I love a story with a happy ending.

DArtagnan said:

I'm not sure one wounded and likely two traumatized kids is a happy ending - but at least no one was killed.

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No one killed was my point. But sure it wasn't the perfect ending due to wounded person. It could have easily ended much worse so in this contex "a happy ending"

dteowner said:

Honestly, if it weren't for the intentional and unabashed slippery slope tactics being promoted, I would consider that a reasonable compromise where both sides lose, but not completely.

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But "slippery slope" is a staw man dte. Those who really think that it's realistic to ban guns completly in USA in foreseeable future are living in cloud cuckooland. They are as deluded as those who believe that more guns would help to deal with gun crime, For me both of those extremes make sense only as a starting bargaining positions.

Damn…. no happiness = \

No happy endings on these, except the fact the animals have been caught (but we'll see how tough the law really is on them). Both cases, unarmed people's homes invaded and they were helpless as they were beaten, raped, and in the case of one man's wife, murdered. Nope, this isnt the same story I shared before, this is another man's wife - dead. Merry Christmas, pal

5 charged with murder after South Bend stabbing victim in home invasion dies. They were attacked with knives, too bad the homeowner didnt have a gun.

The Prices suffered stab wounds to their necks, and St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Commander Tim Corbett has confirmed to WSBT that Mrs. Price died Saturday night.

Police not only found the Prices badly hurt after the home invasion. Three others were also injured. Christine Jordan and her two young children were visiting the couple. Jordan and her son were stabbed, while her daughter was hit with a blunt object. All three visitors were treated and released.

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So they also attempted to kill 2 children, one was stabbed while the other clubbed w/ a blunt object. Thankfully, these predators were pretty incompetent when it comes to ending human life.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Then we have a horrible incident in which a conventiently unarmed couple was terrorized, and the man's wife was forced to perform sex acts on him and on the criminals.

Teen charged in home-invasion robbery, rape

I wonder about the race of the predators/victims, just curious. Of course, the little 'teen' or 'boy' as he is referred to in the story will be out soon enough, terrorizing more innocent people until he finally kills someone. His prior convictions (at 17 years old): attempted second-degree robbery, fourth-degree assault, criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct.

They then forced the couple to take off their clothes and go into the laundry room while they ransacked the home.

The male victim also was pistol-whipped, according to charges.

Deputies said the two gunmen threatened to take the couple's infant child, who was asleep on a couch.

Dailone Raynell Brooks-Harris forced the woman to perform sex acts on her boyfriend and then on himself, according to charging paperwork. Brooks-Harris reportedly told the couple that he was a gang member from West Seattle, charges allege.

The woman also told deputies that one of the gunmen, later identified as Brooks-Harris, pressed his gun to her head and asked her, "Do you wanna die?"

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Nope, un-happy endings all around.Someone trained in the use of firearms can out-gun a street hood. At least they would have had a chance.

In xSamhainx's world, everyone is a potential action hero who save the damsels with 5-combo gun-fu moves, all it takes is for the good guys to pack gold-plated desert eagles akimbo style then they can relax with a mighty gin & tonic while waiting for the "racially different" to respawn.

meanwhile in Jemy's world:

Comply, and hope for the best. Start by promptly curling up into a little ball, then wait for someone else to come save you.

Dammit, Sammy, I've told you before... JemyM will baracade himself in a room using stacks of textbooks. Besides, it's too hard to meaningfully stroke yer beard when you've gone fetal.

I think it's just a general outlook that is so vastly different, namely the individualism we have had pounded into our heads from birth vs the mindset of the collective. I as an American have been raised w/ somewhat of an ethos of independence - plan on taking care of yourself first, then hopefully if you cannot, someone else can help. You are your own front-line defense against whatever life is going to throw at you, on both everyday life and unpredicted circumstances. To wait for someone else (who really has no vested interest in your well-being other than duty) to come and save you is a recipe for well…. lets just say a lessened chance of a desirable outcome.

Granted, a person is generally not equipped to handle such a catastrophic emergency as an out of control fire, or life-threatening accident or medical emergency. But you can learn first-aid, to keep yourself from bleeding to death. You can know how to battle a grease fire before it gets out of control. You can be prepared to seek a new job, or deal with financial disaster if something happens. When it comes to crime however, I think many people (and indeed cultures) are far too complacent and dependent to have the ability to respond and defend themselves and their loved ones. It cannot happen to them, and if it does, they can simply call the police and they'll be there before things get too bad. You have to be a cop, or "action hero", or given permission of some sort to actually respond to perpetrators of a crime.

Not so. Just like anything else I would rather have a fighting chance at helping myself first, instead of waiting for someone else's response time to determine my ultimate fate in the crucial first few minutes of any kind of crime scenario. You dont have to be an action hero to unleash the awesome power of a shotgun in the general vicinity of the enemy, or aim for the upper body of an assailant with your handgun.

