Byron Quick
Staff In Memoriam
I've looked over both threads. Some good points raised in both-pro and con.
Here's my view.
My defintion of reasonable fear of life and limb. I've had three serious concussions. The worst was when I was a young teenager. It was given to me by a thirteen year old boy with his bare fist. If I am attacked by an unarmed person I will try to escape...I'll run like a rabbit. If they catch me and try to beat me, I will shoot them until they stop trying to beat me. The effects of concussions are cumulative. My legs already jump all over the place when I sleep and sometimes when I wake up I can't move for awhile.
What, you say, if your attacker is a young teenager?...read above. Just because he's young does not give him special dispensation to threaten my life and health. Neither does his gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or national origin.
Shooting over property crimes is not legal in the state where I live so I shall not do so. But consider the morality of such. My property can be replaced, right? Wrong, I can be compensated or I can work to buy more of the same. But how did I get the property in the first place? I worked for it. That is, I traded an irreplaceable part of my life for the money used to buy the property. That part of my life can never be replaced. It is gone beyond recall.
Say you decide to steal something that I worked for two weeks to purchase. You should be allowed to steal two weeks of my life? Just because you leave me alive and healthy? If you decided to take the last two weeks of my life, we would all (except for some of the lurkers) agree that I would be justified in using deadly force to keep it. But because it's "only property", some think a different morality applies. It does not. I traded life itself for that property.
The only guns my father ever had were stolen from me by thieves. Do you think you can replace them? Do you? You can't. The insurance company can't. The government can't.
Here's my view.
My defintion of reasonable fear of life and limb. I've had three serious concussions. The worst was when I was a young teenager. It was given to me by a thirteen year old boy with his bare fist. If I am attacked by an unarmed person I will try to escape...I'll run like a rabbit. If they catch me and try to beat me, I will shoot them until they stop trying to beat me. The effects of concussions are cumulative. My legs already jump all over the place when I sleep and sometimes when I wake up I can't move for awhile.
What, you say, if your attacker is a young teenager?...read above. Just because he's young does not give him special dispensation to threaten my life and health. Neither does his gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or national origin.
Shooting over property crimes is not legal in the state where I live so I shall not do so. But consider the morality of such. My property can be replaced, right? Wrong, I can be compensated or I can work to buy more of the same. But how did I get the property in the first place? I worked for it. That is, I traded an irreplaceable part of my life for the money used to buy the property. That part of my life can never be replaced. It is gone beyond recall.
Say you decide to steal something that I worked for two weeks to purchase. You should be allowed to steal two weeks of my life? Just because you leave me alive and healthy? If you decided to take the last two weeks of my life, we would all (except for some of the lurkers) agree that I would be justified in using deadly force to keep it. But because it's "only property", some think a different morality applies. It does not. I traded life itself for that property.
The only guns my father ever had were stolen from me by thieves. Do you think you can replace them? Do you? You can't. The insurance company can't. The government can't.
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