I thought the name “prison kittens” was designed to make them all cute and cuddly and lovable. Am I missing something here ? 
By being criminals they renounce the social contract. For a contract to be worth anything, both parties must adhere to it. When one party fails to abide by the terms of the contract, the other has no incentive or reason to do so. The contract is broken.
BTW, since you’re showing up here in this gun thread, I trust you’ve brought with you the cites to back up your earlier claims about the numbers and uses of handguns in colonial America.
A general advisory, which is probably standard for every travel guide out there, does not mean the victim of the crime will or should be blamed. Anyone who would make a comment like “he deserved it because he was flashing his money around” is just a big talker and would be singing a different tune if it happend to him.
Yes, a smart individual knows there are risks associated with life and should do his/her best to assess and minimize those risks. But, if some punk steals your wallet there is only one person to blame.
You have a better chance of successfully shuffling cards with your buttcheeks than getting gonzomax to produce valid cites for his wild claims.
You live here, why wouldn’t you already have the minimum of those things, ie. an alarm?
If after taking the minimum of the security precautions above someone still tries to enter your property, you are then entitled to defend yourself by any means neccessary. Leave your window open and catch someone in there, and you should really be thanking him for exposing your bad habits. He could have been an exiled Belgian clown doing a night shift.
Well, since you ask, I live in an apartment complex, and don’t believe they’d let me make that kind of modification to the place. Though I admit I’ve never asked. (And with it’s damned big pane-glass sliding back door that they won’t let me obstruct, I don’t know that it would matter much.)
So, you don’t actually have a problem with people gunning down invaders, then. It eludes me why you’re arguing against the people holding that position.
They are less-fully-human than the person who chooses not to do violence to his fellow man and to his own soul by violating what all of Western culture has recognized as a fundamental taboo – what’s mine is mine, and what’s thine is thine. Seriously, property rights are not some tacky little mercenary footnote to fundamental human rights – they ARE a fundamental human right, and a pre-condition of a functioning society. The only people who ever denied they were are either still living in caves, or have hands stained with the blood of communist murder.
This is not just because I love “things, glorious things.” It’s because defining who gets what assets in society is one of the most basic forms of social ordering. It’s because centuries of caveman existence taught us that giving the bronto leg to the shiftiest Cro-Magnon with the nimblest fingers risked starvation and privation for the guy who had the initiative to actually hunt down the bronto.
Life, liberty, and property are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Thou shalt not steal is pretty old school. This is fundamental respect-for-human-rights stuff; I’m surprised by all the glib dismissals of “your $100 DVD player” or “a few squid from the till.”
I hope, but actually have no hope, that this is not an attempt by you to imply that police auctions are just another fiddle by which the (presumptively corrupt) police enrich themselves on the labors of the (presumptively just-having-a-laff) criminals. No, policemen certainly may not bid on police auctions. These are universally required to be widely and publicly advertised. Even if some corrupt cop tried to get his mates to bid, the joke would be on them – due to the herd mentality that prevails at most auctions, vehicles often if not usually sell for more than they would in a private sale. (I know because I tried a few times as a kid to buy bikes at police auctions – no bargains were to be had).
As already mentioned, the US has a substantially lower rate of burglaries of occupied dwellings than does the UK. Our felons admit they worry more about meeting an armed citizen than a cop. I think this points toward any US criminal who enters an occupied dwelling being more likely to be dangerous than in the UK. If our own felons acknowledge the danger and tend to avoid occupied dwellings, then one who does break in while you are there is either really stupid, or high, or has more in mind than taking your VCR. I don’t think we have any reason to assume such an intruder is just a thrill-seeking kid or casual thief at all.
Here you go:
Exactly. So when I hear an invader in my house late at night, I’m pretty sure right away he isn’t a run-of-the-mill thief who’s just there to steal the first couple valuable items he sees. Our casual thieves generally avoid occupied dwellings specifically because they don’t want to get shot. Ivan claims it is different in the UK. Maybe it is. I do know what the research in our country indicates and what the criminals I’ve encountered were like.
You just provided the most insane, absolutely preposterous backing for an idea I’ve ever seen.
“The USA has more shootings in public places than any other Industrialized nation, so you should get an alarm system in private.”
What… the… fuck?
I’m just pointing out that if it is that dangerous in your schools, and bearing in mind the rampant paranoia about killer clowns, protecting your homes to the max might seem like a good idea.
edit: Nevermind, Cuckoorex said it way better than I ever could.
Also, since there are so many traffic accidents, we should put seat belts on our recliners.
