11/13: Destroying Pakistani firearms

Pakistani authorities in Lahore use a bulldozer on Oct. 27 to destroy illegal firearms, some of which were handed in during a recent amnesty and others that were recovered during police searches. Security has been beefed up throughout the country, following violent demonstrations by Taliban supporters who condemn Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his backing of U.S. military action in Afghanistan.

Musharraf was on Meet The Press last weekend, looking very impressive. For those who want to abide by the idea that we should not go after bin Laden without proof he's responsible for 9/11, Musharraf said that he's seen the proof, and he's the guy who would have been shown it - in order to get his OK to use his country's land as a launching pad.

Although this guy is a military dictator, he seems like he knows what he's doing, has his act together, etc. Although you never know.

What a striking image. I'd like to see the "after" shot of flat guns though.

MAN!

I was gonna post this one too. Pretty cool how often you and I think images are worthy of IotD. Hehe. But I guess that's why I stuck around here - 'cause of all the cool IotD's.

On a side note, Musharraf has definitely got his shit together. Of course he's looking for help from the US, but he definitely has reason to. And we have reason to look for his help. It's definitely a relationship of convenience right now, but it might turn into much more. Never know.

I saw news video of people playing music in the streets and men getting their beards shaved. The people were in a state of TOTAL JOY.

But it would not surprise me if the womenfolk still felk a little uncertain about the new glasnost, and didn't come out right away.

Here's a nice picture drawn by an 8-year old Afghan child.





From the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan's web page. (be warned: it's pretty disturbing stuff)

It's no wonder they're happy now.

RAWA has my utmost respect and admiration for their heroic defense of human rights. This image drawn by a lucky little girl with brave parents risking all to get her schooling - to say nothing of emotional help. Amazing.

The Northern Alliance...

...may be better than the Taliban (ain't saying much), but they are still Muslims and they still believe in Islamic law. I wouldn't be surprised to see women STILL required to cover up (though perhaps not with that thing that even covers their eyes) once they've solidified their hold on power.

true dat, russotto. i been thinking about that. and i think what would probably be best would be a mini-US. like they gots over there in japan. freedoms, of course - not destroying culture. but i don't know that it can be done without destroying some culture. i dunno. it's tough to say. the thing is, do we even have the right to help them out? where does one draw the line? i dunno. surely we don't want to get into "nation building", but where does "helping them out" stop and "nation building" begin?

I'll vote for basic human rights over traditional cultural practice any day.

The tricky part comes in when there is a dispute over what is a basic human right. Somewhere in my big ole cookie file there is a quote from a mayor, who says that cable is a basic human right in his town, because there is bad reception in certain areas.

Cable TV, Okay. But I should hope it's only basic cable he's talking about - no HBO. You gotta draw the line somewhere.

The sad part is I'd bet on a bigger protests for excessive cable fees than we'd ever see for these unaccountable courts they are setting up.

What constitutes a basic human right?

To me, and I expect most of you, the right to wear what you want seems like an easy answer. However it's easy to go to far with that. I work with a guy that finds most of Brittney Spears outfits offensive. I certainly don't, but I might find it disturbing if someones great-grandma or a guy was wearing the exact same thing.

My point is that everyone has a different interpretation. More, I don't think anyone is right. This is all opinion. What is a basic human right is no more determinable than what the best color is.

This being said coming from a democratic republic (the US) I tend towards the majority rules idea. Point is, none of us has a right to say what they should become. It's up to them. Yes, I realize they are woefully ill equiped to do much of anything too. We can offer advice and aid but that's really as far as I think our rights go.

You can read the UN's Declaration of Human rights at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Although many dismiss the views the UN as just, again, the US- they have been wrestling with the question for over 50 years,crafting articles seeking a universal definition.

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

As Griff points out, the newly sanctioned US military courts need to be addressed here too- it all goes fuzzy and out of focus in the name of war.

