Subject:
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Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 19 Jun 2003 15:51:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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2659 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Costello wrote:
I don't have a real problem with your overall assertion, but you attempt a few
points that really don't benefit your argument:
> Guns are a great equalizer, most women would have no defense against a larger
> male attacker. My wife carried pepper spray for years, but when we visited
> Canada she was told to keep it in the trunk. Did she feel safer? She almost
> freaked out when some bum asked her for a few loonies. So the question is
> without guns how are the weak supposed to defend themselves against the
> strong who would prey on them?
You're suggesting that your wife should have brandished her pepperspray (or,
presumably, a gun) to fend off a bum who'd done nothing more than talk to her.
Sure, she might have found him unpalatable, but so what? Did he actively
threaten her? Did she perceive him to be an active threat? Would she have
sprayed him if she'd had the pepperspray in hand? Would she have accepted his
resultant lawsuit against her for assaulting him? Would she have accepted his
similarly aggressive physical response when he perceived her to be a threat?
From your anecdote we are unable to determine anything about the man except
that he asked your wife for a few loonies. If he engaged in no threatening
action, then why did your wife feel threatened? If he gave her legitmate cause
to fear him, then you need to indicate this before we can assess your story. If
he made no such threatening action, but your wife simply "felt" threatened for
some reason, then that's not the man's fault.
I would go further to say that this is part of the problem. Some people seem
to think that the best response to a perceived threat is to brandish a weapon,
even when other options are available. This is true of the story you've related
about your wife, just as it's true, for example, about Dubya's
shoot-first-and-then-smother-the-media-later approach to Iraq.
> A few doors down from my grandmother a man
> broke into an elderly womans home, in the middle of the day, while she was
> home, and beat her and robbed her. How does my grandmother ensure that she is
> protected against such? Better locks?
Yes. Why does that seem odd to you? If you can keep the intruder out of the
house, then there's basically no danger[1]. You seem to think it preferable
that the intruder be allowed entry, as long as the resident is armed.
Again, this anecdote lacks sufficient information to form a conclusion. If
the victim had a gun in the houlse, would she have been able to retrieve it,
load it, cock it, and aim it? Or do you propose that she walk around her house
with a shoulder holster? The point is that you have not proposed how the
ownership of a gun, in her case, would have helped her at all.
[1] I recognize that the intruder doesn't actually have to be in the house, and
he could shoot through the window or something, but this would be true whether
the woman owned a gun or not, so it's irrelevant to the discussion at the
moment.
> More guns, less crime!
More guns, less media-driven incentive to use them.
Dave!
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