imported post
kenny wrote:
I read the comments from this article, and the following one gave me a such a big chuckle, I read it twice.
Criminals are people too.
Just because someone is trying to kill you does NOT give you the right to defend yourself. What makes your life more valuable than their life? It is far better that many people die at the hands of an "alleged" criminal than a single person be allowed the opportunity of self-defense.
LG says that a restaurant is no place for a gun. And I agree sort of. No place is no place for a gun, unless carried by a police officer or a criminal. Police and criminals both need guns to do their jobs. Being a victim does not require you to carry a gun. Thousands of people all over this country are victims who never carry a gun anywhere, much less into a restaurant.
If you defend yourself, you might end up killing or injuring the person trying to kill you. But if you're not dead, then they didn't kill you, so they didn't really commit a crime now did they? So you've just shot (maybe killed) someone who didn't really do anything wrong. Just to save yourself. How does that make you feel now Mr. Gotta-Kill-A-Criminal-Today?
But even if no shots were fired, and this poor kid just got scared and ran away, that could be very traumatic for him/her, and what would happen next. This person whom you think (without a court opinion to guide you by the way) was trying to kill you might go somewhere else and kill someone else who (being a better person than you) doesn't carry a gun. So once again by saving yourself, you are killing someone else, when it wasn't even their time to die. That is terribly selfish. It is dispicable[sic] and immoral.
A criminal has the opportunity to change to turn their life around. You're denying them that chance just to save yourself.
You aren't going to change. You're just a gun toting savage. You just keep carrying that gun, protecting yourself, your spouse, and your "precious" children. Teach the ones you love to "protect" themselves. Go ahead. Do it. What are you waiting for? Permission? Pathetic.
-J. Swift
by JSwift on 9-1-09 @ 4:13 AM ET