Anthracite, will you marry me? 
No “funny stuff” neccessary. But I don’t do windows.
Peace,
mangeorge (Anthracite saved my life)
Only if you give equal time to coochies.
MGibson, I’m not about to kill someone for stealing my shiny new hubcaps. Not even if I lived in Texas. Nor would most Texans, I presume.
Peace,
mangeorge
[[[[[[[" i really can’t think of a good reason to store a gun at home with a round in the chamber. like i said, if you have time to reach for the gun, you should have time to cock it. "]]]]]]] <-- zwaldd
Female family member was raped in her home and in the fight, tried to use a shotgun for defense, she could not use it one handed. A revolver, or a chambered auto would have worked in her situation. Manny times having two hands free to rack an auto is a luxury that is not available.
That is just one case I know. Just trying to show that it can come up. :: shrug ::::
And if my collie were gnawing on his balls he would be in no position to be raping anybody. Don’t get me wrong—I like guns as a hobby. But they have highly limited uses in self-defence. A switchblade would be more useful than a pistol if someone were raping you.
then dropzone is one hard nosed female. Being a male myself, in a fight, I love fools who do not understand what a knife or a dog for that matter, can and can not do. In our society, knives are seen as a not so useful weapon but as something under handed. A lot more training is required to be effective even after all that is needed to get past the built in taboos. Gun training is actually easier and more effective.
Making a rapist mad and not killing him or driving him off is not a good idea. Rape = dead. Period dot. IMO
:::::::: also I would like to apologize for my previous post in so much as my refresh did not work and I thought I was at the end of the thread. I should have known better but… :::::::
The same way you teach your kids to deal with the “I was just minding my own business, and some guy ran over my friend” scenario. Sadly, crap like this happens. There’s nothing you can do about it but a) cope and b) do your best to ensure that your kids aren’t the ones doing the shooting. There is nothing you can do to stop somebody who is determined to commit a crime without trampling on the rights of everybody.
As has been pointed out before, you will save vastly more children by lobbying to outlaw swimming pools, or for better childproof caps on chemicals than by outlawing guns.
This stuff doesn’t happen nearly as often as it seems though. Doesn’t it seem like we just got done hearing about columbine last week? Well, that’s because it’s been turned over and over, and sensationalized for two solid years. And I’m sure we’ll hear about this one for two more. But think about it: That’s what, two or possibly three school shootings in two years. Out of the thousands of high schools, and tens or hundreds of thousands of mid- and elementary schools. That’s a handful of kids who have died out of the millions who have been in school.
It’s terrible, but not the epidemic they make it out to be. How many stabbings have you heard about? I’ve heard about one. And that was a Beatle. But the news shows don’t ferret out knife deaths, because they aren’t as “sexy” as gun deaths.
Well, in my current house, it would be unlikely for me to have to do anything. Two of my older brothers sleep in the room at the top of the stairs, and they possess a small arsenal of weapons in there. One of my brother’s has trained to be a Sheriff (didn’t become one, just got basic training), and is a very good shot. He also keeps a level head in stressful situations. So, if someone were to break into our house, they would likely die for no good reason.
However, if I were in my own house, alone, I would feel secure confronting the intruder. First of all, I know how to move quietly. I am decently trained in martial arts, and know a few ways to disarm someone with a knife. I’m also a decent shot with a hand gun, which I would most likely use for home defense. While I can’t hit a bull’s eye from more than 20 feet away, all I need to do is hit the guy. He would then be disabled to the point that I could take him down with a good kick to the groin or abdomen.
If I were in my own house and I had a family, I would probably end up doing much the same thing. If it was a single story house, I would do my best to get all my kids in a single room with my hypothetical wife, and have them close and lock the door. I would then go seek out the intruder, and do my best to neutralize the threat.
Of course, I would have all the nice gimmicks for home defense, such as an alarm and a really big dog, but nothing is quite reassuring to me like a handgun in my hands.
…Then he would have used a propane bomb and kiled 5 adults and 27 kids.
How do I know that?
…well I don’t, but since we are playing the “Guess the Alternate Future Game” I felt it was important to show other options besides the rosy cheery “Life would be perfect without guns” world.
