00:00On a February night in 1992, four men, known terrorists, armed with semi-automatic weapons
00:08and a Dushka machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds a minute at a range of 1,100 yards,
00:14had already attacked an IUC police station and were planning further attacks.
00:20These terrorists called themselves an army, they carried weapons of war,
00:26they sought to kill, and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law.
00:30And yet, we are being asked to believe that the use of lethal force was not justified upon them.
00:37Mr Speaker, I am not a lawyer, but if this is the state of the law,
00:40then the law is an ass and it is up to Parliament to change it.
00:44What if this had not been on the streets of Tyrone?
00:47What if it had been on the streets of Birmingham?
00:50What if it had been in Parliament Square?
00:52Would we be asking why those men had not been arrested?
00:55Would we find it acceptable that the courts subsequently sought to punish those forces
01:00that had risked their lives for ours?
01:02The consequences of this ruling are potentially very severe.
01:05Military morale weakened, military recruitment reduced,
01:09military effectiveness diminished,
01:12more retired servicemen in their declining years dragged before the courts
01:15for trying to protect their countrymen from terrorists.
01:18And Mr Speaker, for the record, no MOD minister on the bench today to hear this.
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