If so then people will soon start lying, perjuring and deceiving if they wish to do so in Britain…
Increasingly people may conclude that is the only rational response if they ever find themselves in fear for their life some night in their own home. Barry-Lee Hastings found out what happens if you tell the truth. He killed a burglar in his house using a knife, stabbing him in the back after mistaking a crowbar in the criminal’s hands as a machete.
So if you find yourself confronted by an intruder and you live in Britain, generations of cultural logic tell you to not do what the state would have you do: retreat, surrender your property and realise only the state has the right to use force. No, if that person is British then they will understand that the correct thing to do is to fight for what is yours. They will defend themselves as is their inalienable common law right and if need be, kill the person who is threatening them.
…and so some British homeowner find themselves standing over the dead body of a burglar holding a crowbar.
But because they also read the newspapers, watch the television and hopefully read blogs, they will quickly realise that they are still very much in danger. Once they have calmed down, they will start to examine the body of the dead criminal and what they were holding… and they will make sure that the evidence of the intruder’s clear and present threat to their life is not just manifest but incontrovertible: if necessary they will cut themselves and arrange things to make the reality of their contention ‘hyper-real’. They will conclude there is no shame in defending themselves but they will also realise that it is not just the intruder they must defend themselves against, but also the state which would make them a neutered victim.
If the state wanted to encourage perjury and hostility to the judiciary, it could not have found a better way of going about engendering it. This is Britain’s future as the alienation between the commonsensical British expectation of law and the state’s law grows.
After presiding over Barry-Lee Hastings’ conviction for manslaughter, Judge Barker said:
No one can fail to have sympathy for a householder or visitor who without warning found himself in the position you did when you reached the front door.
Ludicrous dissembling sentiments. I rather doubt Barry-Lee Hastings will give a damn about Judge Barker’s worthless ‘sympathy’ as he rots in jail for the next five years. Well sorry, how is a crowbar in an intruder’s hands not a deadly weapon? The next time this happens, as happen it will, I wonder what the next householder with the bloody knife will tell the police? The unvarnished truth? I have my doubts.
The state is not your friend.
I think y’all in the UK are in trouble. Your government doesn’t like y’all too well.
Well until the feeling becames mutual in a more widespread manner, nothing is going to get better.
This issue, of course, goes back to the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act. It’s only really beginning to take hold now, as crime has both risen and gotten more brazen. A few MPs realized what the problem was going to be. One commented that, while “society ought to undertake the defense of its members, nevertheless one has to remember that there are many places where society cannot get, or cannot get there in time. On those occasions a man has to defend himself and those whom he is escorting. It is not very much consolation that society will come forward, a great deal later, pick up the bits, and punish the violent offender.”
There’s a reason Blackstone made the right to armed self-defense one of the important auxiliary rights of Englishmen. We were crazy ever to think otherwise.
This is truly abominable. I wish justice-loving people of the U.K. all good fortune in reversing the current state of affairs. If there is a organization formed for the purpose of doing so, let us know. Many of us would provide whatever aid we can.
Perry… we should add a Heroes Of The Revolution page! 😉
I nominate Barry-Lee Hastings and Tony Martin, persons who are or soon will be languishing behind bars for the crime of being good citizens.
I live in the UK. I also, coincidentally, collect swords. The gen-you-whine sharp-as-buggery article. I rccommend the Hanwei “practical katana”. Cheap, but fully functional. Swords are legal to own here, provided you don’t wander down the street with one openly displayed or prepped for a quick-draw.
I also predict the growth of an industry of cleaners-up, who know the right rivers and ditches into which unwanted household messes might be safely and anonymously disposed.
So much for the stereotypical law-abiding Brit.
I wish to endorse Dale’s excellent idea
Also Julian is correct. It is not illegal to own a sword in the UK but it is an offence to be in possession of it in a public place without reasonable excuse (and self-defence is not, according to the law, a reasonable excuse)
Also, if ever questioned about any sword or sharp implement that you keep at home, remember that your ‘Katana’ is for ornamental purposes only
Emigrate. It made the Soviets put up the Berlin Wall to stop the brain drain. Plenty of open space in the Northern Hemisphere. Fuck those cocksucking socialist nitwits who run the U.K. Pardon my Anglo-Saxon.
Ornamental purposes, or because you study iai-do, the martial art of actually using the thing properly. (merely whacking people with the sharp edge works, but lacks finesse.) I recommensd you actually do study this if you get a sword, since it will allow you also to avoid lopping off your ear while pretending to be Blade or Conan 😉
Oh and BTW: “carrying it from A to B” is a “reasonable excuse” to be in posession of a sword in public, provided it’s boxed, or in a sword-bag, or otherwise not made ready for immediate use. (and not sufficiently warlike-looking to panic the sheep.)
