Tito wrote:im sorry paul but if someone is charging at you in black wearing a mask and you have a gun its open season to protect your family and yourself..and what the hell is wrong with that kid charging his dad??nobody seems to ask this question...
Your right, the real question is what the hell was the kid doing. I can only assume it was a prank that started out as a terrible idea, and got somehow got worse.
But, since this thread is about gun control/gun use...
You call it
open season, but in situations like this I don't think logic even comes into it. If I was armed with a gun, being charged by someone who I think is holding a knife, my gut reaction would be to fire. It would probably be beyond my control, I wouldn't even think about it, never mind aim for the legs. Even if you did shoot someone in the leg, hit an artery and their dead anyway... It's adrenaline and the
fight or flight mechanism. That's the reason I would never arm myself with a firearm in the first place. That's the reason I avoid confrontation and conflict. Even in a physical fight all it takes is a bad knock to the head, or a nasty fall and people can die. It sounds ridiculous but it does happen.
Guns empower people, they empower you to kill others, that's what a gun does. Would the guy have been brave enough to go outside if he didn't have a gun? How many people have been killed/injured because they were
perceived as a threat and confronted? Self defense isn't an option, confrontation is!
There is a legitimate argument for what if you have a dangerous lunatic/rapist break into your home. But there are real complications to it. For instance; If someone breaks in do you have time to reach the gun anyway? In america you have the circular logic of "everyone has a gun, so I need a gun in case they attack me", another complication. How many criminals could have been scared off, but got killed instead? Without a lot of "real" statistics (not made up Yamamoto quotes
*facepalm*) you can't really come to a conclusion. The problem is that this line of argument is not about what might happen, or whether you should deprive a man of something based on the actions of others (eg. the violence in films debate). It's simply a balance of do guns save more lives than they take. Which does almost read as a rhetorical question...
All I can really say from my point of view, is that everyone in the world faces the same danger of a lunatic/rapist entering their home. Crimes will always happen. In the UK I've never heard people start saying x or y would never have happened if I owned a gun. And we have our share of yellow journalism...
The gun debate in America seems to be sadly marred by emotion, sentiment, poorly researched statistics, far fetched statements, occasional lies and sensationalism. Like the poor exhibit below... Just so everyone is clear, the "quote" is FAKE and even if it wasn't carries very little, if any, historical weight among people with a brain.
Has America ever had a proper debate on gun control?
Rob