Read it, and as a [bonehead] small-l libertarian I would have to say that the US itself doesn't adhere to all that stuff. And we have no excuse; we came up with a lot of those ideas. A declaration based on natural rights that starts by declaring all equal before the law... seems mighty familiar.

The problem with declarations upon high is that societies will pretty much do what they want to do anyway. The pressure for people to behave according to their society, as opposed to their laws, is tremendous. This would be doubly true in cases where the law comes from some distant authority. At its best, the law is a set of guidelines and a gentle nudging. The best enforcement is the neighbor, the family member, the civic association and the church. If none of those believe in the declaration on high, the society will not change.

Wel that is the problem: Who si going to enforce these measures. THe UN? Is powerless in msot places, and ot my knowlegde has never waded in anywhere*purely* to stop an international law being broeken becuase in the end, they are not binding.
Until you have some kind of *real* world goverment international sutff liek this is pretty pointless, Australia is as bad.

past tense Charlie

.......................................................................................................................................................................................O, so if everyone carrys a gun we're safe?
Either that or you're gonna spend allota time doging ricochetes every time someone gets tapped on the should while in a bad mood.

I'm ell aware of the emotional manipulation element of the pic - its the message =)

I spent a month in cambodia, *everyone* has a gun, mostly assult rifle type things, net result: Allot of people, animals etc got shot. I psoe its a bit liek MAd theory - if everyone is equally armed noone is going to shoot for fear of being shot. Guns aren't nukes tho. Ordinary carrying Beretta 92Fs in underarm holsters ain't gonna do much good, even in somehting like a bank robbery the msot liekly net result is that they are mosre likely to get shot unless they've done cop training or the like.

And how anyone can defend o jsutify ordinary people being able to purchase chainguns, heavy assult rifles etc is well beyond me..
*odd image of farmer in chopper taking out predatory with 30mm chaingun*

I just read the UN rights list. Now I'm no lawyer but off-hand I'd descibe that text as loop-hole filled. Alot of indefinates. Oh well, I guess I should claim that backs up my point... Oddly, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I honestly believe in the "live and let die" approach. Sounds harsh but maybe deep down inside I'm a hard core Darwinist.

Blast, I just got an email saying there's another post on this thread. Better read it before getting into the gun part...

ya know, I guess this is off-topic, but I can't turn that e-mail feature off! I try turning it off in my preferences and hitting 'save prefs', but the resulting page never loads. Any ideas, undertoad?

Okie-doke. First off I forgot to thank Warch for the UN link. It was very thought-provoking.

On the gun issue, first off my stance: I'm a martial artist this more or less demands the belief one should stand up for one's self. If you need a firearm to do this then get a license Once you've done that, more power to you. I believe that our constitutional right to own a gun should be upheld. Even so, I don't own one. Nor do I expect to anytime soon. Why? Let me give three quick stories for consideration.

I'm actually training a guy with a concealed handgun license. He figures that he has to have enough time to draw the gun, and most attackers don't intend to make themselves known untill the attack itself begins. This means the would-be victim has to make the time, so he trains to fight as well.

I lived in Dallas for a while, while there a co-worker that was an ex-con told me that a trend had begun in the bad area's of town. It seems that when a car-thief saw a vehicle he knew he could sell for parts (ever heard of a chop-shop) the thief would step up to the car and shoot the driver, without speaking or calling any attention before the shot was fired. This was done just in case the driver had a gun.

I heard this story about a rape recently from someone who knew the victim personaly. She was a Tae-Kwan-Do black belt (fourth or fifth dan, I don't remember which) and was well versed in self defense techniques. She was unlocking her car door in an parking garage and didn't see the guy. Her head was driven directly into the door frame of her car before she was aware of him. This left her barely awake with a major concussion. She was then pushed directly through her own cars driver side window. This all happened in maybe a couple of seconds. The initial attack effectively immobilized her and no one in that condition could have done anything (she couldn't raise her arm, much less draw a weapon) at that point. Then the real attack began... I know an instructor that works with victim's of violent crimes often and he says stories like this one are far too common.

