# 27 dead, 18 children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 14, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050 "2012-12-14T18:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/641 "2012-12-18T17:36:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You actually think that > > 1. The intruder heard the the sound of you unsnapping the holster and > 2. He identified that sound as the unsnapping of a gun holster, and that’s what scared him off? Of course not. (It never ceases to amaze me the variety of ways people can take things.) But he definitely heard a loud, deliberate noise which told him I had probably heard him and was up and had done _something_, so he bolted. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/642 "2012-12-18T17:38:00Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Actually, you can. > (…) Brilliant. Something I can use in daily life. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/643 "2012-12-18T17:38:49Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Forgot to mention Starving Artist’s “welfare trap” comments. Why do conservatives (including Lloyd Blankfein) donate more to charity if handouts increase dependence? Simple. Most charity is intended as temporary assistance rather than quasi-permanent, multi-generational vote harvesting. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/644 "2012-12-18T17:50:47Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Simple. Most charity is intended as temporary assistance rather than quasi-permanent, multi-generational vote harvesting. You mean like [corporations?](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/10/08/121008ta_talk_surowiecki) > [@](#): > > Yet even as he assails people on Medicaid and Social Security, and those who receive the earned-income tax credit, for being “dependent upon government,” Romney has had strikingly little to say about another prominent group that’s “dependent upon government”: **the many American companies whose profits rely, in one form or another, on government assistance.** ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/645 "2012-12-18T17:51:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Of course not. (It never ceases to amaze me the variety of ways people can take things.) But he definitely heard a loud, deliberate noise which told him I had probably heard him and was up and had done _something_, so he bolted. So I was right-you _didn’t_ need a gun at all. You just needed to make general noise…which should make you the safest person in three counties, I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![Hbns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/646 "2012-12-18T17:52:17Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > What would have been effective in this case? Perhaps personal gun licences and secure storage enforcement, so that family members could not access guns. In this case? Possibly nothing. For my lifetime I don’t expect any changes in firearms regulation or psychological care to have a significant impact on this sort of thing. But we have to start somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/647 "2012-12-18T17:54:31Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > Who knows? I scrolled past it because it was way too long. It was a pretty interesting read. It only took me 2 mins. ---
**Author:** ![Hbns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/648 "2012-12-18T17:55:58Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Apparently the NRA and its allies [have been working overtime in recent years](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/us/felons-finding-it-easy-to-regain-gun-rights.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all&) to get gun rights restored to convicted felons, including those who were convicted and imprisoned for committing violent crimes. That is ridiculous! It should be the rare exception if possible at all. > [@](#): > > Mr. Zettergren, then 36, wasted no time retrieving several guns he had given to a friend for safekeeping. What the hell are lawmakers thinking? If you are a convicted felon and forfeit your right to bear arms, you sure as fuck shouldn’t be able to “give them to a friend”. In the smelter they go. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/649 "2012-12-18T18:09:54Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So I was right-you _didn’t_ need a gun at all. You just needed to make general noise…which should make you the safest person in three counties, I reckon. So you’re suggesting then that all we need to protect ourselves from the average raping/torturing/abducting/adult-and-possibly-whatever-children-are-in-the-house killing murdering intruder is simply to make some kind of _noise_? Somehow that notion leaves me feeling…bereft. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/650 "2012-12-18T18:16:47Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > Who knows? I scrolled past it because it was way too long. I blame your lack of a normal attention span on the queers. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/651 "2012-12-18T18:20:28Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > I blame your lack of a normal attention span on the queers. And welfare mothers ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/652 "2012-12-18T18:24:56Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So you’re suggesting then that all we need to protect ourselves from the average raping/torturing/abducting/adult-and-possibly-whatever-children-are-in-the-house killing murdering intruder is simply to make some kind of _noise_? > > Somehow that notion leaves me feeling…bereft. All I’m suggesting is that your example of [del]gun-wielding[/del]snappy sound bravery serves as a piss-poor example of why guns as necessary for home preotection. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/653 "2012-12-18T18:27:18Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > You mean like [corporations?](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/10/08/121008ta_talk_surowiecki) No, corporations generate and provide a livelihood for their employees and their families in return for labor that provides goods and services to the populace. And if they grow they create even more in the way of livelihood for employees and their families and goods and services for the populace, thus they get certain allowances from the government intended to aid in their growth. