Extrano’s Alley has an account of a homeowner who is facing charges for taking the knife from a home invader and then stabbing him with it. Instapundit is covering this too, and a reader there notes, “US gun rights groups should raise money (and publicity, and their own profile) to defend our innocent cousins across the pond.†I’m honestly not sure how much that would help. Prosecutors across the pond wouldn’t be taking these cases to trial if they weren’t pretty sure of a jury willing to convict. It’s a cultural issue, and I’m not sure American groups are going to be able to change that. I think that kind of change has to come from within.
11 thoughts on “Self-Defense in the UK”
Comments are closed.
I seem to recall hearing that anytime someone gets corpsified at the hands of another they file these charges only to have them dropped later if unfounded-it’s an automatic filing.
I can’t remember where I heard that and have no reference for the reliability of that information.
We have a hard enough time defending freedom here in the USA from gun grabbers and ‘progressive’ types who want to control every bit of our lives.
Hell, I’ll be damned if anyone sends money to some limey Englishman when I still can’t CCW in New Jersey. Forget those fools, we have people here who still need money for ‘liberation’.
“Hell, I’ll be damned if anyone sends money to some limey Englishman when I still can’t CCW in New Jersey. Forget those fools, we have people here who still need money for ‘liberation’.”
Right on. Lets lead by example, lets take America back to being a beacon of broad rights and freedom and independence. Show the other nations and cultures how we roll and when they want to do the same, they can pay our consulting fees.
I am a limey Englishman and I would love some help to change our stupid laws and cultural bias against guns and defending ourselves.
However, I think you are correct. This change can only come from within.
Keep leading by example!!!!
If you regularly browse the English media, you cannot help but be struck by how superior their coverage of American events and commentary is to their similar coverage of the UK.
If you really want to help law abiding Brits regain their right to self defense, roundly criticize the current policy at every opportunity. It will be noticed, and commented on where it counts. And draw trolls as well.
Stranger
Britain embraces its decline and eventual demise.
Occasionally the Brits are honest.
From an old but still relevant BBC article:
“Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7359513.stm
Apparently the dead home invader’s family & friends are cruising by dropping off flowers and notes to honor HIM as a victim. Talk about gall. Those should go right into the trash. So much for the “man’s home is his castle.” Of course, several of the SCOTUS judges who dissented in the McDonald case wrote they’d like to see the right of self-defense done away with in the USA, too.
You guys should read up on “squatters’ rights” over there and also problems with “Travelers.” (think “hippies.”) They start living on your land or even inside your home, and you can’t kick them out without 10 months of court proceedings. In the U.S., they’d probably just get shot.
LC Scotty is almost certainly correct: someone is dead by violence, the killer is known, charges are filed – here in the US. The police are not authorised to bypass this, only to inform the prosecutor that the death apparently/obviously occured in self-defense. It is the [office of the] prosecutor which decides whether to drop charges or proceed.
The difference is that for several decades in the UK prosecutors proceeded without using the discretion allowed: this may be changing, as the current PM has made noises about what we call “the castle doctrine.”
i am an englishman and fed up of being treated like a sheep to the slaughter by these lowlife criminal scum, and want to fight back and our criminal justice system is an absolute joke, Blair’s Labour Government have made my beloved country a criminals Utopia by taking the ordinary person’s right to carry and bear arms and the right to defend himself against these lowlives without the fear of being railroaded to to prison just for defending himself, his home and his family. Welcome to Soviet Britain, Tovarich (Comrade). Us Brits might as well wear sheep costumes and and act like sheep just to please our masters and the criminal fraternity who have more rights to do what they want to their victims without fear of coming up face to face with an armed homeowner as I WOULD NOT hesitate to shoot anyone who breaks into my home and tries to attack me if I had the right to defend myself against the burglar or a gang of thugs in the street because I would be packing some firepower such as a 357 Magnum revolver, an M16 Assault and Sniper’s Rifle with a top of the range telescopic/Infra RedNight Vision and Laser Sights and Tazer non lethal Stun Gun with the proper firearms training and permit of course. I already pack 2 pairs of handcuffs and marker sprays on my patrol belt, but I have no righta to use them as the Spetznaz (The Police, Bless Them All, and they are overstretched ) would confiscate them and leave me helpless to do anything about it, with the possibility of a criminal charge and penitentiary (prison) time hanging over me just for using self defense against the criminal who has attacked me, or my family or have broken in to my home.