My point? Don't think a gun will make you safe. It just means the other guy will come at you that much harder.

Juju, I've made the change for you, let's see if it "takes" this time. The option in question is "Use email notification by default".

Wierd shit? Not really, most areas in ities are as bad as bad areas of american cities, same diff.

Whit did a betterpoint of illistrating the point - it jsut raises the stakes. Carrying/owning of and semi/auto weapons here is illegal, so noone can legally carry round a firearm, heck even carrying knifes is illegal. I know as a fact that there are *very*few illegal weapons in melbourne and thsoe thatare held are held bepeople who are not stupid enough to use them willy-nilly, in other words they are pros, the kindof people who you'dahve to piss off before you'd find lead in your neck. Net result - low number of shootings.

I'm sure when that was written they wern't capable of carrying a weapon with a clip of 15 at a +5ps rate of fire. Heck you could carrying something like an MP5K PD under you're jacket without it being visible.

I'd like to say that I do agree with the idea that guns add a measure to one's self defense capability. I simply don't think most of the people that carry guns fully recognize the limitations. They definately are an effective threat.

I've done some minor training (mostly target shooting and such) as part of my martial art training and have been amazed at the accuracy of a quality handgun. A friend of mine and I went out with a few of his, particulary this nice little Glock made model, no I don't remember the specifics. Having only fired a handgun once before I could hit a 1 gallon paint can at just under fifty yards the majority of the time. That's some spooky offensive capability.

I would like to point out that in the second story the ante was only uped because the criminals expected people to have guns. For that matter I expect that since most rape's are commited by someone that knows the victim that the attacker probably approached that way because he knew of her training. Same thing different situation. This does not mean that I'm against the use of guns by well trained indivduals or that martial arts don't work. It simply means that the danger a person faces may be greater because of the defenses. If I was to anger someone that knows me they are far more likely to use a gun on me than a person with no training. Just as a shoot first policy is far more likely in gun rich enviroment.

Oh yeah, hey Jag if it makes you feel any better I know a alot of Americans that are pissed about all the 'Anti-terroist laws'. Hopefully enough of us will make it clear that this neo-Macarthyism crap won't fly to make a difference.

To all US citicens, please write your reps, make it clear they've lost your vote if this keeps up. Even if it's an idle threat tell them they better change or they're out. Please! It needs to be done.

So it starts at home. Stand down. I dont own a gun.

I have been attacked. And afterwards I thought about it and decided. If in that situation again, I will think, react, resist, do my best, survive if I'm meant to. I'm no Rambo, no Annie Oaklie. I know that I'm not suited to that particular power. I continue to look for my strength and comfort elsewhere. Thats just me. Perhaps hard for some to understand, but I sleep better at night.

(Watch, I'll survive gun-play at McDonalds just to be hit by a bus, c'est la guerre.)

It stands to reason. But in government, what's that worth?

~Mike

MAggie, my arguement was about availability.......ITs not easy to get a hot handgun here, in fact its very, very hard and would cost you alot of money ($20k for a beretta rounghly) meaning less are around than if they were availiable in every gun store on a 30day purchasing time.

Yes but you or someone like you COULD, and has extremely access to the firearms to do it.

That figure...is entirely accurate, i'm not going into where it comes from at all but it is an actual quote, as i've stated before, firearms offenses are taken very seriosuly here when high power/illegal arms are involved, its insurance money as much as anyhting else because if you go down wiht an illegal weapon and it gets traced back bad things happen - to you and them.

There is a market here, its handeled by a number of differnet...intersts mostly drug-affiliated because they already have the mechanisms to get things into the country, often by silent dumps along the top coast, so much terriroty that to watch every 50-person high speed speedboat who drops off a couple of crates and goes back is completley impossible. *I* have not, i know who have - its not bullshit.

