped that in the '60s, probably because the appearance of cheap solid state portable sets made it impossible to enforce.) In the days when there was only one TV channel it was the obvious thing to do. There is still general agreement here that it is the right way to fund quality public service broadcasting, though with the increasing multiplicity of channels I don't know how long that will continue.
Anyone here who has travelled in America, even briefly, and seen the unique awfulness of American network TV (and it really is frightful, I didn't think the stories could be true but they are) will agree that that road is not one we want to go down.

 

[SAG0282]

Great article.........thanks for posting.

 

[RobW]

Mk VII, this is also true for the former "Western Germany" (don't know if it's still in place). There were "controllers" coming to your house if they saw an antenna and had no registration. Hefty fine AND paying for ESTIMATED back time!

 

[Stand_Watie]

Were you folks aware that you must have a permit to operate a television in the United Kingdom. Vans drive through neighborhods to see who is recieving a TV signal and there is a stiff fine for watching TV without a permit.

I'm not sure if this is better or worse but the tv licenses in the UK are in reality just an annual tax on the privilege of owning a set. This partially funds their national tv system - watch their shows on PBS is you want to see what their tax dollars produce.

Germany still has them for radios, and for every radio in the residence.

edited for spelling

 

[igor]

Heck, we have the same TV tax thing. And our public funded national broadcasting company still can't hold the standard up.

At least BBC still produces real quality stuff. HBO comes close from altogether different premises: hopefully we can go a similar way. And spare me the politics angle, I'm talking about culture and entertainment material.

 

[derekAward]

Anyone here who has travelled in America, even briefly, and seen the unique awfulness of American network TV (and it really is frightful, I didn't think the stories could be true but they are) will agree that that road is not one we want to go down.

But what is your point? So what if your "networks" produce "higher quality" programming? A: What business does the government have in producing television? B: If they are to be in that business, shouldn't they produce what the audience demands instead of something big daddy thinks they should watch? C: Of the 250+ channels we receive, maybe 6 are "networks" in the traditional sense. But for maybe 3 programs a week, I don't watch any of those stations anyhow. That is the beauty of a relatively free market. We don't need a TAX to ensure good quality television, we get that by watching those stations that deliver high quality programming.

Your remarks are highly illustrative of one basic difference between our two countries. GB's subjects expects the government to provide for all needs while the US citizen will get his needs satisfied by selecting from one of many freely competing producers.

-derek

-derek

 

[Mk VII]

I guess my point is, if you leave it to the market, the market will produce cr*p because cr*p sells. Game shows, 'reality' t.v., real life police chase videos, cheap, poorly researched pseudo-history programmes mascarading as gospel truth, I could go on... The logical end is the kind of blood-and-gore if-it-bleeds-it-leads actuality programmes Orwell predicted in 1984. T&A t.v. programs are undoubtedly popular, should we contemplate the proliferation of T&A channels as a healthy development? No, because it panders to the lowest instincts in our nature, and we are all spiritually poorer as a result. The B.B.C.'s original mission was "to inform, to educate, to entertain", though sadly much of this has been junked in recent years.

 

[PATH]

The BBC also has a political bent that is decidedly left of center. Further, as the Government knows where the sets are and how many what would prevent them from one day picking them up. I am afraid it smacks of control that most Americans find unreasonable.

The people and not the government should decide on what they will watch. Cable TV has opened up options for excellent progamming. Look at A&E, Discovery, FOX News, and a whole host of other quality programmed channels. The market place of ideas should be free flowing. Why would I want to pay to keep BBC on the air. Capitalism should reign!

With all due respect, this is another example of why I like living in the USA!

By the by, ever watch Baywatch?

 

[Mk VII]

I did - once. I thought, "This is not exactly demanding stuff, is it?"

 

[derekAward]

BBC TAX

if you leave it to the market, the market will produce cr*p because cr*p sells. Game shows, 'reality' t.v., real life police chase videos, cheap, poorly researched pseudo-history programmes mascarading as gospel truth, I could go on...

That is one logical end. And if you haven't seen American TV in the last 10 years or so, it makes sense that that would still be your perception. But, in the last decade, the number of channels available has increased several fold. I will agree with you that 90% are crap. But if 10% are really good, that means there are now 25 stations providing high quality programming. When all choices on the dial were highly regulated, centrally owned networks, we had, maybe 5 channels to chose from. The big three and PBS all had a decidedly liberal slant.

Crap sells because there is a sufficiently large market desiring to purchase crap. This doesn't justify the Government, in its "Big Daddy" role, deciding what we should watch. There is always another market willing to purchase quality. 80% of my TV viewing is TLC, Dicovery, Science, History, Biography, HGTV, DIYnet, History Int'l, etc. The same marketplace that offers both McDonalds and Commander's Palace will, if unrestrained, offer both History Channel's "Tales of the Gun" or HBP's "Band of Brothers" and Fox's "When Pets Attack".

I prefer imperfect liberty to perfect tyranny.

-derek

 

[igor]

You guys heard of the vision of our future where 20% of the people will do all the work and the remaining 80% are to be kept from revolting? The numbing "tittytainment" as a tool to keep the majority losers calm and passive? I think that future's here.

Even here where five million people watch two public and two to three commercial-based TV channels, the division is clear. The really controversial bit about it is that it's the "government's" channels that bear the responsibility to delay the onslaught of the crap programming .

 

[Stand_Watie]

Your remarks are highly illustrative of one basic difference between our two countries. GB's subjects expects the government to provide for all needs while the US citizen will get his needs satisfied by selecting from one of many freely competing producers

As an aside, millions of Britons also pay for American television programming, and American cable companies purchase BBC programming as well. There's an entire channel on my satellite setup, BBC America.

 

[iapetus]

Regarding the TV licence:

I used to support it, but (and quite apart from any libertanarian arguments) the large amount of junk entertainment on the BBC recently, and some of the decent documentaries etc on cable/satellte, have made me think that whatever benifits the licence fee once had, they no longer apply.

 

[sterling180]

The fact is that we lost our rights because several civillians in 2 major massacres were slaughtered by maniacs who shot and killed them.The UK did trust its subjects with the now-prohibited weapons, but withdrew them from civillian use, because public pressure on the government, was growing to ban these types of weapons(Assault Weapons, standard-handguns, amour-piercing rounds.) and some officials decided that they were inappropriate for civillian use, anyway.

UK civillians are as guilty as its government, because they want guns banned and even now the government is reviewing the requirements of UK shooters, because of the anti-gun organization-The Gun Control Networks persistant nagging, as to why should shooters own supposidly-dangerous multi-shot weapons? and that single or double-barrelled weapons are more appropriate for hunting, ignoring the wishes of the sporting-shooter.

We were subjected to this nonsense in 2004 by the Home-Office, under the guise of the "CONTROLS ON FIREARMS DOCUMENT".

I bet that this was introduced on the request of the Gun Control Network.

 

[Baba Louie]

..."CONTROLS ON FIREARMS DOCUMENT"

Could that not be construed as another "Controls on Citizens/Subjects Document"? And truthfully only control of law-abiding citizens/subjects at that, since we all know that whatever criminal element found will tend to ignore yet another piece of legislation that hampers their chosen lifestyle, create more mayhem, death and carnage, resulting in yet another law for the law-abiding to suffer?

At what point do the good people develop another Magna Carta limiting their government's meddling in the day to day?

All questions being rhetorical since it appears that our own government feels the need to do more of the same, with support from the masses who still clamor for their bread and circuses, knowledgable that their/our government(s) are here to assist them in every endeavor.

Still and all, it looks like another book to purchase and peruse, however frustrating the outcome.