In a non-military context:
How many times have you been shot? How many times have you been shot at? How many times have you even been threatened with a gun? How many people that you personally know well have been shot? Shot at? Threatened with a gun? How many times have you shot somebody? Shot at somebody? Threatened somebody with a gun?
Upthread, you admitted that you had no background whatsoever to give you any expertise in telling everybody else in the thread how they should be defending their homes. Now you’re back with this. Tell me what background and experience you have that make your assessments something to which I should pay any attention at all.
It’s improper to quote something in full, but Redwing has managed to frame both sides of the debate exquisitely. I believe defending my rights are worth my own life. I have little relative issue with the concept that defending my rights are worth other people’s lives. The principle is what is important.
Why do people believe the sanctity of life is more important than the right of the individual to life, liberty, and property? Yes, I understand that people say that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. But that is because the competent do not use it as a refuge, rather as one of many possible strategies, as necessary.
I believe I have the responsibility, as a citizen, to take due care, but beyond that, I have the responsibility not to allow the behavior of criminals to alter my life.
If I encounter one, I should deal with it as seems most appropriate. If it winds up that lethal force is needed, why should I be concerned? Certainly, they are fellow human beings, but the need to kill a fellow man is something long noted in society, from war to execution.
I will never pay Danegeld.
(I should note that I came to this position after 9/11, and I view terrorists as criminals of the largest sort.)
Was it Justice Scalia who wrote that this follows if you don’t believe in any sort of God or afterlife? That if physical existence in this world is all there is, then killing someone- annihilating them- is the wrongest thing that can ever happen?
That, and the notion held by the deeply spiritual, that all living things are God’s children and that to do violence is ultimately to do violence to one’s self. To truly understand and believe this requires the grace or enlightenment of near-Buddhahood, on a level virtually incompatible with continued existence in this world. The problem is when this concept is cheaply preached in a facile, watered-down version suitable for liberal pacifism.
Add in the notion that crime and violence are the result of poverty and emotional scarring, and… :smack:
Or if you really want to get paranoid, that the would-be philosopher kings of this world want their sheep to be nice and docile.
Although if you lose a wrongful death suit, you may have to pay weregeld. 
Sheesss… I’m not going to take the battery out of my car or put bars on my windows. This is just getting silly.
Simple fact is that if I feel threatened, and I have the means to stop that threat I will.
Bingo. If it also means a BANGO so be it.
I’ve put my self in BIG harms way, unprotected to protect my dogs from other dogs. It was instinctive. I quite sure that I would do the same for my Wife or any other that was under threat of harm. I can’t imagine how protective a parent would be.
Remember. Threat of harm.
Una’s right, of course.
Don’t ask me how I know.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s not always feasible. Some people live in apartments and can’t reinforce their homes against criminals. Some don’t have the money to do such things, and some feel that it’s not necessary. Nor should it be. It is not my job to spend my money, my time, and my resources on securing my home more than what one would reasonably expect. What is my duty is to defend my life if I feel threatened, and you can bet I’m going to feel threatened when someone illegally breaks into my residence in the middle of the night.
My residence is mine. No one else, other than whom I invite in, should be there barring any extreme circumstances some anti-gun-nut wants to fantasize about. If I wake up in the middle of the night and someone is inside my residence, I’m not going to rationalize and assume the intruder is only here for a TV.
Another problem I think is the difference in countries. In the US, depending on what study you look at, anywhere between 30-49% of households have a firearm. The criminals know this, and studies from prisons have shown that criminals are more concerned about a run-in with an armed homeowner than a police officer. They know there’s a chance the homeowner has a gun when they break into occupied homes, which is why it happens a lot less here. US criminals tend to go for unoccupied homes or cars more so than breaking into a home. When someone does break into an occupied home in the US then, it’s either a ballsy (or stupid, or high) criminal or someone that has more nefarious intentions (gruesome rape/murder perhaps?).
There’s a reason the Castle Doctrine exists in many states of the US – most people feel their home is their “castle” and they have a right to defend it. Even if it means taking an intruder’s life, so be it. Perhaps the intruder should have asked him/herself if their life was worth it before breaking into someone’s house?
If I ever had to use deadly force on someone who was illegally in my residence, I might feel unfortunate but I would not feel sad or guilty. And that’s a big if. I’ll die a happy man if I never have to use/pull my firearm in order to defend my life. I think a lot of the apparently anti-gun people have this incorrect notion that gun owners such as myself have itchy trigger fingers and want this situation to happen. Of course that’s not true. No one ever wants to go through a traumatizing situation as waking up in the middle of the night and discovering an intruder. I’m arguing on the principle of the matter and in my eyes, it’s extraordinarily simple: if you don’t want the possibility of being shot and killed, don’t break into other people’s places!