For record that was a beretta Cougar L and 200ish rounds.

uh...

hey, i got a water pistol... 1/4 as functional as a beretta, 1/20th the price!

just $1,000!

add a Super Bass-O-Matic '76 for only $500 more! mmm, now that's some good bass!

yes, but this is australia. understand that they're more likely to catch someone importing a gun because they're so much better than us at everything they do

Well, I have comments for both sides of the argument here. First, 20,000 dollars is a ridiculous price for a pistol. You'd pay half that for an Arctic Warfare Super Magnum Sniper Rifle for instance, and those things have an effective range of over a mile. It'd have to be one impressive pistol to match that.

On the other hand, the argument that gun owners are a responsible bunch is too broad a statement for me to accept until I see figures for the number of lives saved by a gun in America stacked up against those lawlessly taken by a gun.

On the other hand:

"I'm sure you (or someone *like* you) COULD do all sorts of incredibly evil things too. Do you have access to a baseball bat?"

So why don't gun owners keep baseball bats instead? And no, I don't consider that (my afore mentioned point, not yours) as stupid as it initially seems.

I'm sure you (or someone *like* you) COULD do all sorts of incredibly evil things too. Do you have access to a baseball bat?

The fact is that licenced firearms owners in the US are a very law-abiding group, more so than the general population.

I'm sure you realise you can do allot more damage very quickly with an AK47 in a shopping mall than a baseball bat.

As for going rates i'm screwed for this because i'm not exactly about to start giving out names and phne numbers so you can check am i, although 20k is the highest i've heard. 4ish the lowest. It depends allot on what it is and where it comes from.

YOur average customs XRAY eqipment is quite capable of seeing the gun hape, or at least ammunition.

This is really simple to solve.

Jag - back it up.

Simple as that.

Get some facts and back up your assertions. Or try and reason them out better.

Remember: criminals will *always* have guns. Period. Do you want your police chasing after them with butterknives?

Whit just eliminated your primer problem.

     Sorry, I didn't mean to down play what's done. It's not an easy job. But my friend is a machinist and he recently went off on an hour long speech about what their new CAM/CAD can do and how much easier his job is.

First of all, dham either post somehting useful or shut the fuck up, the whining "yea - do as shes says "is just...belh

Here's something useful for ya, jaggie.

I don't feel safe because people with malicious intent generally have the advantage. They are planning an attack - you are not planning on being attacked. However, if you increase your firepower, you are more likely to find yourself in a winning position. Your odds of survival are greater.

That is why many law-abiding citizens of this country feel it necessary to have firearms and, yes, carry them.

More police won't solve the problem. Un-arming the criminals is a laughable notion and if you were actually proposing that as a solution (I'm not sure that you were - I'm just saying, *if* you were), then you're missing a bigger picture that a couple of people have been trying to point out. Criminals will always have weapons - they don't care what the law is. If they did, they wouldn't be criminals.

The fact of the matter is this: If all the persons aboard the flights that hit the WTC and the Pentagon had been armed (yes, EVEN the terrorists), the likelihood of them continuing on to their targets is pretty fucking slim. I challenge you to argue it the other way around.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
--- Prof

ChuckyG brings up another good point: The people of the United States are given the right to replace their government if necessary. If the government were to ever become so corrupt that it needed to be ousted, we probably couldn't do it with sticks and stones. We need weapons to keep the government in check.

Actually, I meant that with high velocity air rifles the builders job should be even easier.

I don't know if anyone else has taken note of this but with the corporate downsizing of the 80s and 90s quite a few large companies outsource all their machining. My neighbors have a family owned shop full of cnc equipment and compete successfully for contracts from IBM etc.. They are also avid hunters... you do the math.

I was surfing last night all over the place and happened across some text that apparently was generated from the rec.guns newsgroup. Don't ask me to find the site again because I didn't bookmark it.

It was a set of scenarios for people who want to carry concealed weapons. The bad guy is here, you are here, what do you do?

If concealed carry folks studied these sorts of things, everyone would be much safer, not less, because they outline under what conditions you should draw, show, fire - and when you shouldn't do anything of the sort.

