FW: ENGLAND – OVER 50 PERCENT OF BURGLARIES ARE NOW TAKING PLACEWHEN SOMEONE IS HOME!!]
Date: Feb 9, 2005 8:23 PM
The British and the Liberals just don’t get it do they?

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From: Jim Dexter [
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 3:49 PM
To: K-Talk Forum
Cc: Bohemians
Subject: FW: ENGLAND - OVER 50 PERCENT OF BURGLARIES ARE NOW TAKING PLACEWHEN SOMEONE IS HOME!!]

This is exactly why Liberals must be stopped dead in their gun-grabbing tracks.
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“In America, where householders have an unqualified right of self-
defence, only 12 per cent of burglaries take place while the owners
are at home. In this country, the figure is well over 50 per cent, and
as the horrible case of John Monckton shows, intruders are now
deliberately choosing times when they know they will encounter someone
who can be induced to allow entry into a home that is sufficiently
secure to prevent an easy break-in.”

ENGLAND
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/05/do0501.xml

The apocalypse is here, in our homes

Dominic Lawson
(Filed: 05/12/2004)

Remember Robert Symonds? It is the name of the 45-year-old Putney
teacher who six weeks ago was stabbed to death in the hall of his home
by a burglar. His body was found by his wife while their two children
slept upstairs.

It was as a result of that incident that this newspaper launched our
“right to fight back” campaign, which calls for the public to be given
an unqualified right to self defence against intruders in their own
homes. The point that struck me so forcibly at the time was not just
the horror of Mr Symonds’s death, but the fact that had Mr Symonds
picked up a kitchen knife before encountering the burglar, and managed
to get blows in first, then he would now, as the law stands, be facing
a murder trial.

The defenders of the status quo argue that a jury might acquit, on
grounds that such self-defence was “reasonable force”. We argue that
such cases should never even be considered as crimes in the first
place.

While the public has backed our campaign – one admittedly unscientific
poll conducted by BBC Radio2 suggested that 97 per cent were behind us -
the Government, led by “tough on crime” Tony Blair, has been
depressingly reluctant to seize the initiative. At a lunch the other
day a very senior member of the Civil Service said to me: “Your
campaign will never succeed. It goes against the entire administrative
culture in this country.” Well, he’s probably right about that. But
yesterday the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and today the
Conservative Party, have declared their support for the principle
underpinning our campaign.

This is all by way of a preamble to the fact that at 7.30 last Monday
evening, my wife’s cousin, John Monckton, was stabbed to death by
burglars who had used a preconceived and simple act of deception to
enter his well- protected Chelsea home. They also attempted to murder
his wife, Homeyra, who, while still in a very serious condition, would
certainly now be dead, had it not been for their nine-year-old
daughter’s discovery of the scene and extraordinary calmness in
calling the police.

I have to say that even if the law had been changed in the manner that
we propose, it would have been very out of character for John to have
taken advantage of it to use force against an intruder. He was the
most peaceful and gentle of men. But that is not the point. The issue
is one of deterrence.

In America, where householders have an unqualified right of self-
defence, only 12 per cent of burglaries take place while the owners
are at home. In this country, the figure is well over 50 per cent, and
as the horrible case of John Monckton shows, intruders are now
deliberately choosing times when they know they will encounter someone
who can be induced to allow entry into a home that is sufficiently
secure to prevent an easy break-in.

When I debated this issue with the eminent lawyer Lord (Andrew)
Phillips on the Jeremy Vine radio show, he argued that while the
number of burglaries would drop if there were an unqualified right of
self-defence “the number of injuries to householders will vastly
increase because the burglars will get their retaliation in first…
It is an iron rule, criminals are more violent than victims.”

As I pointed out to Lord Phillips at the time, we are not arguing that
homeowners should be compelled to confront intruders. They can, if
they wish, listen to the advice of Her Majesty’s Constabulary, which
is to lock themselves in their bathroom and wait for the police to
arrive.

Two other points occurred to me later. The first is that we should not
let our behaviour be conditioned and controlled by what thugs might
think or desire. The second is that Lord Phillips’s argument reminds
me of the former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, who maintained an
arms embargo against the persecuted Muslims of Bosnia on the grounds
that to let them fight against their heavily-armed Serb oppressors
would lead to “a level killing field”. That well-intentioned but
morally obtuse policy led directly to the first massacres seen on the
continent of Europe since it was occupied by the Nazis.

It would, of course, be better not to have to talk in such apocalyptic
metaphors. But the doubling in recorded violent crime over the past
eight years is a domestic apocalypse now. Of course there are measures
that should be carried out which do not require the public to “take
the matter into their own hands”. In urban areas, it would help to see
the police out in force. In Central London, for example, there is
scarcely a street corner which is not being patrolled by traffic
wardens. Is it too much to expect the same from the Metropolitan
Police?

It was exactly such a policy that dramatically reduced violent crime
in New York under Mayor Giuliani. He also introduced a tough
sentencing policy. In this country the average sentence given to
burglars by our magistrates – that is, the tiny minority who are
detected, charged and given a prison sentence – is 3.8 months. Even
the average sentence given to those convicted of aggravated (ie
violent) burglary is little more than four years. Halve that for “good
behaviour”.

I am quite prepared to believe the prison reformers that a long
custodial sentence does not reform a person’s character. The point is
that the longer such characters are off our streets the safer we all
are. Of course, even if the police were more active on the streets,
and even if we had a more rigorous sentencing policy, there will still
be violent burglaries, thousands of them. And at that time, no police
force on earth can protect us. That is when we have, in my view, a
natural right to unqualified self- defence, regardless of the law of
the land.

After John’s murder my mind was filled with violent thoughts. I
imagined his killers strung up on gibbets in Trafalgar Square, being
pecked at by the pigeons. Then I received a letter from his friend and
fellow Catholic, Lord Grantley, who said: “John would have wanted us
to pray not only for his family, but also for his murderers, that they
should repent, for otherwise they would perish, a fate he would not
have wished on anyone.”

For those of us of a less spiritual cast of mind, the earthly fate we
would not wish on anyone is John Monckton’s own. This is time, not
just for prayers, but for action.