These people did not resist the criminal, but died anyway.

[GreenStormCloud]

Certain posters here regularly assure us that if we don't resist, the criminal will take the TV, or money, and leave peacefully. Here are just a few people in the Dallas area who didn't resist at all - and died.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/crime/stories/121509dnmetgpdeath.35621c715.html
Grand Prairie man shot by burglar was devoted to his church
SUMMARY: 69 yr old man and his wife return home from church, surprise burglar in their home, they attempt to flee, burglar kills man, wife gets away.

They were trying to escape, certainly offering no threat to the burglar (except being able to ID him) and the felon killed. The murderer has since been captured.

Police investigate robbery, fatal shooting at East Oak Cliff doughnut shop
SUMMARY: Two robbers entered the donut shop, owner didn't resist, begged the men not to shoot him, they did anyway. After being shot he called 911, but died.

http://m.wfaa.com/WFAA8/db_18758/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=6DA0E3419FD58E7FD88E0B5A448D57D0?contentguid=o1tUPlHB&detailindex=1&pn=0&ps=10
SUMMARY, COMPLIED FROM SEVERAL NEWS REPORTS: She was a 97 yr-old independent woman. She lived alone and took care of herself, with occasional visits from a caregiver. She was found dead, bludgeoned to death. The TV was gone.

Certainly a 97 yr old woman didn't offer any resistance. The goblin - yes, GOBLIN - who committed this horrible deed killed her anyway.


None of those people offered any resistance. They did like some of our anti-gun posters say to do. They offered no resistance. After all, aren't we repeatedly assured that all they want is just some "stuff"? But they were killed anyway. These three murders happen in the space of a few days in one major city. It is common enough for a criminal to kill or injure that one is justified in assuming the worst from a criminal who is offering violence towards a victim. We can't assume that if we give them what they want then they will go away.

That is why we keep guns. Goblins are violent, and must be contained by counter-violence.

[old mark]

1. I have worked with violent criminals in a prison, and with psychotic

murderers in a mental institution. I have never thought it was a great idea to leave the choice of whether or not harm comes to your family or yourself to a criminal. They are not known for making good choices, and I have met too many who hurt others because they enjoy it. I keep a shotgun next to my bed, and have carried a handgun legally for over 15 years.

My life-my choice.
Rec.
mark

[one-eyed fat man]

3. Far too many here

try to characterize every career criminals' demise at the hands of a poorly-chosen victim as a social injustice. They bemoan the tragic loss of life. They accuse everyone who defends themselves as callously dehumanizing someone, who but for a series of unfortunate circumstances would be curing cancer, enduring world peace, and eradicating world poverty, if you don't count a lifetime of stealing, raping and brutal assaults on people whose only flaw was to possess something the thug wanted. As you point out, the criminals' pleasure at inflicting terror on his victims is often even more important to them than the loot.

Having never come face to face with pure evil, they refuse to believe it exists. Faith healing doesn't work, to deal with a cancer you often have no choice but to cut it out and kill it.

[old mark]

5. OEFM-careful - someone may accuse you of playing to emotions

rather than logic if you mention that violent criminals actually do violent crimes on other people, and are not being persecuted by the government.

That happened to me yesterday.

Welcome.

mark

[geckosfeet]

2. I agree with your main point. Your final statement is a reach too far.

"Certain posters here regularly assure us that if we don't resist, the criminal will take the TV, or money, and leave peacefully. Here are just a couple of people in the Dallas area who didn't resist at all - and died."

You imply that if these people had a gun, that they may be alive today. Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn't there and can't rightly say whether having a gun would have saved any or all of these people.

But I must protest the following comment:

"That is why we keep guns. Goblins are violent, and must be contained by counter-violence."

In fact, people keep guns for many reasons. Some gun owners have legitimate self defense needs. Some shoot bullseye. Some hunt. Some plink. Some collect historical artifacts. But, IMO broad brushing all gun owners as people who keep guns to commit "counter-violence" against "goblins" is a reach. I also think that it is counterproductive to portray gun owners this way.

[GreenStormCloud]

4. Sometimes I tend to type in shorthand.

Certainly there are many reasons for keeping guns. I do too. I have the shotgun Dad gave me when I was eleven, although I haven't fired it in about 30 years. Obviously it is kept for sentiment. I have Dad's old .22 that is older than I am. I have a Ruger New Model Single-Six Convertible in .22. Obviouly for plinking and target shooting.

More correct would have been for me to have said, "That is why those of us who keep guns for self-defense do so." The broad brush was not to assign my motive to all gun owners, but was because I don't like to type in lawyerese, covering all possible exceptions.

[SteveM]

7. Actually, gun-owners probably own weapons for multiple reasons...

collecting (I guess I'm one since I have a 105-yr-old semi-auto rifle), hunting (tomorrow! Deer!), plink (where, anymore?), target shoot (yes, indeed), and for self-defense, as in "counter-violence."

Personally, I think we should deal more with what kind of people robbers, home invaders, murders, rapists are so that we may come to a rational understanding of what they are like, and why many use a robbery, B&E, and 7-11 stick-up as an excuse for maiming/killing. Perhaps these bloody-finger-painters we call "goblins" are portraying crims in a counterproductive manner?

