KILLING IN THE NAME OF... HOOVER, SHARP, SONY, PACKARD BELL, PANASONIC, MOTOROLA, ETC. ETC. posted by Richard Seymour

Premeditated mass murder is usually the kind of fun only really rich people can have. Personally, I try to knock off a few pensioners every day by yelling "boo!" as they amble harmlessly by the road. Heart attack or tyre tracks, it's all good clean British fun if you ask me. That said, it turns out that the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" had a sub-clause. It goes roughly like this:

"*Excepting circumstances under which millions of braindead morons will assume you're a hero just defending your property and livelihood."

I recently had a very dispiriting argument with someone whom I otherwise consider intelligent and personable. The cause of the dispute was his defense of Tony Martin, and my... well, just his defense of Tony Martin. I had no idea his philosophy was that flawed. I pointed out, of course, that Tony Martin had not fired in self-defense. The burglars were running in the opposite direction, fleeing.

Martin claims a torch was shone in his eyes, after he had just found a gun, and so he let rip in order to defend life and limb. He said he fired into a downstairs room from the stairs. Forensic tests revealed that in fact at least two of the shots had been fired from downstairs. Now, Martin's legal team might have argued that he fired the FIRST shot from upstairs, then the remaining two shots. However, in so arguing they would also have to explain why he fired a shot, then followed the two burglars downstairs, shooting twice more. This would not seem to be the behaviour of a frightened man fearing for life and limb. So, Martin changed his story and accepted that all shots were fired from downstairs. Did Martin, who had a history of gun ownership and abuse, simply walk downstairs one night, "find" an illegal firearm, receive a flash of torch in the face and then shoot a few times into the unknown? Possibly. Life, as they say, is a rich tapestry.

The prosecution pointed out that Martin did indeed have violent views towards both burglars and the travelling community that Fred Barrass came from. Martin had once recommended "putting gypsies in one of his fields surrounded by barbed wire and machine gunning them". Yes, well, my erstwhile friend argues, he might not go along with that, but he'd certainly have no trouble planting a bullet in any thieving little scumbag that broke into his house. Indeed, Martin believes that "99% of the people" would have reacted in the way that he did. Presumably, Martin was encouraged by opinion polls, which showed on the eve of the Jury's verdict that 85% of the people felt the Jury had reached the wrong conclusion. They having so much more information to hand than the dimwits in the court.

But the truth is, the vast majority of people would simply not behave in this way. I don't say that in order to redeem your Great British public. They talk they talk, and they'd surely love it if they could walk the walk. They love their "proud Englishman in his castle" phantasy, and they won't give it up for the whining liberal elite. I say they wouldn't do this because in order to shoot dead an intruder on your home who is fleeing, you have to be the kind of nutball that Tony Martin apparently is. You have, first of all, to be a dabbler in illegal firearms. It helps to have it butressed by racist views and pathological hatred of the criminal underclass (who, after all, gotta earn a crust as well, inney guv'nor). But you have to know how to use an illegal firearm, have one handy, be willing to kill. It isn't that easy. It isn't like on the Playstation where the evil mob guy takes eighteen nuggets of lead in the belly and crumples to the floor, leaving you standing in glorious victory. You're standing in blood and shame. The worst thing you can do is kill someone. And you killed someone over, what, a VCR? A television? A microwave? The poor bastard's bleeding to death on your lawn and you can proudly snatch the toaster out of his hands and call the police to confess all? Tell the wife, tell the children? Let the neighbours think what they want? Go to court and be tried because you couldn't let someone stay alive and make off with your laptop?

Sure, it's that easy. You just lift up the weapon, place the butt on your shoulder, and fire. Yeah, I can really see your average British goofball standing there like Clint Eastwood. In case this heavy-handed irony isn't piercing that thick armour of self-deception, let me repeat for you armchair Defenders of the Home: THE ONLY KINDS OF PEOPLE WHO COULD ACTUALLY KILL SOMEONE FOR THE CRIME OF BURGLARY ARE NUTBALLS AND GUN ADDICTS. GET OVER IT, YOU THICK-SKULLED FUCKING CIPHERS.

Gary Younge once put it aptly: "hardness of the heart is often in inverse proportion to hardness of the head". Our nation of crime-stoppers have runny-brains and hardened arteries. A very British disease.