UK

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Two Years In Her Majesty’s Prisons For….An Air Rifle?

November 7, 2011 by

In the country formerly known as Great Britain, Karl Blennerhassett, 29, of Up Holland, West Lancashire was sentenced to two years in prison for having four air rifles and bullets without the “proper licenses”. Mr. Blennerhassett is a collector of antique firearms which he legally possessed.

These four pellet guns were found when police raided his apartment last December along with 140 other antique firearms.

Blennerhassett admitted possessing one air rifle without a certificate, which was just over the permitted velocity limit, and was convicted by a jury of illegally possessing three others which had been modified, and two charges of possessing a bullet.

‘Each of these three rifles are deemed specially dangerous under the legislation,’ said Judge Mark Brown.

‘Each was of high specification in that each had been fitted with a sound moderator and telescopic sight. Each had been modified and modified in a very professional way.’

The judge accepted that Blennerhassett had not modified the weapons himself but he did not accept that he had not known they were modified.

Specially dangerous? I guess he means that it could put your eye out – and do it quietly. Judge Brown then goes on to ask the prosecutor to ask the Home Office to consider legislation for antique firearms as he is concerned about them.

Judge Brown then told Mr. Blennerhassett as he was sentenced that “The control and regulation of firearms is an extremely important matter in relation to maintaining public safety.”

Public safety or control of the populace? I think we know the answer to that given that criminals and gangs in the UK seem to obtain firearms now more readily than ever before. It is only the non-criminal class who are impacted by these laws.

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Gangs Hiding Guns In Sarah Brady Paradise? Unpossible!

September 5, 2011 by

SkyNews has a breathless account of how they were tipped off to a cache of guns hidden by gang members in London “ready for further disorder after the unrest in England last month.”

The tip lead to a major raid by the Metropolitan Police which is shown in the video below. The reporter had received a text message with the location of the guns and he passed it on to police.

“Guns in yellow and orange jd bag at st peters court wickham road brockley london se4, open the bin area at entrance, on left hand side, this is a black metal door, you will find in bin the guns within the bag, describe, the bin area has st peters court written above in big writing on sign, remember left hand side bin, st peters court are a small block of flats.”

A quick English to American translation –  the guns are in a JD Sports shopping bag hidden in a garbage can within a garbage can storage area for the St. Peters Court apartment building.

So the total haul was 2 flintlock pistols, 2 flare guns, and an old rusty revolver. Not that they can’t be used to kill someone but the way the British police were acting you’d have thought it was 3 full-auto Glock 18’s and a pair of Glock 17’s loaded with +P jacketed hollow points.

I love the last comments from Detective Chief Inspector Theresa Breen after calling this a major haul.

“We will identify whether those weapons have been used in any crimes. If they have we will use that information to go out and identify those offenders, arrest those offenders and put them before the courts.”

I really wonder how they are going to do that. I guess they’ll be checking records in the area to see who was buying pieces of flint at a lapidary shop.

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CCRKBA On The British Riots And Need To Keep And Bear Arms

August 10, 2011 by

Brit Riots Show Need for Right to Keep and Bear Arms

BELLEVUE, WA – Widespread rioting, arson and looting across London clearly demonstrates the need in any civilized society for the right to personal protection and the tools to make it possible, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Rioting that reportedly began over the police shooting of a man over the weekend has now exploded into anarchy, leaving British citizens stunned and fearful. People have been forced to flee from their homes. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb noted that in Great Britain, where firearms are so strictly regulated that relatively few people own them legally, and self-defense is treated like a criminal offense, citizens are literally at the mercy of the mob.

“One wonders if the thugs now terrorizing British citizens would behave better if they thought their next intended victim might be armed and willing to fight back,” Gottlieb observed. “How would these rioters fare if citizens were able to defend their homes and businesses?”

Gottlieb, co-author of America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, noted that the riots suggest far more is at work than anger over a shooting.

“The Second Amendment has provided American citizens with the means, and the tools, to protect themselves, their families and their property,” he observed. “Rather than flee from their homes as is now happening in some London neighborhoods, people should be able to defend what is theirs rather than surrender the streets to a mob.

“Evidently,” Gottlieb added, “Americans understand that. According to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, people in this country – despite the economy – are buying increasing numbers of firearms. There was an 8.3 percent rise in the number of background checks with the National Instant Check System in July over the same month last year. This has been going on now for 14 straight months, according to the data.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent citizens of London,” he concluded. “Anarchy is always easier when people lack the means to protect their homes and neighborhoods.”

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An Unarmed Populace Will Find A Way To Defend Themselves

August 10, 2011 by 4 Comments

British laws virtually outlaw armed self defense with a firearm. Not only are their firearm restrictions draconian but armed self defense is quite often prosecuted as was the case of British farmer Tony Martin. Mr. Martin served almost four years for defending himself in his own home from intruders with his shotgun.

Riots which began on Saturday night and continue today have left one man dead, many homeless, and innumerable shops, pubs, and other business establishments looted and destroyed. As Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, has commented, ” Unlike L.A., there are no Korean shopkeepers with AR-15s to help contain the looting.”