They made clear that, under many situations that may seem like the ideal case to start an old west gunfight, the best practice is to do nothing. If there is no evidence that your life is at risk, you don't pull out a gun. Example? If you are challenged for your wallet or purse and you have no evidence that the mugger is using deadly force, you just give up your goods, shrug, and say your money was worth less than your life.

Most of the scenarios came from real-life situations. In some of them, the actual person carrying told their story.

Having seen a lot of this sort of thinking amongst the gun crowd makes me feel better about the whole situation. Most people who carry seem to do so with a very strong understanding of the responsibilities that come with it. They understand the meaning of deadly force and don't want to use it unless absolutely necessary. The common notion that gun carriers consider themselves to be modern-day wild west gunslingers is false.

Tony -

Exactly.

We have a number of guns in the house. Two of them are handguns (yes, they're all legal and everything). One of them is here exclusively for self defense (the other is for training and taking pot shots at the neighborhood kids - ya know, fun stuff ). That gun is unloaded and unclipped - to fire a shot, the clip has to be loaded, a round introduced into the chamber and the safety turned off. We've never used it, and we expect that we never will have to. It's there ONLY if someone is doing bodily harm. You might be really pissed off if the neighbor's kid breaks in and steals your computer at night, but you'll feel real bad if you KILL him for it. Most law-abiding gun owners that have them for protection (and hunting, though I do not - and target shooting, which I have been known to do on occasion) value life - that's why they have guns protecting themselves in the first place. It's a very rare occasion that we'll actually find it necessary to use one. And so we don't.

The firing after he was down part would be the damning thing. Otherwise, the law generally tends to side on whether or not you felt you were in danger. Once someone is down though, they're down...

Sad, really. 'Cause that was definitely out of line. Like I implied earlier, I would only use deadly force if I felt I or a loved one was in direct danger.

If that was the scenario - naked man trying to get in the house at 3am - what would be the best action?

The naked person can't possibly have deadly force. The first question is, will he ever get past that door? Is the door flimsy? If no, you call 911, turn on all the lights, and watch and wait. If yes, if you have 30 seconds you get the cell phone and the gun and go out the BACK door, probably dialing 911 at the same time. You take the gun so that A) he won't get it, and B) you have some recourse if he has non-drunk, non-naked friends outside.

You could hide inside the house, but then you might not know if the situation's over.

Tony -

I tend to agree with you here as well. If I were in that situation, I would turn on all the lights, call the police and wait until they got there. The guy would probably be arrested and charged with indecent exposure and public drunkenness, get some community service hours and all's well. The doors in my house are thick and sturdy (that's important in any house, and I wouldn't have it any other way), and the windows are relatively tough. If they did manage to come through a window, I would likely tell them "I have a gun, and I will not hesitate to use stopping force if I feel I'm in danger. Please leave immediately." Of course, if they were trying to get in because they were scared or whatever (you know how drunk people can get), I'd try and wrap them up in a blanket and get them some help. All depends on the situation. In any event, shooting a naked drunk person is wrong, and shooting them after they're down is despicable. The person that did that should have his/her gun-owning rights taken away and should definitely serve jail time. To keep that right, one needs to act responsibly with it. Otherwise, they don't deserve it at all.

Well, the story here is that the homeowner was awakened by a naked man trying to enter his *back* door. It emerged after the shooting that the man was his neighbor's son (who didn't live there) who apparently had the odd habit of going out naked at night and peeing in the backyard. BUt apparently this particular time he was too drunk to realize he's somehow gotten to the *neighbor's* back door. I imagine we'll never know how hard he was trying to get in, but then considering how drunk he was I suspect if he was frightened and disoriented he wasn't gentle. So Mr. Homeowner is awakened by noise at his back door, and finds naked guy back there. From the neighborhood where this went down I would expect there might be an enclosed back patio, lots of glass and so forth; it might have been reasonable to think he might have enetered the home.

