If George had a gun to hand his excuse would have to be that he was cleaning it or practicing mounting it or some such; from the report it sounds like the criminals were watching him through the windows; you would have thought they would wait till the gun was away. As much as everyone seems to imagine themselves as some kind of james bond with a gun behind every picture frame, the reality is when three guys jump through your french windows while you are eating your dinner on the sofa they have the upper hand as they have you completely off guard they probably beat him before he was even aware of what happened.

In two relatively recent cases criminals have been shot at in the UK by legal gun owners and the judge has ruled in the favor of the victim ( this is not always the case )

In one case i recall a burglar was shot with a shotgun and the judge commented that if you break into a gun owners house; expect to get shot ( not word for word quote but it was something like ) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/c...-break-ins.html

This farmer got around the storage issue by not legally owning the gun - court rules in his favor.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-127513/Farmer-shot-intruder-walks-free.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3954033.stm



In another case a man was threatening to break in to someones house where a man, woman and young child were, the man shot the intruder with an air rifle - judge commented that the man genuinely feared for the safety of his wife and child and was acting for their protection. http://metro.co.uk/2011/02/17/man-praised-by-judge-for-firing-air-rifle-at-burglar-639667/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...amily-home.html

So its not like we would be instantly banged up *IF a firearm was used for self defense it depends on how a court interprets the situation, and in the cold light of day that may be very different to how you thought in the heat of the moment. The problem with firearms for self defense in this country have several problems.

We have to keep them locked in a cabinet - So nine times out of ten they are not going to be to hand.

The heat of the moment, you might make rash decisions with serious consequences; In the US you might think if someone breaks in they deserve to be shot; in the UK we would have to prove that our actions were "proportionate".

Gun owners culturally do not think of their guns as for self defense; they think of them as sporting equipment.