🚀 go-pugleaf

donb@netcom.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
>When someone is a threat to your life, you shoot for the center
>of mass, then call 911 and hope (or pray, if so inclined) that they
>survive. [...].  In a self defense situation, your goal is
>to stop the person, not to kill them.

	Right. But the problem is that center mass also tends to
be the best way of reliably killing someone with a single shot.
(When I was in basic, the DI was always yelling at me for taking
head shots on the targets. I did a lot of pushups for my pride.) ;)

>It is also considered criminal to shoot, when you're not sure of EXACTLY
>what/who you're shooting at.  You have to be damn sure that it's a
>burglar or other assailant.

	Right. Which almost always entails giving the other guy
the initiative, which is *not* a recipe for winning a battle. It's
even worse than failing to shoot center mass. ;)

> For myself, I know that I couldn't live with
>myself if I shot at a sound and it ended up being an innocent person.

	My favorite story was a guy my aunt knew, who slept with a
gun under his pillow. He had a bad dream, woke up, and fired 3
rounds at the attacker at the foot of his bed. One tore his kneecap
neatly down the top, the other blew the joint in his big toe, and the
final (he must have started to feel it and changed his aim point)
went through the glans of his penis, and buried itself in his
thigh, just missing a major artery. Turns out there wasn't anything
there at all. The good news was the gun was a .22. The bad news
was that he usually slept with a .45 under his pillow.

	Ow! Is this a responsible gun owner? He didn't hurt anyone
but himself, but IMHO he clearly showed he's not a cool hand with
a gun. Ow. Ow. Ow.

>>	I believe that if someone wishes to accept the responsibility
>>of using deadly force to defend h*self, they should go to jail if
>>they turn out to have applied deadly force by mistake, just like
>>any other irresponsible criminal.
>
>I couldn't agree with you more.  BTW, would you hold the police to that
>same standard?

	More so. The police are, at least in theory, *trained* and
*professional*. It's easier to forgive someone like my aunt's friend
on the grounds that they're genetically defective than the police,
who presumably have passed some form of training program that has
qualified them for the terrible responsibilities they must bear.
[And let's not even *TALK* about gungho rambo idiot ATF agents who
walk into a crossfire in Waco or anything. Sun Tzu notes that a
failure to negotiate is the first ingredient of a losing war.]

>>	Don, you continually ignore the tactical reality that most
>>urban shootings are not exchanges of fire, but are unilateral attacks
>>by surprise. Please explain to me how having a gun in my pocket will
>>help me if that loonie in DC decides to discharge his shotgun into
>>the back of my head while I'm getting the groceries.
>
>Maybe.  But I doubt the jerk would be out shooting people if someone
>who was armed was likely to see him at work and nail him.

	That's what scares me, though. Frankly, you seem an
intelligent and reasonable man. I guess if someone blew me away
all of a sudden with a shot to the back of the head, it'd be OK
if you had a gun and could (if you chose to) attempt to kill
him. The problem is that shooting up a car is mighty messy,
and someone who's a bad shot (or is stupid like my aunt's friend)
might wind up pumping a few bullets into private homes nearby.

	I'm scared of dumb people with guns trying to do me
favors!! It's like that keystone kops routine the police in
New York did, where one cop shot another 'cuz he was black
and had a gun!

>Yes, I think it would be acceptable, if I was in my apartment and saw
>someone shooting at one of my neighbors, to fire back myself.

	Just take their license ## and call 911 and an ambulance.

mjr.