Can I request that people at least ATTEMPT to see the point?

[Pert_UK]

On edit: I meant this to be a general request, rather than one specifically about the sword incident. I'll add another example...

There are so many cases on here where people either deliberately or accidentally (through lack of paying attention) misinterpret other people's comments, or the news story or article or whatever.

I know that there will always be disagreements, and sometimes things are ambiguous, but we keep getting bogged down unnecessarily and it pisses me off.

For example, from yesterday:

Man attacked by someone, defends self with sword. Attacker runs off, man chases attacker down the street and stabs him 4 times in the back as he flees, thus killing him. Man is found guilty of manslaughter.

Comment Type 1: Wow, you can't even defend yourself in the UK.

Yes you can, you just can't use an illegal weapon and repeatedly stab someone who is running away. Someone running away is, by definition, not attacking you so it isn't self-defense.

Comment Type 2: I'm not going to lose any sleep over some armed mugger being killed. Why are you all so concerned about some scumbag being removed from circulation?

Missing the point entirely. The point is that we're talking about the LAW. Whether or not the world is better off without this guy, the law has been broken. We have laws and a criminal justice system to deal with people like this, and if you are really subscribing to the "Let them wipe each other out" philosophy then you need to throw all other laws out as well IMHO.

Another example:

"I think that the gun laws are adequate at the moment, but they are not applied well enough in practice. We need to apply them more strictly rather than introduce new laws IMHO"

Comment type 3: What a pantload! You just want everyone to be armed to the teeth and gun a Mexican stand-off in every Main Street...etc. etc.

Not really helpful nor addressing the content of a genuine opinion. (Sorry MrB).


:-)

P.

[demsrule4life]

1. No

There are people here that won't make an attempt to see my point, I see no reason to make an attempt to see theirs. A permenant standoff.

[Pert_UK]

4. Errrr....are you being serious, Dems?

I can never tell......

If people are pissing you off by refusing to see your point, why stoop to their level?

Also, there is a distinct difference between disagreement or honest, open argument/discussion, and deliberately missing the point.

You've got to be able to see what the other person means and intends BEFORE you can argue with them.

Otherwise, we're all just standing around wearing ear-defenders and shouting at the tops of our voices.

P.

[demsrule4life]

8. Good post

now if you can get some of the antis to read it.

[iverglas]

19. I would be interested in knowing

Good post
now if you can get some of the antis to read it.

... when *I* might ever have misrepresented or disregarded anyone's point. (I do believe I've asked that before, but I don't recall any answers.)

Ditto for most other "antis", there being actually very few of us around here. Even the instance that Pert_UK has cited as an example of a problem really does not amount to misrepresenting anyone's point.

If you wanted examples of when points *made* by "antis" have been misrepresented, I'd be happy to share.

.

[MrSandman]

25. Your point is?

;-)

[Superfly]

2. Oh, yeah?

Manchester United sucks!

[Pert_UK]

6. No argument there!

Unfortunately my team also suck!

West Bromwich Albion, just in case you were wondering.

P.

[Superfly]

13. Mine's FC Bayern Munchen...

[Pert_UK]

15. FILTHY HUN!.....I joke of course!

One of my best mates is German, honest! I even supported them in the World Cup Final against Brazil!

:evilgrin:

P.

[Superfly]

16. Ugh...not a pleasant memory...

[Pert_UK]

17. On the plus side.....

The chances of WBA ever doing well enough to get into a competition where they play Bayern are pretty slim, so that's one thing we won't have to argue about!

P.

[Superfly]

18. Yay!!! Common ground!

Hugs...:grouphug:

[Wingnut357]

27. My cheeks are still wet...

[Narf]

3. Excellent point!

Yes you can, you just can't use an illegal weapon and repeatedly stab someone who is running away. Someone running away is, by definition, not attacking you so it isn't self-defense.

The use of a sword, like any other potentially deadly weapon, for self defense is only valid in order to stop a threat. Once the threat is over, as in this case the intruder was running away, the homeowner was no longer justified in using deadly force.

[iverglas]

7. goodness gracious!

The use of a sword, like any other potentially deadly weapon, for self defense is only valid in order to stop a threat. Once the threat is over, as in this case the intruder was running away, the homeowner was no longer justified in using deadly force.

Now *that* is a little different from:

Sounds like the intruders got what they deserved.
And the homeowner got shafted by a bass-ackwards system that punishes the wrong party.

And yet they were written by the same party, about the exact same story, only minutes apart I believe.

An early object lesson in sober second thought, perhaps?

Perhaps we can look forward to much more of it, exercised early and often.

.

[Narf]

10. After carefull reading I saw the part about the intruder leaving

I was under the impression initially, that the intruder was attacked inside the home, which would have been legitimate self defense. Once the intruder attempted to escape the homeowner had no legal standing to pursue and continue to assault the crook. That would be true for a sword, a gun, baseball bat, or whatever.

[smartass]

5. I need a link to this article before I give you my opinion.

[Pert_UK]

9. Well, I was meaning that we often miss the point in general....

but my example came from here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=46454&mesg_id=46454

You need to read both the original posting and its article, and the post with extra info in further down.

P.

[MrSandman]

11. As in talking about CCW in particular and getting...

OK, now here's the point..............


