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Our friend, the State

In yet another travesty of British justice, Barry-Lee Hastings has been convicted of manslaughter for defending not just his property but his family from a career serial burglar.

Naturally the state sees things differently.

Det Chief Insp Matthew Horne said the case sent a clear message that people in such circumstances should call the police “and let us do our job. If you take the law into your own hands there is always a danger”

Yet in the last year we have had story after story of the Police responding to pleas for assistance by turning up hours if not days later. The fact is, the job which Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Horne is speaking about is not your protection but rather the protection of the State’s monopoly on the means of violence.

Institutionally speaking, the safety of you, your family and your property is purely incidental: if it were otherwise, a person could legally own a weapon for their personal defence in Britain… yet regardless of the fact you may manifestly be at risk from violence in a high crime area or live in a home which has been robbed again and again and again, you may not even use a kitchen knife, let alone a gun, to protect yourself. Ask Barry-Lee Hastings.

The state is not your friend.

9 comments to Our friend, the State

  • Tor Arlheim

    Yes, very true. This is the reality which people who fear private ability to defend are blind to. Such people are wiling sheep in a world where wolves are the shepherds

  • And people wonder why the UK is not as safe a place to visit or live in any more.

  • Andrew X

    From the States, I am wondering how the anti-death penalty activists would feel if we decide to make this a cause celebre, to make Hastings a martyr of injustice, to march on the British embassy, tag Mr. Blair as a consort of criminals, accord Hastings honorary citizenship, bar Britian from various groups we are affiliated with until they change this terrible law, etc, etc.

    Not to harsh on the stalwart Blair at all, and I am remembering the tears I shed yesterday at your post of 9/11 related signs in Britian, so God Bless the great and good British people and Her Majesty.

    But the point is worth making. At minimum, this is a wildly different perspective on justice between US and British society. I am wondering how many British would feel if we in the US get huffy about it and decide it is categorically immoral in our eyes (which it is) and thus however the British public and polity decide to handle it themselves is irrelevant…. we hate it, and will remind you of that at every opportunity.

    I wonder how the British, and many continental Europeans, would feel about that? Come to think of it, I happen to know exactly how they would feel.

    But again, bless you all. I’m just making a point worth considering.

  • Kevin Connors

    I just posted this on a BBS:

    http://www.terranbbs.com/ubb/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=TBH&Number=146430&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1

    I was amazed that, even in this extreme case, two of the responses (the third is an expatriot Yank) from the UK support the decision. You have a nation of sheep.

  • Alfred E. Neuman

    Folks, I still don’t understand what the hell you’re still doing in Britain. GET THE HELL OUT! We have a still-relatively-free country over here; it’s called America. We were founded by limeys who wanted to be free. We are who we are because we still have our ranks swelled by those who would be free. You should be over here; we would welcome you.

    That being said, it is incredibly depressing to me to see what has befallen Britain.

  • Molly

    You are dreaming if you think the USA is some paragon of liberty. Maybe on some issues it is better than the UK but in other ways it is just as fucked up and in some ways more so.

    But yeah, if you cannot defend yourself, then it is time to make some politicians in fear of their lives.

  • D.A.

    If it were up to me, I’d reinstate the right for British citizens to keep and bear arms. And the right to use them American-style in the defence of their family and property.

    Catch somebody braking into your house? BANG! Won’t be breaking into any more houses…

    Getting mugged and your mobile phone stolen? No problem. BANG! Mugging over.

  • TomD

    I can’t imagine—

    I live in the S.E. US and the right to self defense is a given, how could it be otherwise? CCW’s (concealed weapon permits) are assured to those without criminal histories. A neighboring community, Kennesaw, Ga, achieved some fame a decade or so back by mandating that all households must contain a gun. The major media market ridicule for the mandate was universal but the followup was never reported. Criminals, seeking targets of opportunity, avoided the area like the plague.

    I see that you folks in the UK are observing the opposite. Sorry ’bout that but insanity breeds insanity.

    Here, it is legal to kill when truely threatened, it happens daily. The cowboys haven’t been given free reign though; you had best be able to demonstrate a true threat to your life, property doesn’t count.

    Think, think hard before you pull a weapon. Only in specific circumstances will you survive the resulting legal onslaught. This is as it should be. One thing is a constant among the various State laws: if your home is invaded, shoot.

    How could it be otherwise?

    I simply can’t imagine a society throwing it’s doors open to the violent among us as the UK apparently has. It doesn’t fit my worldview, I have no precedent, it’s fiction and can’t be real.

  • Toby Esterhasie

    What an incredible world we live in. I have just been let back into my own road in Clapham were an armed burglar was roaming the streets (4pm on Sunday afternoon). I pray I never have to rely on our police to help me out of a jam. Don’t get me wrong, I do think British police are excellent, it is just that they are constrained to such an extent that they cannot do their job. Once they have got the person there is very, very little chance that the person will be convicted. If the criminal is caught then the sentence will most likely to be too lenient (the recent case of a black gang member caught with a loaded firearm who did not receive a custodial sentence – incredible)

    Who is to blame for this shambles?

    1) Focus groups (particularly racial pressure groups who believe that they are the victims of some great injustice – not true they simply commit a disproportionate amount of crime, fact)

    2) Lawyers – of course

    3) Politicians scared of the above two groups

    I fear for the future of Britain.