Further to Julian’s comments, I recommend those serious about learning self defense check out the Bujinkan Hammersmith Dojo.
For better practical swords, by the way, I recommend anything from the Bugei Trading Company.
Do get some training.
I don’t need training, just a bloody great metal baseball bat which sleeps next to me at all times! Better tried by twelve than carried by six!
Molly: I’m a big fan of keeping the most effective weapon you can get your hands on next to your bed and, for that matter, on your person. However, anyone with training in muto dori techniques (including basic takeaways that thugs usually learn in jail) can take that bloody great metal baseball bat from you.
If you have no training, you’re kidding yourself.
Julian: this is me (in the middle) after a long weekend of whacking straw mats with a 28 inch razor blade.
Following the lead from Russell above, allow me to refer contributors and readers to a site called Battle Orders which, for fairly obvious reasons in the UK, bills itself as a ‘Movie Memorabilia’ site.
Go and check out the..ahem..’movie memorabilia’ on sale
The UK is over.
I appeal to the US to take us over. Then sanity will be restored.
If you can’t stab someone 12 times — why not 100 times — who is invading your home and your family (he wasn’t to know they weren’t in the house), armed with a machete (he wasn’t to know it was only a crowbar), the world is indeed going to Hell in a Handcart. You couldn’t make it up.
As Schiavo says:… Emigrate. The USA would love to have peaceful Brits who treasure individual freedom. If our INS can grant visas to known Arab terrorists, then they surely can admit Britons who will make our nation even stronger.
After all, the US is one of many heirs to Anglo-Saxon ideals. Along with the rest of the Anglosphere.
We could start an underground network to hide Brits who’ve overstayed their visas. Lol. How about a chain of chips shops employing undocumented workers. “All right Nigel, You either work a double for no overtime or it’s La Migra for you mate”.
Never mind what this burglar appeared to have in his hand, machete or crowbar.
How was the real victim of this crime to know, in this world of all too frequent shootings that the burglar did not have a gun tucked away somewhere.
Perhaps he should have stabbed him thirteen times & the verdict should have been “unlucky”
I couldn’t agree more; it is a fact that a crowbar is an extremly deadly weapon and many killers have used them.
Hey Russell, you must have a much different type of intruder in your parts if they know all that stuff. In these parts, the sort of guy you find climbing through your window is some bleery gobshite who stinks of cheap fags and Newcastle brown beer who was on his way home from from the pub with his mates when he saw your window open, and wants to nick your telly to support his ‘5 packs a day and 10 pints down the pub habit’. Sings: Ooooooh, the shite on the Tyne/ is all mine, all mine/ the shite on the Tyne,/ is all mine!
It was exactly this sort of thing that led me to emigrate. When Tony and his gang of thieves looked like they were going to win the ’97 election, I said if they did I was leaving. And I did.
Here in Costa Rica, the basic rule is to shoot the burglar dead. That way there’s no contrary testimony. Try not to shoot him in the back if possible, but make sure he doesn’t get out the door. And then for God’s sake stick a carving knife in his hand.
As soon as my firearms license application goes through, I am getting me a large calibre pistol (e.g. Glock 21) and putting very nasty hollowpoints (e.g. 230gr Federal HydraShoks) in it.
Like others here, I would be glad to do what I can for any organization aiming to free Tony Martin and Barry-Lee Hastings. Already some 95% of Brits would be unlikely to take on a healthy young burglar on their property, and these cases must be driving the figure up to 100%, a burglar’s paradise!
I would recommend getting yourself some training and when the worst happens be prepared to take them on. Most of them are cowardly scum who think that you won’t do anything. I do however agree with some of the above comments, don’t be too honest afterwards ( been there )…..
The biggest injustice is that Tony Martin and Barry Hastings are in jail. Shame on the British Justice System!!
The Law in this country should be changed.
In my opinion, as soon as someone breaks the law.
ie: breaking into my home.
Then they void all protection from the Law.
This way you can use whatever force you need to
remove that threat.
And if you kill the intruder by accident, well they shouldn’t have been in my house in the 1st place should they!
quite agrre with all on this subject. It seems that for some reason, some where (no doubt due to a civil servant or a lowly money hungery defense layer seeking fame in law journal) common sense has dumped it-self out the window. I have all sympathy for people in the situation where they are faced with an individual in their home looking to take personel belongings they have worked long and hard for and just happen to over-react for some unknown reason. where are the rights for the hard-working homeowner? Should we just leave the action to the police? what will the police do apart from tell you a few months down the line that they cant find the person who has ruined the safety and sanctuary of your home. Why does british law persist in protecting criminals and leaving us the law-abiding knee deep in it. I firmly place the blame upon defense layers who are pushing the tolerable limits of the common person in their right to live comfortable life. Prehaps the government should do something? But then again there more chance of that happening than osama bin laden or weapons of mass destruction being found!