JerseyDiamond:
Correction: That’s a handful of white kids who have died out of the millions who have been in school. Violence in school is much more common in the inner-city, and much less heavily dwelled upon. There are about 40-50 in-school homicides each year (numbers I’ve heard from a couple of places, please don’t make me look it up); only us white boys make it on CNN.
Now to see if I can reply to the other posts before class starts. . .
Sorry…
Cite please?
Anth:
You’re right, of course. There are so many unpredictable variables in any given situation like this that trying to determine a course of action from a general moral principle is nearly futile (as is, I would assume, taking a couple of minutes to figure out what to do). However, if we posit some level of rational decision making, I don’t see how a moral decision can be to shoot a burglar in the back of the head without warning. That’s all.
ExTank:
Yes. A child who has been raised to handle guns only with extreme caution and respect is much less likely to accidentally hurt himself or others with one. I still wouldn’t trust any six year old I’ve ever met to be in the same vicinity as a firearm (but that’s just me).
Others here have expressed similar concerns, but not once I have implied that an intruder has some “right,” legal or otherwise, to be in your home. I have only argued that you do not have the right to shoot said intruder just for being inside.
tracer:
This, I think, is the crux of the argument (ethically, not legally, speaking). After my (admittedly brief) search, I had only found one site with relevant stats:
http://www.yesic.com/~pilon/securityinfo/stats7.htm
The stats refer only to residential burglary in Dallas in 1993, but I don’t think the numbers would vary greatly elsewhere today. Apparently, “In 13% of break-ins, a burglar encounters someone at home. One-third of those encounters leads to assault and one in ten leads to rape– (Bureau of Justice Statistics).” We can therefore assume that at least two thirds (and probably more) of those who burglarize a home whose occupants are present have no intention of assaulting said occupants. So tell me, are those odds (1 in 3) sufficient to warrant a summary, pre-emptive death sentence? I don’t think so. The odds certainly call for preparing to use extreme force if necessary or doing whatever possible to scare off a burglar, but you can’t just shoot the guy in the back while he’s stuffing your silverware into his pockets.
No one is saying that killing the intruder in this scenario would be as bad as your average cold-blooded murder; if anything screams “mitigating circumstances,” this does. It’s still wrong, though.
– Jer
imho, if you’re a female being raped, you probably shouldn’t grab the shotgun unless you know you can get both hands on it and make absolutely sure you’re in complete control of it. otherwise, you’re likely to be the one that gets shot. i think women have a more legitimate reason to be constantly prepared for a physical attack than men. however, i would recommend pepper spray as a defense over firearms to eliminate the possibility of being overpowered and having the gun turned back on the woman. yes, i know pepper spray won’t fend off all attackers and doesn’t give you that badass ‘i got a gun’ feeling, but you’re also less likely to have a deadly accident or be killed by your own weapon.
Male, who has carried a knife at points in his life. Married to a female who prefers Bic pens (the clear, hard plastic ones) and “Diamond Deb” nail files because nobody could say she was carrying a weapon into the washrooms at her high school (aka: Hostile Territory).
Knife fighting is easy–keep it close to your body so it can’t get kicked out of your hand (in other words, not like in “West Side Story”), point the pointy end away from you, and the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach–the ribs get in the way otherwise. Much easier to aim in a clinch than a gun.
As for dogs, have any of you looked at a collie’s teeth? The lower canines cant outwards to allow the dog to disembowel an opponent while both are on the run. These things were designed to kill wolves, after all. They are quite ept at rolling a running person, too, like they do to stop a running sheep. Or stiffarm a standing person to knock them off balance.
There are so many options that keeping a loaded gun around the house is just nuts. Maybe if you lived out in the middle of nowhere, but most of us don’t.
Well it looks like another impasse
Those who would shoot and those who can’t see things getting bad enough to shoot.
I’ve got to admit I’ve only had one “home invasion”
see above:) Not a particularly bad
experience.Except then she wanted to move in.
Looking around here there isn’t anything I would think someone would break in here to
take. Some have expensive items that could be sold for dope money etc.
Thinking back there have been a couple of instances where I have argued or fought with
some guy where I thought he might excelade the arguement. I will admit to having a
loaded handgun under my mattress more than once.