With the police response under great criticism and politicians being heckled over their inability to stop the thugs, looters, and other miscreants, people are starting to take matters into their own hands with what is available.

In the sports and leisure section of Amazon’s UK site, the biggest percentage movers for the past 24 hours have been “aluminium” baseball bats. The Rucanor Aluminium Baseball Bat, Silver – 60 cm, has shown an 52,211% rise in sales. Previously, it was 8,893 on the list and now is at number 17. The number two bat is now sold out and it is unknown when it be back in stock. I wouldn’t be surprised if old cricket bats and field hockey sticks stuffed in the backs of closets or buried behind years of Christmas decorations in the basement are not suddenly being remembered and located.

Some shopkeepers are saying enough is enough especially those of Turkish and Kurdish extraction. In the Kingsland Road and Stoke Newington sections of London, the knives used to cut the meat for doner kebabs have been put to use.

Across the road, I ask another shopkeeper if what I’d heard is true, that the Turkish men in Kingsland Road and Stoke Newington were arming themselves to protect their shops, to protect their own. “Is true. Police no use, government too soft.” He frowns: “So they had knives.”

Turkish and Asian shopkeepers in the Dalston area were determined to protect their shops.

Some were seen carrying tools to protect themselves and their businesses, as police officers were scarce in the area late on Monday night.

When suspected looters were seen in the area, the shopkeepers and their families ran shouting after them up the main road, Kingsland High Street.

Jerry Keshin, who runs Jerry’s Food and Wine on Stoke Newington Road, said: “I shut early because I heard they were coming. I went down to Hoxton to get my boys and we drove back up and saw a group of about 10 rioters who were on their way into our area. We chased them into one of the estates and had it out.

“Then we came back to the corner of Shacklewell Lane to keep the area safe. A load more of them came through at about 11.40 but the whole community was out to chase them away.

His friend Aykut Boyraz said: “The community is close and we all know each other. We’re not going to have any riots around here. It doesn’t matter if you’re Turkish, if you live round here we’ll defend you.”

It is interesting that those most likely to protect their shops and livelihood are from the immigrant population. I guess they haven’t gotten used to living on the dole yet.

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Squirrel Meat Flies Off Supermarket’s Shelves in London

August 7, 2010 by

The Guardian is reporting a story in which a North London store is selling squirrel meat. The store manager says “There are too many squirrels around, we might as well eat them rather than cull them and dispose of them.”

He predicted more people would eat squirrel in the future.

“I think it’s lovely. It’s bit like rabbit. I think there will be a lot of fuss about this now, but in a few years it will become accepted practice that we eat squirrels. People don’t bat an eyelid now about eating rabbit,” he said.

This, of course, has animal rights activists in an absolute tizzy. Viva, a British animal rights group, is trying to organize a boycott of the store for promoting “a wildlife massacre”.

Its founder and director, Juliet Gellatley, said: “If this store is attempting to stand out from the crowd by selling squirrel, the only message they are giving out is that they are happy to have the blood of a beautiful wild animal on their hands for the sake of a few quid.”

If one wonders why the sun has set on the British Empire, wonder no more.

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A Brit on the British Shooter in Cumbria

June 9, 2010 by

Perhaps Derrick Bird’s deadly rampages aren’t so ‘inexplicable’ after all

Yet another gun massacre is followed by yet another typhoon of psychobabble, sentiment and bogus declarations that ‘this must never happen again’, when everyone knows that it will.

It’s difficult to argue for tighter gun laws, since they’re already so tight, though I’m sure the authorities will think of something suitably irrelevant and futile, as they did after Hungerford and Dunblane.

They are determined to make sure nobody in this country is armed, apart from criminals and terrorists, the invariable effect of ‘tough’ gun laws that trouble only the law-abiding and have no impact on illegally held weapons at all.

I’m amazed that anyone left in the UK still had enough good sense to recognize this.

The truth is that until 1920, Britain’s gun laws were so relaxed they made Texas look effeminate, but we had virtually no gun crime. That only really began to increase here after we abolished hanging.

But that truth doesn’t fit the Leftist dogma which has ­everyone, including the Tories, the media and the police, in its grip, so the facts will be ignored.

What can we learn from the Cumberland murders? Well, first of all that the police are no use to anyone once a crime has been committed. They never were and they never will be, except if they can do first aid.

The British Empire may have faded but their writers can still figuratively wield a very sharp pen.

H/T to Dave Hardy for the link.

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Hunting Grounds for Psychopaths

June 3, 2010 by

Kurt Hofmann in the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner asks the right question concerning Great Britain: how much more restrictive can its gun laws get?

In a land with the most draconian gun control laws, where the populace is virtually disarmed and at the mercy of thugs and loonies, where the people are actively discouraged by force of law from defending themselves, to propose any new “gun control measures” is absolutely ludicrous. I think the UK’s new PM David Cameron might actually understand that.

A few years ago Massad Ayoob said “So-called gun-free zones are nothing but hunting preserves for psychopaths that hunt humans.” The tragedy in Cumbria, England proves him right yet again.