But what kept this from being a "no bill" out of the Grand Jury was that forensics showed two shots to the head from an angle consistant with being fired while standing over the prone figure of the naked guy. I suspect there may be an element of homophobic panic here.

But the naked drunk is elegible for the Darwin Award, IMHO.

     I find it interesting that no one has brought up the possibility of shooting to wound in this situation. Deadly force is certainly to extreme but I think shooting the drunk in the leg would be well deserved. Is this because of the all to legitimate fear of civil lawsuit?

     By the way, as a martial artist I can think of many potentialy leathal attacks I could easily do naked. Unless the shooter knew in advance that the attacker was drunk it was a potentialy deadly situation. I don't know about the rest of you but if someone barged through my door I had better know them or they better back down instantly. Otherwise I'm not likely to give them much chance to do anything. Nudity, not withstanding some guy charging in to the home is not something you be cool about.

     Of course I'm probably going to be even more pissy about the whole deal if the guy is naked, but that's just me.

Well, Masad Ayoob says that when asked "Did you shoot to kill?" your answer should be "No, I shot to live."

But the facts in this case aren't pretty.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. charged an Upper Gwynedd man with voluntary manslaughter yesterday in the shooting death of a naked neighbor who, he told police, appeared to be trying to break into his townhouse.

Castor said he decided to bring the charges after concluding that Paul Bellina, 52, had continued to fire at neighbor Craig Holtzman even after Holtzman was fleeing. The final shot was fired downward at Holtzman's head as he lay on the ground, mortally wounded, according to Castor's reconstruction.

"I came to conclude beyond any doubt that the fatal rounds were fired outside, when Holtzman was incapable of providing any threat," Castor said at a news conference.

The incident occurred about 4:30 a.m. Sept. 13, when, according to an affidavit filed in the case, the 31-year-old Holtzman, whose blood-alcohol level was 0.22 percent, left the basement of his parents' home to urinate outside. He then mistakenly tried to enter Bellina's home, which has a basement door [sliding plate glass -MSL] identical to theirs.

Unable to enter and having sounded a burglar alarm, Holtzman turned to walk away. That is when Bellina unlocked and opened the door, ordering Holtzman to put his hands up and lie down on the ground.

Holtzman put his hands up, the affidavit said, but then began walking toward Bellina, disoriented and ignoring his requests to stop and get down. As Bellina backed into his basement, Holtzman followed him. There, officials believe, Bellina shot Holtzman twice with his 9mm Ruger handgun.

After being hit, Holtzman uttered, "Ouch," and then turned and fled, only to be shot twice in the back and once in the arm, Castor said. Following him, Castor said, Bellina shot Holtzman three more times, in the head. Bellina hit Holtzman with a total of eight shots, the affidavit states.

Bellina, a Vietnam veteran, has said he was protecting himself, his girlfriend, and her 10-year-old daughter, who were in the house. He told police that he simply "kept firing until the threat was dead," the affidavit states.

But, according to Castor, the legal line from self-defense to manslaughter was crossed when Bellina stepped outside his door. "At this point, Holtzman is no longer a threat to him. Holtzman is fleeing and probably mortally wounded, and therefore there is no permission under Pennsylvania law to use deadly force," the district attorney said.

Under Pennsylvania's criminal statutes, a person commits voluntary manslaughter if, at the time of the killing, he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation.

Bellina's attorney, Patrick J. McMenamin Jr. of Montgomeryville, rejected Castor's conclusion. "It was absolutely a case of self-defense," McMenamin said after Bellina's arraignment on manslaughter and reckless-endangerment charges in Blue Bell before District Justice Patricia Zaffarano. "I think the evidence will show that he was afraid."

After posting 10 percent of $30,000 bail, Bellina declined to comment except to ask reporters to get out of the way of his van. A preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Tuesday. If convicted at trial, Bellina could be sentenced to a maximum of 22 years on both charges.

