UK Unarmed Victim Zone: If The State Fails Us, We Must Defend Ourselves
If The State Fails Us, We Must Defend Ourselves
NOTE: (UK)
By Simon Heffer
(Filed: 24/02/2002)
LAST Monday 82-year-old Violetta Vella was found dead
in a pool of blood in her flat in Finsbury Park, north
London.
She had been attacked in her own home, in broad
daylight, and repeatedly stabbed in the neck. A gang of
youths was seen fleeing from the scene. The estate on
which she lived, Six Acres, is infested with drug addicts
who rob and steal to finance their habit.
Two days after Mrs Vella was murdered, St Albans Crown
Court heard how a wealthy man’s wife was killed and
their teenage son and his girlfriend maimed after being
shot outside their home in suburban Hertfordshire. The
object of the robbery was a pair of Rolex watches.
On that same day a drug addict, Andrew Aston, was given
26 life sentences for murdering two octogenarian war
veterans in their homes and attacking 24 other
pensioners. Aston’s father announced, with commendable
propriety, that he thought his son ought to be hanged.
It was also revealed that, 10 days ago, the head of a
computer firm, his wife and baby son were ambushed in
their home in Twickenham by a gang of eight raiders with
an axe, knives and a baseball bat. We have become
inured to the daily stories of carjackings, and resigned to
the news that street crime in London rose by 39 per cent
last year.
We all know things have become steadily worse since the
1960s. We might, however, be just about to reach that
point where enough is, at last, enough.
To say there is an “epidemic” of violent crime is to push
understatement to its limits. As this week’s incidents
show, it strikes across classes. At the root of it is the
drugs problem.
The crime wave is being compounded by the complacency
of politicians, by the bullying of the police into attitudes of
craven political correctness, and by a creaking criminal
justice system. Now we have reached a situation in which
few can feel safe even in their homes, and this could be
the breaking point.
Most of us had an implicit assumption that there was a
contract between law-abiding people and the state. In
return for our restraint, the state would use the various
means at its disposal to control crime. It would police our
society properly. It would severely punish those who
attacked us.
It must, though, be clear to all that the state has broken
that contract. When it comes to crime, we are no longer
dealing with good, honest criminals. We are dealing with
degenerates who view crime not only as a way of life but
also as a recreation.
They have no regard for the property or even the lives of
others. All of them are wicked. Many have their
wickedness exacerbated by mind-altering chemicals.
Above all, they engage in murderous, anarchic behaviour
because they are confident the police will not catch them
or, if they do, that they are highly unlikely to be condignly
punished for their horrible crimes.
Since the contract has been broken, what should the
public do about it? Ideally, we should persuade our rulers
to enforce policies that deter people from committing such
crimes: but they won’t.
Mr Aston’s repulsive son will not be hanged. Nor will the
murderers of Mrs Vella. Nor will the drug dealers who are
at the root of so much of this evil. Nor will the police be
given the resources to put more men in uniform on the
streets.
Nor, even if they were, would they be encouraged to take
the sort of pre-emptive, aggressive action required
against the perpetrators of so much inner-city crime,
because many such criminals happen to be from those
sections of society dealt with by the Macpherson Report.
The Government absolutely lacks the political will to deal
with the violation of one of the most fundamental liberties
of the people it governs: their right to feel safe in their
own homes.
Given this scandalous situation, it is time for the
Government to confer a new right on the people: the right
to bear arms. Gun control in this country is in any case a
joke. There is far more gun crime now than there was
before the idiotic law passed by the Major government to
ban handguns after the Dunblane massacre.
The police obsessively regulate shotguns and rifles held
by sportsmen who have no intention of killing anyone with
them, while failing utterly to control illegal weapons. In
America, the two states with the highest level of gun
ownership – New Hampshire and Vermont – have the
lowest levels of crime.
One of the most murderous places in the United States,
Washington DC, has the most rigorous gun control in the
Union. For a householder to shoot a burglar in most states
in the US is regarded not so much as permissible as part
of his civic responsibilities.
There is, as a result, very little burglary in America. In
this country, when a man shoots a burglar who is part of
a gang with more than 100 previous convictions between
them, it is he who goes to jail – for life, until Tony Martin’s
sentence was reduced on appeal.
Many of these appalling crimes are committed by junkies,
which might lead some to argue that they would be
insufficiently rational to respond to greater deterrence.
They may well not respond when they are on drugs, but
that is their problem.
In any case, this is not about the criminal, but about
protecting the victims. The point is not to have a
retributive free-for-all, but rather to bring a real threat of
deterrence. The principle of protection could be extended.
While it might be unacceptable for motorists to carry a
gun – even though many criminals routinely do – certainly
a driver stopped by a carjacker or, indeed, a pedestrian
attacked by a mugger, should be able to spray mace in
his face, or use a stun gun on him without fear of
prosecution for having used an illegal weapon.
The present weighting in these crimes of the rights of the
criminal over those of the victim ignores the new realities:
it cannot, in a just society, be allowed to continue.
Ideally, the Government would give the police the
resources and moral backing, and the courts the
draconian powers, to stem these depravities. As it shows
no signs of doing so, it must allow people to defend
themselves.
If that means criminals getting killed or horribly injured,
so be it. As the saying goes, they have a choice: their
victims don’t.
Simon Heffer is a Daily Mail columnist
