This is another When Prophecy Fails example.
Joyce Lee Malcom is a history professor and has been beating up on the British about their weapons control laws for a long time now. She wacked them pretty hard again yesterday about people getting prosecuted for defending themselves. The following is just the start.
There is an old Navajo saying,
“If you find you are riding a dead horse, dismount”.
But public outrage over the prosecution of householders who injure burglars and one of the highest levels of violent crime of any industrial country, don’t seem to have convinced Tony Blair’s “tough on crime” government to switch horses. They find dismounting unnecessary and risky; the horse is fine, the spectators are over-reacting. All that is needed is a slight shifting of the saddle bags, clearer signals to the horse, a check-up by its chief veterinarian, and the public will find they were mistaken. Unfortunately, this blinkered approach will not bring the horse back to life, or, more importantly, protect law-abiding people.