God says "Thou shalt not ...!" and man says "Oookay. But what about...?"

and you wonder why God gets pissy sometimes. :D

Only if you believe in that sort of thing.

that was irony tlarkin. :rolleyes:

Statistics. The third type of lie.
If a burglar can break into my home, get past my German shepard and doberman (yes I have both) creep into my bedroom, figure out the combination lock on my gun safe, then pick the trigger lock on my gun--they are a god amongst men and I will fellate them right then before they shoot me.
But you're right. The only reason I keep a gun in a safe in my bedroom is to intimidate the old man that lives next door. That old bastard is damned lucky I haven't shot his ass yet, just for looking at me wrong.

Which god is that again?
I worship the god Zeus and his son Bacchus. I don't remember either of them making such a decree.

Surely Bacchus said, "Thou shalt not put ice in single malt!"

You mean like the great flood or something, right?

I think the proposed legislation goes a little further and allows you to protect your property as well. It includes immunity for shooting someone who is trying to remove another person from your home, except for children when the perpetrator is a parent (domestic disputes) , etc. The intruder must be in the act of, or obvious intent to, commit a felony.

Suspect public sentiment is likely behind this bill. Late last year, a local news personality.... very attractive lady, very well known to the public, very well liked & admired.... was assaulted in her home. She was beaten with a baseball bat and had unspeakable things done to her. She died in the hospital a few days after the attack having never regained consciousness. (Yes, they caught the guy within a few weeks after the brutal assault.)

As long as incidents like this happen, right here in river city in the "good" part of town, people are going to demand the right to protect themselves.

In a violent confrontation, a HUGE advantage accrues to the aggressor.... the one willing to act first whether it is fire the first shot or take the first swing with a baseball bat. Giving up this advantage, in most every instance, is likely to put the honest defender in a position of losing the confrontation (hard to fight back when you've just been shot). Why in the world would we want to put a homeowner in that position or second guess their reaction when they believe, with cause, that the attack is imminent?

Quaker to a burglar: "I would never intentionally kill a fellow human being, but you’re standing where I am about to fire my shotgun."

.
Some years ago, when I was attending high school in California, there was a tragic incident that made a deep impression on me and many other people:

A teenager crossing the street in a hurry was almost run over by a bloke in a sports car. The kid got upset and spat on the car...

...whereupon the driver got out and shot him. The teenager died of his injuries.


(I’ve always had an exceptionally hard time understanding US homicide rates.)

yeesh! tell me about it. I've always felt that 'mindless arrogance' should be added to the special circumstances list for the death penalty. not that I apporve of the death penalty, mind you, but at least that way we'd be executing people who really deserve it.

variation on a theme: a robber breaks into a house and surprises a husband and wife in their living room. He pulls out a knife and says 'give me all your valuables, quickly!' the husband waves his arms around the room and says 'We are just poor Quaker people - we have few goods. you may take what you like, though.' the robber says 'this isn't enough, you must have more!' the husband shakes his head, saying 'no. but you might try the Smith house next door - they have lots of expensive goods'. so the robber runs out of the house heading towards the house next door. at that point, the wife looks at her husband and says 'shame on you, husband. what if that robber hurts someone over at the Smith's house?', to which the husband replies 'oh, that's not likely, wife. the Smiths are Baptists.'

New terms for guns and hunting
 

I say, bring it on. Then ban guns.

Allow only knives with 6-inch blades for hunting. Winner takes all. If the bear/caribou/mountain lion/rabid racoon wins, then the hunter’s fortune gets willed to animal conservation efforts.
...under these new terms, investment bankers and shareholders of companies producing personnel mines should be particularly encouraged to hunt.

oh, snap

Now, if you had asked the guy the day before, "Say, would you consider it was worth doing X years in jail because someone spat on your car?", do you think he would say yes?

I've been wondering about some sort of rite-of-passage to adulthood, whereby poor impulse control leads to failure to survive the initiation. Like the opening scene of the first "Dune" book. Such a rite could be voluntary, but if you decline it, you don't get to drive a car, possess a gun or have kids.

Are you suggesting this was done legally? I think we would all oppose illegal, senseless killing.

Me, too. Then, again, there it is, and it is real. Should we live in the world as it is, or should we live as though the world is the way we would like it to be?

We do imprison more people, by percentage of population, than most anybody else in the world. We execute more people for crime than most. Some states have a 3 strike law.... 3 felonies and you go away for life. Still, the crime continues. I have no answers, at least none that would be politically correct to those who oppose capital punishment.

Why can't we all just get along? (Rodney King I think said that?)

@Woodsman
Hey, our legislature is working on it. But that's the subject of another thread.:)

The world as it is, or the world as we would like it to be?
Hmm... personally I think that’s the wrong question.

The low homicide rates & high level of gun ownership in Canada are real.
So are the high homicide rates & high level of gun ownership in the USA.

I think the difference merits a thorough analysis.
There is something very very wrong here!

That difference, whatever it is, cannot be ignored when discussion issues such as gun ownership, defense of home and family, etc.
.

I think it's our emphasis on rights and our dismissal of responsibility. That combined with an irrational desire to let corporations dictate how we live while claiming that we want freedom.

Perhaps, in the context of the bigger picture. But, one cannot deny the threat is real simply because they wish it weren't and believe violence is evil. (I wasn't thinking about gun ownership, but rather self defense in the home.)

Agree the difference is worth exploring. Would the difference not imply that, at least perhaps, the problem is something other than gun ownership?

I kinda like the emphasis on individual rights. As for responsibility, we do lock up and/or execute as many as we can. The prisons are overflowing. These guys do accept (albeit unwillingly) responsibility for their actions.

If we just up and repealed all the drug laws and let the drugs flow freely through normal commercial channels, I think that would cut our crime rate big time and free up nearly half our prison beds. Fewer laws, fewer prisoners and less crime.

(Let's be honest, the drug laws and the war on drugs have been ineffective in getting drugs off the streets. And, I do believe drugs are evil and have a devastating impact on our kids and our society. I just think what we are currently doing isn't solving the problem.... time to try plan B. The current laws and drugs are the single largest contributors to our extremely high homicide rate.)

I went to college in a dry county (no alcohol). At first glance, one would assume it would be more difficult to get alcohol. Wrong, it was the opposite... bootlegger on every corner more than happy to sell alcohol to all comers regardless of age or current state of inebriation.

The emphasis on rights has been used to eliminate responsibility. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

What makes you think I was talking about street criminals?* :confused:
If you're going to hold people accountable for their actions, you lock up the criminals with the most power first. Guys like Madof — and there are tens (hundreds?) of thousands like him — should be locked up in places like Riker's island without possibility of bail, and then they should get a fair trial complete with a swift hanging. You don't stop a group of thugs by taking on the small fry first.


*Leadership leads! When the rich and powerful routinely get away with destroying people's lives on large scales, then little guys like drug dealers find it easy to rationalize their "business" decisions. Enron & Madoff are merely two well known examples where the punishment does not come close to matching the crime. So-called "legitimate" business is full of many more.