In England, burglars didn't merely loot Norfolk farmer Tony Martin's property once. They kept coming back. Finally, he waited with a shotgun and shot the repeat offenders, killing Fred Barras and wounding Barras' accomplice, Brendan Fearon.

In 1999, Martin -- that's right, the burglars' victim -- was convicted of murder, reduced to manslaughter on appeal. He will serve more time than the surviving burglar, who was sentenced to 20 months and long since freed.

Thank goodness that kind of madness hasn't infected these shores.

Or has it? Ronald Dixon, now 31, is a Jamaican immigrant and father of two who served in the U.S. Navy from 1994 to 1997 in "weapons ordnance" and now holds down two computer-related jobs. On Dec. 14, 2002, Dixon caught an intruder rifling through drawers in his son's room in his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Mr. Dixon fired two shots from his 9 mm pistol, wounding the suspected burglar in the chest and groin, The New York Post reported.

The burglar turned out to be a career criminal with a 14-page rap sheet. He'd been arrested 19 times and been convicted of criminal trespass, burglary and attempted assault. Still, authorities charged Mr. Dixon with illegal possession of a firearm when they discovered his legally purchased gun was not registered in New York. (He had tried to register it, without success.) He served time in the same jail as his attacker.

But the last straw for American defenders of the God-given right to self-defense may have been the case of Melvin Spaulding, 71, arrested for attempted murder and held without bail in 2003 after he ran to the defense of a 63-year-old friend and neighbor being beaten by thugs in front of his home in St. Petersburg, Fla. -- shooting one of the assailants.

In the end, charges were dropped and Mr. Spaulding's firearm was returned to him. But Floridians had had enough.

In April 2005, with a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association at his side, Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill making it clear that victims have a right to defend themselves on the street, meeting "force with force" without fear of being prosecuted.

The measure says any person "has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm."

This common-sense bill, restoring a right to self-defense which American used to assume was widely understood, has proved so popular that similar measures have now been approved in 15 states including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and Michigan -- and have been proposed in eight more, including Maryland, Ohio, and Virginia.

Little need has been perceived for such a bill in Nevada, given that our police and prosecutors, to date, have generally shown the common sense to forgo prosecuting crime victims who defend themselves.

Needless to say, the "gunfights after every traffic accident" which were predicted by the gun control advocates have not transpired in any state adopting such "no retreat" measures.

But make no mistake, they continue to fight such legislation. Their latest tactic? Identifying the death of any armed home invader or rapist at the hands of his intended victim as a "murder," they have launched a Web site opposed to these new self-defense laws, dubbed www.licensetomurder.com.

"It's Not a Movie. It's the Law," says the Web site. "The NRA is working to pass a law that makes murder legal in the United States. It's been called the 'Shoot First,' 'Make My Day,' or 'Deadly Force' law, but call it what you want, it's a License to Murder. ... One killer has already been set free, and other criminals and their lawyers are already drooling at the thought of using the NRA's 'Shoot First' law as a legal defense."

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, these are lies. Shooting in self-defense is not "murder."

Opponents of the Florida law said it would make Florida "like the Wild, Wild West" -- the same thing they said in 1987, when Florida enacted a law requiring county sheriffs to issue concealed carry permits to anyone who qualified.

In both cases, they were wrong.

But for some reason, the idea that Americans should be "allowed" to defend themselves against would-be rapists and other dangerous assailants -- a right enshrined in the Second and 14th amendments, though by no means originating there -- allows these people no rest.

They make no bones about it: Rather than see us take responsibility for the defense of our own homes and families, they would prefer that we all (to borrow the title of the excellent book) "Dial 911 and Die."