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Originally Posted by Crompsin
The mentality you carry pisses me off. You shoot Mormons for trespassing?
All carjackers get my car. All robbers get my wallet. Break into my house and steal my laptop? Just keep going; it's cool... I'm insured. The only time I'm going to use any kind of force against an armed someone who is attempting to take something from me is if that something is my life or the life of someone important to me. If I feel like I'm the target, not merely my possessions... I will retaliate at that time. You can take my stuff, but you don't touch me or my family.
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This is sensible to me. I have no qualms about an individual with this mentality carrying a weapon.
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
This shit pisses me off to no fucking end. First off, if these criminals realize that facing no resistance at the beginning, only to have to deal with you as the only eyewitness in court IF they are caught will only cause them to kill you to avoid that eyewitness. Also, why would you embolden the criminals to recognize that they won't face any resistance in taking YOUR personal property that you worked your ass off for. Some people here don't consider the taking of life worth physical property but I say these people have no clue what it means to live life paycheck to paycheck and to value what is yours.
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This scares me, and is the basis for opposition of laws like this. Self-defence should carry a burden of proof, in order to discourage exactly this sort of thing. It's my opinion that the only time lethal force is justified is in preventing direct, immediate and severe harm to yourself or others. The dude who mugs you doesn't need to be shot. The dude who steals your car doesn't need to be shot. And the guy who got shot after trying the taser? He probably would've been okay if he'd co-operated.
In other words, if you shoot someone it should be for a damn good reason, the only good reason. Anything less is murder.
Canada has very strict gun control laws. The idea of someone other than a law enforcement officer carrying a gun in the streets up here is almost completely unheard of, and yet somehow we manage to maintain law and order. I realize that there is a fundamental difference in perspective between you guys and us and I'm not making a moral judgment on the right to keep and bear arms in and of itself, but making it legally defensible for individuals to shoot with intent to kill (as if there's any other intent behind using a firearm) in any but the most dire circumstances seems like a very bad move to me. I don't condone vigilantism and I never will.
EDIT- I'm pretty anti-violence and certainly feel no need to carry a gun. I don't personally think that it's necessary to the maintenance of a free society for the individual citizen to have that right and in fact, do not have the right myself, although I can apply for the privilege. However, even I don't particularly understand all the militia hoopla that comes up. Observe:
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Originally Posted by second amendment
A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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Let's look at that a little more closely.
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Originally Posted by second amendment
A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, ...
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Note the comma, which denotes a separation between two related thoughts.
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Originally Posted by second amendment
...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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It does not say there that the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The right of the
people shall not be infringed, as an extension of the argument that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Whether or not you agree with that argument is one thing, but as Americans it is in your constitution and philosophic implications aside is pretty much inarguable legally.
Ipso facto, ad hoc, whatever.