Bellina, who owns a home-inspection business, has said that he did not know Holtzman, an assembler of gym equipment who had recently moved in with his parents, whose townhouse is next door to Bellina's on Browning Court in Upper Gwynedd's Gwynedale neighborhood, off Sumneytown Pike near South Broad Street.

According to the affidavit, however, Holtzman's brother Eric told police that the men had met when Craig Holtzman had discussed buying Bellina's motorcycle.

There was no answer at either the Holtzman or Bellina residence yesterday.

The decision to charge Bellina came after two weeks of speculation while authorities awaited the results of toxicology, ballistics and forensics tests. Castor had initially believed the shooting to be justified and said again yesterday that he believed Bellina felt he was justified in his actions.

At least one legal expert said he was not surprised by Castor's decision. "I can understand under all the circumstances why a prosecutor might think he has to file charges," said Leonard Packel, a criminal-law professor at Villanova University Law School. "But I don't know what a jury will do," he said.

Castor acknowledged that his decision would likely be second-guessed.

"I think that there will be great speculation now and in the months to come," Castor said, "but I am confident that, under Pennsylvania law, this is the correct decision."

--http://inq.philly.com/content/inquir...e/NSHOOT27.htm

     Thanks for the answer CharlieG, that makes alot of sense. It's also a prime example of why I don't own a gun. I simply don't have the training for it. Therefore it would be irresponsible for me to have one. Of course should I ever get the training I most likely will get a gun.
     Wow, and thanks to MaggieL for letting us out-of-towners in on the story.
     Damn, Bellina just went nuts with the whlole shooting thing. He's in it deep as it's hard to claim self-defense on the three head shots. Holtzman being outside and on the ground, not to mention that he clearly wasn't concealing a weapon on his person... Still I can understand the 'keep going till the threat stops moving' idea. It's a shame that somebody died because they were to drunk to find their house. Not to mention the fact that he went to the door of a man ready to shoot.

That is very interesting!

For another thread a few months back, I looked up the stats for violent crimes in England, and they are really on the rise. The number of people shot in the US is much higher than in England, but those numbers only affect a small set of people. The numbers who are robbed or just beaten up are much higher, much more likely to impact someone, and in England they are about 50% higher than here.

Plus, the shooting in the US is largely social darwinism at work. As Dennis Miller says: sometimes the herd needs a little thinning.

Now, I know, that makes me a cruel, cold, heartless and thoughtless person. But if you watch "Cops", even just once a year, you see the people who are shooting each other. I don't hang out with these people, and if I did, the escape route would be very clear. Unlike other social problems, this one doesn't trap you into its lifestyle; if you just don't hang out with the shirtless guy at the laundromat with crack vials in his pocket, chances are you won't get shot. Probably half my friends over the years have been gun owners, but I've never been shot.

OK, Jag wins another award for point-missing and blatant red-herring maneuver on the fire extinguisher analogy. I shan't feed the troll any more than that, beyond mentioning that quoting Jefferson while advocating gun prohibition isn't the smartest thing to do.

Re UTs shirtless laundromat guy, while I don't *hang out* down there, I'm not able to afford to live in the nice isolated suburb that UT lives in (which isn't actually that far away from here geopgraphically) Nonetheless I'm within credible striking distance of several such laundromats; inasmuch as there's not much left that's worth stealing any closer to Laundromatville--it's kind of grazed-out. (locals: I'm talking about Norristown). So when I need to drive though/near those neighborhoods, having a dozen rounds of 9mm jacketed hollow-point standing by is somewhat reassuring.

That doesn't mean I don't keep the car doors locked.

As for the "unfortunate" drunk, as I said, I think he's Darwin Award fodder. Anybody who's *that* fucked up wandering around outside his home is a public menace. What if he'd stumbled out into the street in front of a car at that hour? He might have caused an accident that injured or killed someone else who *wasn't* being an asshole at the time.