The objective fact is still that the risk of becoming attacked in west-europe is so low that "barricading" would be a sure sign of mental illness. Never forget that.

It's also not that you are "American". You are fascist. Not as an ad hominem, but that is the name for the lack of sympathy for or even loathing perceived weaknesses. You can't train away sympathy for people who do not want firearms, either you have the capacity to understand that sentiment or you do not. You confuse your psychology with culture. It's not cultural which is why people reject firearms despite the right to wear them.

That's just downright funny, JemyM. You should be embarassed to even put such inaccurate tripe out there. You probably ought to call him a racist just for good measure. If that doesn't get your dehumanization (a favored tactic of fascist regimes, I might note) campaign done to your satisfaction, you might have to resort to calling him a witch or heretic.

Further:
You can't train away sympathy for people who do want firearms, either you have the capacity to understand that sentiment or you do not. You confuse your psychology with culture. It's not cultural which is why people reject owning firearms despite the right to wear them.

dteowner said:

That's just downright funny, JemyM. You should be embarassed to even put such inaccurate tripe out there. You probably ought to call him a racist just for good measure. If that doesn't get your dehumanization (a favored tactic of fascist regimes, I might note) campaign done to your satisfaction, you might have to resort to calling him a witch or heretic.

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You need to try harder. Fascism is a difficult word to describe but there are a couple of influental definitions, one being Umberto Eco's 14 points and that includes "Contempt for the Weak". The sentiment that who ever do not want to have firearms, kill or seek other solutions for violence is to blame for everything bad coming to them is a very strong theme in fascist philosophy. I have given my definitions for racism earlier and those definitions haven't changed.

dteowner said:

Further:
You can't train away sympathy for people who do want firearms, either you have the capacity to understand that sentiment or you do not. You confuse your psychology with culture. It's not cultural which is why people reject owning firearms despite the right to wear them.

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I do not say Americans have a mental illness if they want to have a firearm, just a west-european.

It's a rather wild, and remarkably inaccurate, leap from "defending one's self and family" to "comtempt for the weak", but I'm not surprised. That's why I called it inaccurate tripe. Dressing it up with fancy quotes pulled out of your textbooks does not change the fact that you've completely missed the mark yet again.

So, to clarify, your opinion is that a western European that wants a gun has a mental illness?

Yeah, well look at this wonderful 'logic':
Criminals obviously have a mental illness or they wouldn't be criminals;
Criminals own guns;
Therefore if you own a gun you have a mental illness. QED

That's Jemy's logic!!

Dte, I'm typing on my phone so forgive any spelling mistakes.
Thanks again for taking the time to finally respond to my original point.

dteowner said:

1- that logic only holds if all owned guns are dangerous ones, that is, there are no "good" guns. Which is better: 10 guns on the street with 9 owned by "good" people and 1 owned by a criminal or 1 gun on the street owned by that same criminal and 9 defenseless victims?

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I completely agree with that logic. But then you should also agree with the fact that the criminals could take the gun from the "good" guy and use it against them or that someone in the family who isn't as "good" could easily take the gun (as was the case in sandy hook - as far as I know). Right ?

2- I agree. Those laws are already on the books. We do a lousy job identifying nutjobs during the application process because leftie political correctness means we're not allowed to call someone a nutjob even if they are. Even if people have been "bad" in the past, we don't do the whole personal responsibility thing so all is forgiven. While many laws have been tweaked so there are stiffer penalties for crimes if guns are involved, if a guy's willing to go to prison for 10 years for robbing a bank, is he really going to give two shits if it's 12 years because he brought a gun along? Want a deterrent, shoot them with their own gun if convicted (that's an intentionally extreme example to illustrate the point).

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I'm putting a disclaimer for this one : I am not advocating doing nothing.

First of all, like you said is making the punishment harder going to stop people from committing crime ? If you are willing to sit 10 years in jail, would you mind 20?

In my view what needs to be better is installing values of life and how society is important, so that people do not want to harm it. A point Sam made about her own independence. I've been taught that if I take care of my society, then my society will take care of me. Yeah it's not perfect. But if everyone only thinks about themselves then it will be very easy to hurt someone else if it would be to my advantage. It fosters negativeness towards others rather than positiveness to focus on yourself. Maybe it's something I was taught from my Jewish heritage. Give to the community as much as you can so that if you or someone you know needs something they will be able to get it. Help people out. I don't always think about myself.

Yes a crazy person could come and shoot me and if I had a gun and gun training I could possibly stop that person of they don't overpower me and use the gun against me instead. However, punishment isn't always the answer. There's a saying in Dutch which I think also exists in English, it goes something like this : to prevent is better than to cure. It's usually for illnessess but can easily be used in this case. It's better to improve your society and put more effort into education than to try and punish people who do bad things as rehabilitation is very hard.

I'm again, not advocating against not having a gun at all or to stop all punishment. I'm just saying that your viewpoint of making the punishment harder is in my opinion the wrong way to go about this. It's a bit like treating the symptoms to some diseases instead of its underlying condition. However, just like the human body, you probably have to do a bit of both for the situation to improve.