Living out in the country like we do there are not always cops around and if I had to rely
on the sheriff at night they might be on the other side of the county when I needed them.
My neighbor is a sheriffs deputy in another county and his wife is a sheriffs deputy here.
Darn,I can’t get away with anything.
Given my particular situation I can only think of one instance when I would shoot. To
protect someone in my family from imminent danger.Especially if someone was
attacking my daughter or wife. And to a lesser extent my son. I’ve heard he does a pretty
good job of taking care of himself.
As for myself I try not to get into situations like those years ago. I don’t carry large sums
of money to the bank anymore or have to close up the bar at 2:00 or3:00 AM. Or handle
pissed off drunks,Gee thats why I’m not having any fun anymore.
http://www.pinellas.k12.fl.us/DRUGFREE/stat.htm
“Over a two-year period, 105 school associated violent deaths occurred. Seventy-seven percent of these deaths involved firearms. (“School-Associated Violent Deaths in the United States, 1992-1994,” Journal of the Amaican Medical Association, 1996)”
I assume this includes suicides, however.
http://7-12educators.about.com/education/7-12educators/library/weekly/aa041800a.htm
“Since the 1992-3 school year, 270 violent deaths have occurred at schools across the nation according to The National School Safety Center’s Report on School Associated Violent Deaths. The majority of these deaths, 207, were shooting victims.”
That would be 34-39 deaths per year, depending on whether those numbers include the 1992-3 school year or just the years “since” (it’s poorly worded). As school violence has been going down for the past several years, the numbers I quoted above were probably accurate when I first heard them (and, in any event, are close to enough to be relevant).
http://www.nssc1.org/studies/statistic%20resourcespdf.pdf
(Adobe Acrobat required.)
“School-associated violent deaths decreased 40% from 1998-1999, from 43 down to 26.”
Excepting the aforementioned recent decrease in school violence, I would think that the '98 numbers are somewhat more common for any given year (though, of course, I can’t say that the numbers will go back up). If you want to disprove that assertion, go do the leg-work yourself.
So what do we find? 40-50 school homicides per year is a reasonably good ballpark figure, though the number is small enough to fluctuate wildly from year to year for what may be random reasons.
I love the smell of a hijacked thread in the morning. It smells like . . . victory.
Yep.
Why?
Good job on using emotionally charged words and scenarios to try and modify what you said. For one thing, he is there illegally, and you don’t have time (or inclination, probably) to find out why he’s there. You legally and reasonably make the assumption that an intruder in your home means you harm. For another, that’s NOT what you said. You said:
Why is it a different story? Don’t you owe it to yourself and your rigid moral code to find out WHY he’s creeping towards the kids’ room? Maybe he’s after that silver rattle or your daughter’s playstation2, and intends no harm to them whatsoever. By the way, your last sentence contradicts the one right before it.
So unless you would question THIS intruder, then you are making the same assumption as the rest of us, only drawing the line a little farther inside than the front door. This makes you, sir, a:
No offense.
So you are saying that somebody who intrudes on my home still has some right to safety and security. By saying this, you imply that I am NOT right to defend the integrity of my home, and you are improperly shifting the burden of responsibility to the homeowner and away from the illegal intruder, where it belongs.
Let’s imagine a man called Mickey, whose driver’s license is suspended. Mickey goes out, and gets in a crash. Legally, even if the wreck was technically the fault of the other driver, the primary fault for the wreck is Mickey’s fault. Because he was specifically disallowed from operating a vehicle. It doesn’t matter that the other guy ran a red light, if Mickey had been obeying the law, he would not have been there to get hit in the first place.
In the same way, if Mickey is in my house without my permission, and therefore illegally, he forfeits any claims to security or safety, and is entitled to nothing from me. Including an interrogation or fact-finding mission before I shoot him. If he wishes not to be shot, bludgeoned, killed by my dogs, whatever, then he doesn’t have to be. All he has to do is NOT BREAK INTO MY HOUSE! If, on the other hand, he chooses to violate me, my family, or my home, all his other claims are null and void.
And by the way, I think many of these arguments are silly, because they seem to approve of beating an intruder, turning dogs loose on him, anything as long as it doesn’t involve one of those icky gun thingies.
