“Five men wearing hooded tops and scarves across their faces battered down John Moore’s door on Saturday morning,” mirror.co.uk reports. “The raiders demanded money and threatened the 63-year-old with a knife and a fireman’s axe. One of the gang’s hoods fell off and his scarf slipped down. He barked at John: ‘Don’t look at me or I will ****ing kill you.'” Charming. Mr. Moore’s ordeal continued . . .
After about 10 minutes searching his home the crooks – thought to be high on drugs – left, reports the Huddersfield Daily Examineer.
The suspects grabbed a video camera as they fled, laughing.
Shocked and unsure what to do John, who had stents inserted for heart problems six months ago, called his son Theo, 32.
Theo dialled 999 but the pair had to wait around three hours for police [ED: seen above in a previous engagement] to attend.
Officers blamed a “busy night.”
By the time police had arrived John was panic-stricken and feeling unwell and officers called paramedics who sent him straight to hospital.
It was there he was told by doctors he had probably had a heart attack.
Welcome to The Land of Hope and Glory, where Glory is on holiday, leaving only hope behind. Seriously folks, this is what happens to a disarmed people. Who no doubt consider the cop’s excuse for their tardiness – they were busy all night because of fighting in Huddersfield Town Centre – and clamor for more taxpayer spending on police. Don’t let this be you.
So in England, if I dial 999, in an emergency, with my phone upside down, will Satan come to my aid?
Worse, British Government employees show up. Then they arrest you for assaulting the burglars with foul language.
Exactly. Don’t you dare defend yourself. You’ll be arrested straight up for assaulting those poor disenfranchised hooligans who are only trying to support themselves any way they can in a cruel, cruel world.
Is the list down? Haven’t seen new posts since the 26th.
It’s not down but email address list may be corrupted, have not had TTAGS articles hit my inbox since Thanksgiving Day. Went directly to site to directly and discovered had missed articles since then. Avid reader, hope this gets resolved!
Thank goodness. I thought my email got erased for commenting something stupid ?
Same issue here. Not getting any emails. I kept wondering what comment finally got me banned.
Contacted the admins with the same problem a couple days after Thanksgiving. They said others had reported it and they were looking into it.
As did I. One of those “Housekeeping” posts would be nice to keep tabs on whatever is happening with this. I use the email notifications to keep track of which posts I’ve read. WordPress still shows I’m subscribed, but no emails since the “DC Mayor” one on the 26th.
Playing devil’s advocate here, maybe they mentioned to dispatch that the perps left the scene and therefore they made it a lower priority call. Maybe if they said the perps were still in the house they would have sent officers over right away.
Or maybe not…
Yeah, that was my thought as well. A crime that has already occurred is a lower priority than crimes occurring right now. The fact that it was an armed robbery probably would have raised that a bit, though.
Even if the homeowner reported that the home invaders had left, shouldn’t police respond to that call nearly as fast as if the home invaders were still in the home? How are armed home invaders on the loose not a serious threat/danger to the community?
Furthermore, those guys are probably still near the home and police might be able to actually (gasp) capture them?!?!? After all, I doubt there would be very many groups of men in the immediately vicinity that match the exact number and general description of the home invaders … and carrying an ax and a knife.
The Police have told the public they will not respond to Burglaries, home invasions. You have to deal with it yourself and suffer when you either get raped or murdered or arrested and jailed for defending yourself and family. Burglary victims should not expect to be visited by police officers after the crime any more, as police are forced to focus on more serious crimes as their numbers dwindle, one of the country’s most senior officers has said. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/28/burglaries-police-sara-thornton_n_7886984.html
Always wait five minutes, call back and tell them, “Never mind, I’ve dispatched them with my WW2 era Lee Enfield rifle.” The flying squad will arrive in mere seconds bent on arresting you, but at least they’ll come!
And if the man had done anything to defend himself and his home he would have been arrested and charged while the actual bad guys got away.
I have heard this same sentiment before. What is the actual story in England? If the home invaders start beating or slashing you, do you become a “criminal” for defending yourself and trying to stop their beating and slashing?
Self defense is still legal there (barely) you can find a not-that-long-ago TTAG story from a UK reader who described the legal situation there.
Hi Jason,
I think the article you’re referring to is one I wrote.
To uncommon_sense, I’ll recap briefly (and also note that my compatriot Aldis is completely wrong):
The law allows for self defence using – theoretically – any means at your disposal… but it has to meet three legal tests.
Whatever force is used in self defence must be:
(1) minimal necessary to negate the threat;
(2) reasonable, as in what a “reasonable person” – think member of the jury – would consider to be broadly ok; and
(3) proportionate to the threat.
In principle, therefore, a legal gun owner confronted by an armed home invader would be well within his/her rights to carry out even a lethal DGU.
By contrast, if somebody flicks you the middle finger and says something threatening, you’ll probably be in serious trouble if you punch him (unless you can persuade a jury of your peers that the “reasonable man” would assume that punch was the only way of avoiding harm to yourself. Being offended doesn’t count as harm, obviously…!