I still think that better gun control, not necessarily more Gun control or less guns, is a good way to start as I do not think having so many guns is a good recipe.

3- I'm not big on critiquing someone else's parenting because we never know the entire real story. Based on what we think we know, if you demand an opinion, I think the mother screwed up by making guns available to a nutjob. It would be difficult to acknowledge that your own kid was a nutjob and we have no way of knowing just how easy it really was for the kid to get her guns, but with that 20/20 hindsight I'd say she screwed up. I'm not sure how you go about fixing that problem (assuming that we're right about the problem) without getting into a serious Big Brother situation. I do know that "punishing" responsible gun owners to try to reach the bad apples seems like a bad solution to me.

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Well, a simple way to help find out is to have some sort of gun checks just like building maintenance checks or tax audits. Someone could come randomly to people who have guns registered and check where they are kept. If not safely kept the. A warning could be given with a recommendation. Of it happens again, a fine and of again the. The gun could be confiscated until the person reapplies for a permit and pays a fine. Responsible people should not have much trouble from that.

What do you think ?

4- The operative word in your last sentence is "could". You also needed to append ", but at what price?" You tend to minimize the price. I tend to minimize the benefit. Different strokes.

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What price do you mean ? Your civil liberties ?

Sam, are you posting these stories to prove anything ?
Or just to illicit an emotional response from people ?

For the first one, I've already explained that anecdotal evidence isn't proof of anything more than wha occurred during that one story. Unless you can explain how having a gun was good for the father that killed his own son ?

For the second one then go right ahead.

xSamhainx said:

Not so. Just like anything else I would rather have a fighting chance at helping myself first, instead of waiting for someone else's response time to determine my ultimate fate in the crucial first few minutes of any kind of crime scenario. You dont have to be an action hero to unleash the awesome power of a shotgun in the general vicinity of the enemy, or aim for the upper body of an assailant with your handgun.

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Yeah yeah yeah whatever, be prepared. Drink raw eggs. Crush bricks with your thighs, etc. No-one is saying curl up in a ball and watch while the baddies do bad things.

The issue here is the gun. It's irresponsible and selfish of you to expose your family and neighbors to the dangers associated with a gun. They are designed to kill - not stun, not disable. What if the guy climbing in your bedroom window is just your neighbors' 16 year old son, blind drunk and thinks he's sneaking into his bedroom?

The small risk of you being harmed by a home invader does not justify owning a gun - get yourself a baseball bat. Or a can of pepper spray. Or a taser.

It won't make you any less of a man.

dteowner said:

It's a rather wild, and remarkably inaccurate, leap from "defending one's self and family" to "comtempt for the weak"

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Did you think I wouldn't remember what you guys wrote about those who didn't want to get or use a gun?

dteowner said:

So, to clarify, your opinion is that a western European that wants a gun has a mental illness?

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The word was "barricade". The risk of getting assaulted in a way that needs excessive defense in West-Europe is by all evidence considered extremely low. DSM-IV defines delusion as a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes inconvertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. When deluded fears control ones lives that is a mental illness.

Corwin said:

Yeah, well look at this wonderful 'logic':
Criminals obviously have a mental illness or they wouldn't be criminals;
Criminals own guns;
Therefore if you own a gun you have a mental illness. QED

That's Jemy's logic!!

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Informal fallacy, false premises and your suggestion a strawman.

I know my 'logical example' is false logic; my point was I was using it as a parallel to your 'logic'!!

Corwin said:

I know my 'logical example' is false logic; my point was I was using it as a parallel to your 'logic'!!

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Feel free to point out where I actually committed logical fallacies, or used false premises. I stand by my point that someone who barricade themselves in West Europe is probably suffering from a mental illness since the reaction is not appropriate in relation to the objective danger that person is in.

Yes, here's a good one that just happened. Not as happy of an ending as I like, but still it sent the vermin skulking away from it's victim, bleeding and defeated.

This poor woman is on oxygen, fairly frail and probably would be dead if it wasnt for her will to fight and ultimately shoot her attacker in self defense. Typical worthless and cowardly predator, preying on the weak.

Home invasion suspect shot by female victim

"I was awakened with a gun in my face hollering 'give me all yo money and give me all yo jewelry'

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In the end, she turned the tables and shot it in the stomach. Cops tracked it to a local hospital where it was trying some jive talkin bullshit.

In the end she had this to say:

"He felt like it was going to be easy especially when he saw me on oxygen and a woman. I can take her down, sorry," the victim said.

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Unfortunately the predator survived the lead poisoning and will live to prey on society another day. Maybe next time they'll aim a little higher and we'll have some real closure.


P.S.: "Badmofo" - you really need to change your screen name. Youre almost as big of a wuss as Jemy, make no mistake he's truly in a league of his own - but youre getting there.