Yes, It's This Bad

About a year and a half ago at another website, I linked to this editorial in the London Telegraph. Now, as then, it makes sense to reprint a couple of paragraphs:

If someone breaks into your home in the middle of the night you can presume he is not there to read the gas meter. But current British law insists that he have the freedom of the premises. When, last Christmas, thousands of Radio 4's Today listeners called for legislation authorising them to protect their homes by any means necessary, the proposal was immediately denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable, blood-stained piece of legislation". Until recently that "unworkable, blood-stained" legislation was the law of the land. There was no need to retreat from your home, or from any room within it. An Englishman's home was his refuge, and, indeed, his castle.

But no more. Rather than permitting people to protect themselves, the authorities' response to the recent series of brutal attacks on home-owners has been to advise people to get more locks and, in case of a break-in, retreat to a secure room - presumably the bathroom - to call the police. They are not to keep any weapon for protection or approach the intruder. Someone might get hurt. If that someone is the intruder the resident will be sued by the burglar and vigorously prosecuted by the state.

At the time, I added the following comments:

Now, again, I can’t speak for others, but if a person enters my home without my knowledge or consent, I reserve the right to remove said person by any and all means at my disposal and I couldn’t care less what the government has to say about it. If force is necessary – including deadly force – then so be it. And if the government wants to prosecute me for doing so, then bring it on, baby.

First and foremost, any law that allows an intruder the “freedom of the premises” should be a ringing endorsement for the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, the right of the citizenry to bear arms. But, of course, Great Britain has no such amendment and, as the article points out, the English government has been systematically purging the citizenry of the ability to own any type of firearm since early in the 20th century, to disastrous results. Once one of the safest places in the world to live, a UN study in 2002 placed it “at the top of the Western world’s crime league.”

But in its zeal to assume “sole responsibility” to protect the populace, the government has gone to even more ludicrous lengths to define and outlaw ‘weapons’ of defense; items such as sandbags, pickaxe handles, stones and even a drum of pepper are considered actionable if used for protection. What’s more, the Brits have adopted a more lenient approach to the sentencing of criminals, with the likelihood that the person defending his person and/or property will be incarcerated longer than the person committing the crime.

Take a minute and read the whole article and then, if you’re a U.S. citizen, be thankful that you live in a country where English Common Law still exists.

The reason I bring up the subject is because of this essay by Theodore Dalrymple in the City Journal. (h/t James Lileks) In it, he looks at how the British police and justice system seem to have completely confused the terms "serious" and "trivial". His conclusion:

The government sees itself as an engineer of souls (to use the phrase so eloquently coined by Stalin with regard to writers who, of course, were expected to mold Homo Sovieticus by the power of their words). Government thus concerns itself with what people think, feel, and say—as well as with trying to change their freely chosen habits—rather than with performing its one inescapable duty: that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety. It is more concerned that young men should not smoke cigarettes in prison or make silly jokes to policemen than that they should not attack and permanently maim their elders and betters.

As always, read the whole thing.