I’m sure someone on here will say: “what about that farmer who shot those guys”.
They’re talking about Tony Martin (you can look it up), and they are 100% wrong. He had an illegal shotgun, set up an ambush, shot and wounded one home invader / killed the other. He was convicted of murder, appealed and had it reduced to manslaughter, and got less time inside than the surviving burglar.
Given the fairly low rate of legal firearms ownership in the UK (<1%) use of legal weapons in DGUs is very uncommon. This also relates to the relative infrequency of gun crime against the law-abiding citizenry – it's mostly gang bangers tit-for-tat.
Nevertheless, the only time that it has actually taken place in the last five years or so (as far as I'm aware), the homeowner was ultimately not even charged by the Police. Yes he was arrested and questioned under caution – not that unreasonable, until the facts are clear – but the key point is that a DGU was recognised as a "minimal, reasonable and proportionate" response to a threat.
There's an overwhelming tide of (usually I'll-informed) opinion to the effect that Brits are servile peons with no right to self defence. That really is just totally wrong.
We draw different lines to you guys – assuming you're American – but not so far different as you think.
–
There's a separate issue which does often cause confusion.
It is illegal to own a weapon of any sort for the purpose of self defence.
That covers anything from an AR through to a butter knife. But the fact you can’t own something for self defence absolutely does not mean that if you own it for another reason, you’re disallowed from using it in self defence provided that the use is “minimal, reasonable and proportionate”.
I own a number of shotguns and rifles for hunting, target practice, plinking, etc. However if somebody is credibly threatening or using deadly force against me, my family, or indeed any other party – and there is no other means to stop that attack – then the law very specifically indicates (under statute and precedent) that I am in the clear to use my guns, or anything else, in self defence. But only if there’s no alternative, which in effect is the ultimate test of the minimal/reasonable/proportionate test.
Hope that helps to clarify!
Sorry, Gabriel, I got murdered in the time it took me to read all that bullshit about how and when I’m allowed to defend myself
The Land of Hope and GORY. I wonder what recourse the family of poor Lee Rigby has? A 3 hour tour…
Im from England – yeah that sounds about right.
Also if you dare any kind of self defence – you will be arrested for attack..
In England its ILLEGAL to defend yourself!!!
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t defend yourself – just don’t report it to police afterwards…
God i need to move away from this terrible country.
You’re welcome here(well not Illinois-but Indiana has some pretty good gun laws and isn’t 100billion in the hole-not a misprint)…and I thought it sucked to live a mile from Indiana.
It does suck not to live in Indiana. This state is not too bad if you get away from Gary and parts of Indy. Weather is unpredictable. I still say our gun laws are better than Texas or Alabama. Kentucky is actually a very nice state for gun laws and living in general in most areas..
“A clockwork orange”, in real life.
America the land of the free. The only nation on earth where every citizen can buy and own guns. As well as any firearm they choose as long as they can afford it. Machine gun, cannon, flame thrower, etc. You just have to have the $$$.
Only parts of america like California, new York state, and even Oregon where many English people have immagrated to are less free now.
Spend enough money and many countries have much freer gun “laws” than America. Abramovich supposedly have torpedoes on one of his boats. Even in New York you can easily obtain weapons if you’re one of the more equals. Just ask Bloomberg.
As far as practical gun restrictions go, Afghanistan and Somalia are the countries to emulate. They are the ones closest to the promised land: Jefferson’s America.
The homeowner violated the rules, in England it’s like swimming after eating, you have to wait for at least a half-hour BEFORE notifying the police of a home invasion. On the other hand what are the UNARMED “bobbies” (should call them “MARYS”) going to do when/if they arrive on-scene or in the area and see the ARMED perpetrators, you don’t actually expect the cops to do something do you? Prior to criticizing British “law enforcement” we must also know the demographics of the area in which the crime occurred as God forbid the accused is are Muslim or African “immigrants”, under UK policies everything is theirs for the taking and to suggest otherwise is of course “racist” (what “race” is Islam?).
So England is like a better mannered Somalia. Wonder how long the manners will last.
“Somalia” is right, the UK probably has MORE Somali’s living in their nation as “refugees” than there are Somali’s in Somalia.
As more and more time goes bye, it seems more clear than the concept of a “proactive police” is a utopian fantasy. Downsize them and use them as a reactive force and let the citizens be the proactive force. It has downsides too, but most of those downsides are going to be felt by people who by and large, are bad guys.
I suspect that someone will post an article or link to Dave Kopels latest, at CATO Institute – “The Costs and Consequences of Gun Control”
but just in case – if not,
its worth scrolling down to the part about before and after gun control,
and how violent crime has soared in the UK:
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/costs-consequences-gun-control#full
“Great Britain was a much safer society in the early 20th century, when the nation had virtually no gun crime and virtually no gun control. Now it has much more of both.”
Constables had to sober up before show up to the call??
Comments are closed.