This doesn't excuse excessive force on the part of the 'Nam vet...who recently withdrew his manslaughter plea bargain; he may be hooking up with a new lawyer who's thinking of a PTSD defense. That's plausible, at least. Either way, if he's convicted on the manslaughter charge *OR* sucessfully mounts a PTSD defense, in this state he loses his right to *own* firearms, much less *carry* them. Which from what we know is probably A Good Thing.

Yabbut before I lived here, I lived in an apartment complex that was literally on the Norriwtown border. I still didn't get shot.

I got punched out once, but never shot.

Hey jaggy-poo -

mefinks she was making a condescending statement about your age. You know. Being 16, you probably go to school and have homework. "Go do your homework" == "get out of here, youngun, you have not the wisdom to participate in this conversation". Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

BTW, props for backing up your statement (at least somewhat) with some gathered facts.

I know perfectly well she was.

Just to clarify the fire extinguisher analergy:

If you use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire it results in (as in a house fire in an occupied house - for the nitpickers here) a life or lives saved. Shoot an intruder and it resuls a life or lives saved - at the cost of one. That's a fundamental difference. I"m trying to find that report or some other stats etc but its harder than i thouhgt it would be. Mabye MaggieL would prefer if i quoted the NRL

The point of the analogy was that you don't equip yourself with a fire extinguisher in the hopes that a fire is going to happen, and I haven't armed myself because I'm itching for a firefight. Please refrain from clairifying my analogies until you understand them. It had nothing to do with bodycount.

And the comment about Jag's age isn't that "being young, he must not be able to engage in debate" but rather "I finally understood why he was unwilling to engage in debate when I found out how young he is".

Dham, you did your best to load your hypothetrical emotionally by brining my daughter into it. But knowing her, I know it's a much more unlikely scenario than even you admit it is--she shares my values about a lot of things.

The place to get *that* shitfaced--so throughly besotted that you don't know where you are--is *not* anywhere outside your home...even in the backyard. It's just plain *stupid* to do that, which is what Darwin Awards are awarded for.

I'm unmoved by "poor guy, he was too drunk to be responsible for himself" arguments. He deliberately incapacitated himself, and then went bouncing around in public. As it was, he randomly picked the worst possible house on the block to try to *break into*, and consequently got killed rather than arrested, or caused some other disaster. Perhaps he *thought* he was trying to get into his own house. But the reason he couldn't even *tell* was *his* doing; I'll shed no tears for him.

His irresponsibility could have killed *someone else*, so he wasn't the only potential victim of his own recklessness. Saying "he didn't deserve to die" is empty--he willingly started a crapshoot where he or any number of the people around him could have gotten hurt. Would he have "deserved" to die if he'd wandered into the path of an oncoming train?

If you're going to deliberately fuck yourself up, especially to that degree, you have a responsibility to protect others from the consequences of your decision just as much as someone who decides to arm himself has a responsibility to ensure that his use of deadly force is appropriate.

I've been intoxicated myself...sometimes *very* intoxicated, and deliberately so. But I was at pains beforehand to ensure that *I* would be safe and would not endanger others just because I was taking a mental holiday. The fact that you make yourself incapable of being responsible does not relieve you of responsibility.

If I'm an "elitist" because I accept responsibility for my own behavior and distain those who don't, then I'll wear that title proudly.

Am I my brother's keeper? If not, well then sorry to bug you. If so, then when?

Two small corrections: The naked guy was *at* the back door, and it's not clear from what I've read at what point the shooter realized he was naked or drunk.

And nothing I read said he *did* break in, only that he was *trying* to get in through a locked sliding glass door, and evidently making enough noise at it to awaken the shooter.

In case anybody's unclear as to my point of view, I'm *not* holding a brief for the shooter, what's known about the case is enough that he should at least stand trial for manslaughter.

But the drunk was a bozo.

argh
I never said you were itching for a firefight - merely that one has gain at zero cost and the other has gain at a cost......

As for being unwilling to debate i find that ironic since you seem to be more interested in nitpicking an analergy than attempting to mount a plausable defense to the damning evidence the CDC has produced.