I think guns in homes to protect oneself from an armed robber is not a good argument. How many times in your life will you get robbed, while at home?
I've been home twice when someone tried to break into my home, and I lived in about as nice an upper middle class neighborhood as you will find growing up.
The possibility of someone having a gun for the robbery is greatly increased if owning a gun is legal. If both of you have a gun, how does that help you, you shoot him and if he still manages to get a shot you die too. Or imagine, your son comes home late after he drank too much. You think it's a robber, since your son was grounded and you believe him to be in his room and you shoot him.
So many other things...
The first part of that is hogwash. Criminals will always find ways to get guns, so legal gun ownership isn't going to affect that. The second is the typical hypothetical argument. It's called training. I don't think anyone should just go and buy a gun, I think you need to learn how to use it safely. As for escalating it, it's a risk I'd rather take than the risk of being at someone's mercy, and thankfully, it is my right to do so.
Protect your home by :
- Taking a guard dog
Very good measure, but not everyone can have a dog (allergies, being in an apartment, housing restrictions etc.). And not all criminals are stopped by dogs.
Pretty much a worthless endevour for guarding a home unless its electrified or something.
given police response times in most areas, pretty worthless.
- letting the robber take whatever he wants, while you get money back from the insurance. you keep your life and you keep your loved ones save.
I'm not saying go out and hunt someone down. If they are downstairs and my family is upstairs, they can take what they want (assuming my dog hasn't ripped our their throat) and I'll wait for the police, but if they come upstairs and put my family in danger, they are going down.
I would never, ever, be able to forgive myself if I hurt a loved one.
Nor would I, hence be trained and don't be trigger happy.
The death penalty is something so idiotic, in my very humble opinion. First of all, who are you to decide if someone deserves to die?
I'm not the person, our jury system is. 12 people make that decision (or the judge in some states)
Second and more importantly, dieing would be so easy compared to staying your whole life in a closed box .... Leave the murderers in the 2 by 2 meters cell and let them rot till they die, giving them scraps of food to survive on...
Ohh, but we can't do that. It's unconstitutional to not give them cable TV, and decent meals, etc. Unfortunately, it is expensive to keep someone locked up for their whole life. In many cases, (though not all with some of the changes made in Texas) it is more expensive to execute them. In the cases it is cheaper, I say fry them (not my decision, just my opinion).
Of course, if we brought back hard labor, I'd be all for making them work 14 hours of hard labor until the day they died instead of the death penalty.