Hi Steve (lovehamr),
Thank you for the information.
You misunderstood my comment about the Purdy. I did say that it would be my choice for sporting use and not for protection.
I'm very familiar with the Tony Martin case, but the link that you kindly provided gives a somewhat alarmist perspective on the course of events. There was much more to it than someone simply shooting an intruder. Mr Martin had been plagued by crooks, mainly gypsies, breaking into his property and unfortunately, the police failed in their response. However, Mr Martin's mistake was to shoot one of his assailants in the back as they ran away.
Mr Martin actually spent very little time in custody and has been free for some considerable time now.
There has been another case recently of a home owner chasing a burglar down the street with a cricket bat (very British
) and beating seven shades of sh1t out of him when he caught up. He has now been sent to prison for using "undue force".
2½ million cases of firearms being used in self defence is, to me, an alarming figure.
I suspect the "correct" situation is somewhere between the two extremes and I strongly suspect that we will start to see new measures here that allows a victim more freedom to use force to defend themselves and their family and protect their property.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that making guns more readily available though would cause more problems here than it would solve.
Paul