So a question to all you anti-gun people:
Am I correct in thinking you don’t mind the taking of a human life, as long as it’s not done with a firearm? What’s the difference? He’s not extra-super-more-dead from being shot. Or if the gun in question holds more than ten rounds. Or if it looks like a machine gun. Or even if it IS a machine gun. The kids in Littleton or the ones last week would not have been less dead if they had been killed by pipe bombs. Or crossbows. Or attack dogs. Or rocks. Or pointed sticks. The point is that they were killed by PEOPLE. By twisted human beings with warped or absent senses of right and wrong.
Am I the only one who is more troubled by the fact that this kid in California has no remorse for what he did, than by the tools he used to do it?
1 in 3 is really bad odds. Imagine for a moment that 1 out of every 3 dogs kills people for no reason and with no provocation. You’re out walking, and come across a dog. Are you going to have a question and answer session with it to determine its intention? Or do you assume it’s hostile and act accordingly? Hell, fewer than 1 in 3 drunk driving incidents ever cause ANY sort of damage, let alone death. So should we start treating DWI on a per-case basis? No harm, no foul? I doubt it.
As I said above, if he wants kind treatment from me, he will not enter my house without a) permission, or b) badge AND warrant.
PERIOD.
Joe Cool:
Confronting a burglar is one thing, popping out of my door and shooting him in the head is quite another. When I say “that’s a different story,” I’m not implying that I would shoot him without warning.
Only if you ignore the context of the two sentences. If you must have it spelled out for you: confronting a burglar downstairs as he’s taking your stuff probably increases the likelihood of danger to you and others in the house. A burglar in your kid’s room, however, is probably more dangerous (to the child) than a confrontation outside the room. Since this is all dependent on circumstances, it boils down to this: I would confront the burglar (as opposed to staying in my room with the door locked) if I felt others in the house were in immediate danger that might be lessened by my intervention. It’s a judgement call, feel free to disagree with it. It’s not a contradiction, however.
So I’m a hypocrite because you have the reading comprehension skills of a fifth grader?
Ditto.
- If you want to shout past each other with meaningless platitudes all day, you can scream “Sanctity of the home!” and I’ll shout “Sanctity of human life!”, but it won’t get us anywhere. Just this once, however, I’ll stoop. The intruder has a basic right to life (please do not read this as “safety and security”). His presence in your home is not enough to warrant the revocation of said right.
- No, I’m saying that you do not have a free pass, ethically, to do anything you wish in defense of said “integrity.”
- Just because the intruder is wrong here doesn’t mean the homeowner can’t be wrong too. It’s not “shifting the burden of responsibility” to say that the homeowner has a responsibility to try to avoid executing people who don’t deserve it (of course, if you feel I would deserve to die for stealing the TV from your living room then this point is moot).
Your “Mickey” analogy is flawed because it fails to take into account the intentions of the other motorist (the homeowner). A more accurate depiction of your analogy: A man sees Mickey and knows that he is driving without a license. He decides to shoot Mickey for making the roads a more dangerous place to drive. In this case, Mickey is wrong for driving w/o a license. The man is wrong for killing Mickey. Of course, this isn’t terribly accurate either (the risk “Mickey” poses is not the same as the risk an intruder would, e.g.) – no analogy will be, which is why I would shy away from using them at all in this particular debate.
(As long as we’re nitpicking, your second “sentence” has no verb.) As I’ve said before, I have never suggested a “fact finding mission” or a “game of 20 questions.” All I mean to say is that before you shoot a guy who’s stealing your stuff, the least you can do is point the gun at him and give him a chance to put his hands in the air and freeze.
Dogs aren’t people (remember what I said about metaphors?). I would have no problem killing a rabid dog for being in my living room. That doesn’t mean I would have no problem killing a crazy person for being in my living room.
It’s not a matter of what the intruder “wants.” It’s also not a matter of you having to treat him kindly. All I’m saying is that you don’t have the right to kill him just for being an intruder. If you disagree, please stick to that issue (as opposed to the vileness of the burglar or the requisite level of hospitality you are required to show).
As an aside, perhaps we should refrain from sprinkling our posts with insults. Your post was, at best, rude. For better or worse I’ve responded in kind. Let’s keep it clean from here on out; agreed?