Matt the Shrimp
03-02-2004, 12:11
Dear Fellow Delegates,
Before you vote for this proposed resolution - couched, as it is, in the dangerous emotive language of a specific case (which is, I respectfully submit, always the worst basis for the creation of new legislation) - I urge that you consider the following facts of the case.
I also point out that these are FACTS which were ruled upon by a jury of Tony Martin's peers and were proved in a court of law; rather than being the emotive language found in Studium's proposal (which refers, for example, to Tony Martin "protecting his family" - when, in fact, he lives alone).
The facts are as follows:
1. As to the burglar in question, Tony Martin shot him in the back whilst he was fleeing.
2. His act was not the action in extremis of a man under siege. Instead, he waited in his house with a loaded gun, removed steps from his flight of stairs, and shot his quarry - a 16 year old boy - dead in the back whilst that boy was trying to escape.
3. The civil trial brought by the Barras family was a stupid stunt and was rightly dismissed. English law already caters for such eventualities through the maxim of volenti non fit injuria - in other words, if you have put yourself in a particular situation, you cannot then complain if you suffer damage/injury as a result. The Barras claim was merely a self-serving piece of publicity, rather than a claim which any court would have the time of day for.
- - - -
Certainly, in English Law as in many other legal systems, the right to reasonable self-defence exists. The right to meet like with like - to protect oneself against an unarmed intruder by means of a cricket bat, for example - is an inalienable right.
However, this proposal is a charter for people to "shoot first, ask questions later" - a charter for the likes of Tony Martin to stew in their persecution complex, remove treads from flight of stairs and shoot foolish boys in the back as they flee.
There is no doubt that the intruders were in the wrong. But it is equally wrong - and rightly condemned - for someone to sit with a loaded gun, remove treads from a flight of stairs, and then shoot that intruder in the back whilst he is fleeing.
To endorse Tony Martin's act is to grant a charter to vigilantism - and to endorse the proposal that "two wrongs make a right".
We must, instead, champion the status quo - to meet like with like; rather than to endorse, in a rather roundabout fashion, the right to shoot anyone who enters our dwelling.
That, fellow delegates, is the first step on the slippery slope to universal gun ownership - and that can lead to massacres like Columbine and a murder rate 4 times per capita greater than in those countries where there is no universal gun ownership.
And that, with respect, would mean that we would all have lost - purely as a result of the acts of a man (Tony Martin) who took his right to self-defence too far.
I therefore urge you all to reject this proposed resolution - and, more importantly, not to endorse it in the first place.
Yours sincerely,
His Holiness Emperor Matt the Shrimp
Emperor of Shrimparum
Overlord of the Isles of Crevette
Provost of the Priory of Parkum
Regional UN Delegate, Shrimper Zone
Before you vote for this proposed resolution - couched, as it is, in the dangerous emotive language of a specific case (which is, I respectfully submit, always the worst basis for the creation of new legislation) - I urge that you consider the following facts of the case.
I also point out that these are FACTS which were ruled upon by a jury of Tony Martin's peers and were proved in a court of law; rather than being the emotive language found in Studium's proposal (which refers, for example, to Tony Martin "protecting his family" - when, in fact, he lives alone).
The facts are as follows:
1. As to the burglar in question, Tony Martin shot him in the back whilst he was fleeing.
2. His act was not the action in extremis of a man under siege. Instead, he waited in his house with a loaded gun, removed steps from his flight of stairs, and shot his quarry - a 16 year old boy - dead in the back whilst that boy was trying to escape.
3. The civil trial brought by the Barras family was a stupid stunt and was rightly dismissed. English law already caters for such eventualities through the maxim of volenti non fit injuria - in other words, if you have put yourself in a particular situation, you cannot then complain if you suffer damage/injury as a result. The Barras claim was merely a self-serving piece of publicity, rather than a claim which any court would have the time of day for.
- - - -
Certainly, in English Law as in many other legal systems, the right to reasonable self-defence exists. The right to meet like with like - to protect oneself against an unarmed intruder by means of a cricket bat, for example - is an inalienable right.
However, this proposal is a charter for people to "shoot first, ask questions later" - a charter for the likes of Tony Martin to stew in their persecution complex, remove treads from flight of stairs and shoot foolish boys in the back as they flee.
There is no doubt that the intruders were in the wrong. But it is equally wrong - and rightly condemned - for someone to sit with a loaded gun, remove treads from a flight of stairs, and then shoot that intruder in the back whilst he is fleeing.
To endorse Tony Martin's act is to grant a charter to vigilantism - and to endorse the proposal that "two wrongs make a right".
We must, instead, champion the status quo - to meet like with like; rather than to endorse, in a rather roundabout fashion, the right to shoot anyone who enters our dwelling.
That, fellow delegates, is the first step on the slippery slope to universal gun ownership - and that can lead to massacres like Columbine and a murder rate 4 times per capita greater than in those countries where there is no universal gun ownership.
And that, with respect, would mean that we would all have lost - purely as a result of the acts of a man (Tony Martin) who took his right to self-defence too far.
I therefore urge you all to reject this proposed resolution - and, more importantly, not to endorse it in the first place.
Yours sincerely,
His Holiness Emperor Matt the Shrimp
Emperor of Shrimparum
Overlord of the Isles of Crevette
Provost of the Priory of Parkum
Regional UN Delegate, Shrimper Zone