The British demonstrate what gun control is meant to do: turning ordinarily law-abiding people who are no threat to anyone into dangerous felons.
A Conservative former mayor and veteran army reservist has been dramatically arrested in an early-morning police raid and charged with owning a live 70-year-old Nazi wartime gun.
Officers with search dogs swooped on the home of Councillor Jonathan Farmer, 56, of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and seized a German Walther PPK pistol dating back to the Second World War.
Police said they were acting on a tip-off and had a warrant to search his home for firearms. He will appear in court next Monday and could face a five-year jail sentence if found guilty.
I can’t for a minute imaging this is the only bring back pistol hiding out in some drawer or attic in the UK. If my grandfather had brought a pistol back from the war, there’s no law in the world that would make me part with it. I’d gladly risk jail time to preserve not only that piece of family history, but of the country’s history. But this is where the madness of the other side leads.
They will tell you they don’t want to take your guns away. Then tell the world how much they admire english gun laws. Whatever.
He who controls the past &c was the quote that came to mind.
“Police said they were acting on a tip-off…”
Yah, that’s how it worked in the USSR, too; denounced by friends and neighbors.
Hell, forget the Soviets; it’s a -German- gun. That Walther is Gestapo era, and wouldn’t be unfamiliar to the Stasi.
Clearly war veterans are the real criminals. Good thing the US is working hard to take away their rights with prejudice.
Every so often I just need to take a break and watch this Russian dash cam video (Good people) on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGEiA80ZL08
For comparison, murdering someone with that same gun in that same town wouldn’t get him 5 years in prison.
Coventry-born Mr Farmer is a Freeman of both his home city and London.
I wonder if any of the Britons reading the article found that statement ironic.
Freemen, not on the land but real freemen, are still around in a number of UK cities. Freedom of a city can be conferred in many ways. Freemen on the land are daydreamers with no understanding of constitutions, law or history.
Freemen of the City of Coventry have to have a completed a recognised apprenticeship in the city; Jonathan Farmer, who was in my year at school, did an engineering apprenticeship and has taken the oath of a freeman (as my great-grandfather did over a century ago). There is a Guild to which all freemen are admitted. There were many guilds over the centuries, but they are all combined.
The City of London has a number of craft guilds that date back hundreds of years. The Lord Mayor of the City of London, a square mile at the heart of London, is elected from amongst the freemen (as opposed to the Mayor of London, who is elected from the general populace of greater London). Membership of most of the craft lodges no longer requires a skill and is awarded to people nominated to join. It costs money. The Guilds, owning key land in London, are wealthy institutions and own schools etc. Attendance at one of the schools confers freedom of the City to both males and females. The City of London has rights going back hundreds of years which were reaffirmed in Magna Carta 1215 (never the law), 1216, 1225 and 1297. only 3 clauses of MC 1297 remain, including the one affirming the freedoms of the City of London.
Ultimately anyone of good character can be a Freeman of London.
Jonathan Farmer is unusual in being a Freeman of 2 cities.
Thank you, Cousin, for the interesting clarification on the British distinctions on the word “freeman.” Of course, I was implying that a Free Man isn’t prosecuted by his government for owning an antique, low-power pistol. Would this be what you are referring to by a daydreaming freeman of the land?
Today I learned! Thank you for all this.
A ‘live’ gun? Is that one of the ones that goes out on it’s own and murders people?
James Bond had no comment.
They refer to it being a “live” gun, because it hasn’t been permanently rendered inoperable. As a family heirloom, he could have had it drilled and welded to turn it into a solid hunk of metal that just resembled a pistol.
Kind of like England resembles the country it used to be.
This whole thing could’ve been handled with knocking on the door followed by “Sir, we have a search warrant for-“. Instead it was handled by a raid ‘swooping on his home’.
And the raid was part of the message: “If you own an unapproved object, we can raid YOU, too!”