Nobody with even half a brain would ever claim that guns never, ever protect their owner. It is undeniable that there are cases where somebody would have been injured or killed if they hadn't been able to defend themselves with a gun.

The problem we have here is that you (and/or the article) are clearly implying that people are generally safer if they are armed. You can't move to such a general conclusion from an individual incident.

IMHO the pro-gun position considers individuals in isolation rather than the safety of society as a whole.

For example:

Would I be better able to defend myself against attack if I was attacked, if I had a gun? Almost certainly. Therefore guns make my life safer.

Versus:

Are citizens more or less likely to be killed by the deliberate or accidental misuse of a gun in a society that permits widespread private gun ownership? More likely. Therefore guns make society in general a more dangerous place to be.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x45993#46066

That was to the original message. Someone inferred the article saying people are generally safer when armed. The title was "A case." As in singular.
"for CCW." Not for the RKBA in general.

I hear the pots and kettle rattling.

[Pert_UK]

14. Not letting you get away with that......

1 - yes, it is called "A case for concealed weapons". I don't think that it is going too far to legitimately interpret this as "This case lends weight to the argument for concealed weapons to be allowed", and as the point of the story is that one saved her life, then surely the article is implying that this is some evidence supporting the view that concealed weapons make people safer. The article is CLEARLY saying that in this instance the weapon made this woman safer, and even adds that the Police Chief is being persuaded that the law to make CW permits easier was a good thing. To me, the article has 2 points, i.e. that a concealed weapon protected this woman and that concealed weapons, more generally, are a reasonable/appropriate means of self-defense.

2 - I state clearly that in this instance a gun protected this woman....If this isn't seeing the articles main point then I don't know what is.

3 - I go on to state an opinion of mine that I believe is related to the 2 main points of the article. I also set out two different ways in which one can view safety in society, i.e. individual safety or collective safety, in order to illustrate that there are different ways of looking at things, and how I believe the pro-RKBA lobby often do see things.

I may have extrapolated from the article and moved the discussion on to the more general theme, but I'm genuinely struggling to see how you can accuse me of not getting the point.

[MrSandman]

24. But the point of the article is not...

whether RKBA is desirable. To introduce benefits of RKBA or non-RKBA was missing the point.

[Pert_UK]

26. Well call me crazy, but......

surely you can't have concealed weapons without the right to keep and bear arms?

I agree that I didn't follow on the discussion in 100% the same direction as the article, but I hardly think that I was missing the point.

[demnan]

12. Yes

sometimes I've been guilty of this too, although not in a nasty way. We're all in such a hurry that we never really slow down to hear what the other person is saying. You'd think it would be different on a forum than it is in real life, but it's not.

We are all victims of a society that rewards the quick, rather than the thoughtful answer.

[texasdem99]

20. Um, since you used my example, I want to defend myself

I just found the original story in the Scotsman. What the other person added later in the thread was very significant, I'll readily admit, and changed the meaning of the story.

But my intent was not to subtly exclude information. (Not saying you are accusing me of that, Pert) If you read the article in the Scotsman, it didn't say anything about the guy running away and the other guy stabbing him. That short blurb was all there was.

After you said you suspected there was more to the story, I actually tried to find another reference to it and couldn't and gave up after about 5-7 minutes of looking, I'll admit.

Just trying to clear my name, I'll discuss anything with anybody, but subterfuge is not in my repertoire.

[slackmaster]

21. I had exactly the same experience with the Brit sword-wielder story

Read the same misleading article in the Scotsman, did a cursory search for another source, and gave up. I now fully agree that the sword dude was in the wrong, but I wonder why he didn't get shot. There's got to be more to the story. Could it be that the gun(s) weren't capable of firing?

[iverglas]

22. nah, not buying it

Wow, you can't even defend yourself in the UK.

That's not what I expect someone to say after reading a story that just plain doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Not, that is, unless he already believes (a belief that would be completely without foundation), or wants someone else to believe, that you can't even defend yourself in the UK.

That sword story was just one teeny little tiny piece of the evidence available to us regarding whether one is permitted to use force to defend one's self in the UK, and pretty much all the other evidence points in the other direction from the conclusion stated. So "you can't even defend yourself in the UK" just was not a reasonable conclusion to draw from the few known facts in the case.

It surely wouldn't have occurred to *me* in a million years to draw that conclusion and/or state that conclusion publicly. I immediately suspected there was more to the story, because it made so little sense. I can't imagine how it could possibly have made sense to anyone who had even an elementary understanding of English law (where do we think that USAmerican law came from?), or why anyone would have purported to think it made sense.

Well, I can, on that last bit, but hey, that's just me.

.

.

[Pert_UK]

23. Sorry, I didn't mean to malign you......

I agree that the Scotsman story was grossly misrepresentative of the case. I also tried to find more information about it, because it was so patently missing a lot of salient points.

It wasn't your fault that it was shite reporting and I didn't mean to imply that you had misused the text - it was the text itself that was distorted.

Of course, that didn't stop lots of people from jumping in with comments about the situation in the UK, based on a single article.

Apologies if you felt I was singling you out - I wasn't meaning to, but it was a good example of how things get carried away on here without people realising it.

Peace.

P.