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/654 "2012-12-18T18:33:36Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > All I’m suggesting is that your example of [del]gun-wielding[/del]snappy sound bravery serves as a piss-poor example of why guns as necessary for home preotection. I said upthread that had I not had a gun I’d have had little recourse but to lie in bed and quail at the possibilities of what that guy may have wound up doing. My having a gun is what made the entire sequence of events that led to his fleeing possible, and once I had it in hand it was what would have either given me the upper hand or a fighting chance at survival. And how you derive an implication of bravery from my unintentionally loud holster snap is anybody’s guess. I was trying to sneak the gun out of its holster so he wouldn’t know I was up and about to confront him. The damn thing snapped way too loudly and gave me away. No macho snapping intended. Again, I’m constantly amazed at the way people can take the most innocuous things and turn them into something entirely different. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/655 "2012-12-18T18:47:24Z")
Now, with regard to the question of my example serves as an example of why need guns in their home for personal protection, let’s take the fact that from then on I kept my gun readily at hand beneath me under the mattress. Now let’s say I’m a woman and I’m lying in bed sleeping after having spent my day gainfully employed and my evening watching television with my adorable little children who are sleeping the sleep of the innocent in the next room. Whereupon Asshole the Rapist/Murderer succeeds in entering my bedroom, pouncing upon my bed, and then threatens me not to move or he’ll kill me. He then begins raping me. Then, whilst he’s so distracted and I’m in fear for the lives of myself and my children, I reach beneath the edge of the mattress, retrieve my trusty .38 Smith & Wesson revolver with copper-jacketed hollow point bullets, and put a couple of rounds into Asshole’s torso. His fun is over, and my children and I are safe. Now do we have a good example of why guns are necessary for home protection? ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/656 "2012-12-18T18:52:41Z")
That is pure paranoia and conjecture. I never had a gun and I have never had to fend off a rapist/murdering attacker. So what is more likely, having to use the gun or never having to use it and not worrying about being raped and murdered all the time? Besides, I know where my kitchen knives and my husband’s golf clubs are and I will beat to death/stabby stab stab any motherfudger who comes into my home and endangers the lives of my children. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/657 "2012-12-18T19:03:12Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > That is pure paranoia and conjecture. I never had a gun and I have never had to fend off a rapist/murdering attacker. So what is more likely, having to use the gun or never having to use it and not worrying about being raped and murdered all the time? Conjecture I’ll give you. Paranoia? No. What’s the likelihood you or your children will be hurt in an car wreck? But you still use seat belts and car seats if your kids are small enough, right? You use them in case they’re needed, not because you think they will be. And you’d think it ridiculous if someone were to claim you were paranoid about car wreck, right? Same with guns. > [@April\_R](#): > > Besides, I know where my kitchen knives and my husband’s golf clubs are and I will beat to death/stabby stab stab any motherfudger who comes into my home and endangers the lives of my children. Well, I hope for the sake of you and your family it never comes to you having to try this, because the likelihood is even if you don’t panic and freeze where you are, you’d never make it to whatever (and likely ineffective) weapon you’re going for. But you keep whistling in the dark and telling yourself you’ll go all badass on any intruder that ever arrives, and hopefully the law of averages will keep you from having to find out just how inadequate a plan that is. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/658 "2012-12-18T19:05:22Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Now, with regard to the question of my example serves as an example of why need guns in their home for personal protection, let’s take the fact that from then on I kept my gun readily at hand beneath me under the mattress. > > Now let’s say I’m a woman and I’m lying in bed sleeping after having spent my day gainfully employed and my evening watching television with my adorable little children who are sleeping the sleep of the innocent in the next room. Whereupon Asshole the Rapist/Murderer succeeds in entering my bedroom, pouncing upon my bed, and then threatens me not to move or he’ll kill me. He then begins raping me. Then, whilst he’s so distracted and I’m in fear for the lives of myself and my children, I reach beneath the edge of the mattress, retrieve my trusty .38 Smith & Wesson revolver with copper-jacketed hollow point bullets, and put a couple of rounds into Asshole’s torso. > > His fun is over, and my children and I are safe. > > Now do we have a good example of why guns are necessary for home protection? Did you type that with one hand? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/659 "2012-12-18T19:07:12Z")
Why are people questioning guns for home defense? Haven’t you been following the news? There are psychotics out there with guns! It’s the circle of liiife. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/660 "2012-12-18T19:07:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did you type that with one hand? He needed the other to hold his…weapon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050.md?page=34)