[GreenStormCloud]

11. Please see my post #4.

As regards "goblins", once they reach the point where they bash in a 97 year-old woman's head, I don't think they care what we call them. Like a tortured elf in Lord of the Rings, they have become an orc.

There have been many studies on the home lives that such people come from. The greatest problem is not poverty, but that the small child's family is violent, dysfunctional, abusive, booze and drug filled. He learns extremely early that no one at all cares about him. Jobs won't cure the problem because he don't learn a basic work ethic. The only thing that may work is extremely early intervention to remove babies, toddlers, and small children from such hellholes.

[eqfan592]

13. But isn't poverty a major factor in creating such hell-holes?

I'm not saying it's the only factor, but such households would seem to be created more frequently in impoverished areas.

[GreenStormCloud]

14. Bad habits create poverty. Crime creates poverty.

A child raised in a more prosperous family learns the habits and ethics that brought about that middle class posperity. He has good role models. A child born into a hell-hole has no role models and little chance to escape it. The parents are usually in poverty because they are making life choices that are keeping them down.

As an employer, how long would you keep an employee who was not dependable, violent tempered, poorly educated, and frequently drunk or high?

[eqfan592]

15. My intent was not to comment on the causes....

..of poverty, but rather on poverty's role in creating such situations. I do see your point, though, and I agree to an extent.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. It is a downward reinforcing spiral of no hope. Chicken/egg thing. N/T

[Xenotime]

6. I'm offended that you would call people in need "Goblins" No compassion from you.

[X_Digger]

8. I'm offended that you could call thieves 'people in need'. No intelligence from you.

[rd_kent]

9. PLEASE tell me you forgot the sarcasm tag...or is that just a cowardly hit and run post?

[Katya Mullethov]

10. Just a tip

He doesnt really "need" a light for the smoke hanging out of his mouth or change for a twenty

[GreenStormCloud]

12. Murderers are "people in need"?

In each of the cases I listed, the victims offered no resistance at all to the thief, and they were murdered anyway. Please tell me what "need" they were meeting by killing.

[dairydog91]

16. Ever listen to old Richard Pryor routines?

I was just thinking of the one he did about visiting a prison. Among other things he did, he asked an inmate "Why did you kill everyone in the house?" The response? "Cuz they was home." Or was this killer just another "person in need"?

[SteveM]

18. Like eating peanuts: once you start... I remember that Pryor routine. Here's Dick Gregory's...

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, officer. You have the nerve to ask me how come Negroes do so much cutting? 'Cause you don't sell us no damn guns!" -- as quoted by D.J. Bennett in Fact Magazine, vol. 1, issue 2, March-April, 1964 "The Psychological Meaning of Anti-Negro Jokes."

Bennett, an "applied psychologist," called the remarks an "example of jokes Negroes tell against themselves... is tinged with masochism."

[taurus145]

19. O.K., I'll buy that

Let's be a bit more accurate. How about malicious, antisocial, assholes? There. Isn't that better?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

20. Now where are shares and ivy? They never seem to respond to these.

[Kaleva]

21. No evidence given that offering resisitance would have changed the outcome.

Thus the argument is ineffective.

[eqfan592]

22. That was not the argument the OP was making.

The argument that he is countering is that of people who claim offering no resistance is a sure way to defuse any burglary situation unharmed. These stories are proof that it doesn't work that way. The point was NOT that offering resistance would have for certain helped these people, but that offering no resistance did not for certain help them.

Please make sure to read the entire OP before posting.

[Kaleva]

24. At the end of the OP is this statement: "That is why we keep guns."

Implying that being armed and resisting would have changed the outcome. Otherwise, why use these examples if the end result would have been the same regardless of what actions the victims took?

[GreenStormCloud]

25. Not "would have", but MAY HAVE.

With no gun, you must throw yourself on the tender mercy of the violent felon, as those people did.

With a gun, you have an option. The gun does NOT guarantee a favorable outcome. None of us here say that. But it does give me a choice, and it may be the only chance that I have.

A few months ago, a few houses away from us, home invaders (Abut 1 AM) killed a young couple. The invaders used knives. It is known that the couple tried to fight because they had defensive wounds on them. But unlike the movies, in fists vs knives, the knives won. Some loaded guns in the hands of the couple would likely have changed who died. The home invaders were never caught.

[eqfan592]

27. Beat me to it, GreenStorm.

But you hit the nail on the head. :toast:

[TPaine7]

23. But there is evidence

Criminological evidence shows that those who resist with a gun are about 1/2 as likely to be injured or killed.

The OP was answering the argument that "they just want your stuff"--showing it to be a false and dangerous delusion.

[GreenStormCloud]

28. EXACTLY !!!! N/T

[east texas lib]

26. I agree...

Goblins need to be properly labled for easy identification...with a toe tag.;-)

[X_Digger]

29. Saw this one today..

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97033-GameStop-Clerk-Shot-During-Robbery

Despite cooperating with an armed robber holding up his store, a GameStop clerk in Florida was shot as the man left with a freshly-stolen Nintendo Wii, and some games and cash.

Minutes after a GameStop in Orange County, FL opened on Monday morning, a man armed with a handgun entered and ordered the clerk on duty and his customer to stay put. After waiting for an automated timer on the store's safe to expire, the gunman took the cash, a Nintendo Wii and some games - and shot the clerk in the leg on his way out.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

30. Kick,