peacefuljeffrey

I would agree whole heartedly with the sentiment that some people deserve more repsect (of life or any other) than other low life scumbos.. The issue I have is that when someone is Drunk.. and not necessarily acting in a rational manner, you do not have the background knowledge to know if this is a lowlife or just someone acting based on alcohol and visions! - yes, protect your own life but you dont have the ability to fairly judge who deserves to live. This is why - courts carry out sentencing and not mobs on a street. Courts have the luxury of being able to determine, at leisure what kind of a threat someone was. A guy busts out the window of my house, reaches around and unlocks the doorknob, I don't HAVE to care one shit whether he's drunk or not, or what a great father he is to his kid (which is debatable, given that he engages in such maleficent criminal acts), or how much he donates to charity. I have the right to defend my own life in that situation, and drunk or not, it is his responsibility to act in a manner that is not consistent with giving the appearance of threatening my safety. If the reason he acts in a manner that threatens me and makes me fear for my life is that he is drunk, well too fuckin' bad, Mr. Drunken Lout, because a drunk killing me is no less guilty than a sober guy killing me, and I would be just as dead if I let it happen simply because I couldn't bring myself to hold a drunk guy accountable for his crime just because he was drunk. The decision to get out-of-control shitfaced is not exculpatory. One decides whether to imbibe enough alcohol to get drunk. One must pay the cost of making such a decision. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Why do you excuse a guy from attacking you just because he's drunk? Do drunk people never successfully kill innocent people? If a guy who is drunk is breaking into my house -- forget about the fact I might not even be able to know he's drunk -- I am not going to give him quarter just for that fact. If he seems to be no threat to me, I may withold deadly force pending a less-violent outcome (like, if he's an affable, harmless drunk who tried to get into my house because he mistook it for his own). If he's a belligerent drunk who is screaming that he's going to kill me, and I have reason to believe he has that capability, I'll kill him without remorse about it. That's my human right. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Dunno?... Maybe out of humane decency? a mutual respect for life? or maybe the idea that the punishment fits the crime? If a DRUNKEN yob runs at me... I will try to avoid him... Alot of drunken people are out of control, not too many of them deserve to die for it. Odd -- I just realized that your post links to the one in which I spoke about theft, but you quoted a line from a different one, in which I was talking about killing a guy who ATTACKED ME FOR MY LIFE. You replied as though I had asked, "Why would I WANT him to continue to live" in the post about the car theft, but that's not where I typed it. I typed it in the post about a guy attacking me to kill me. Did you deliberately splice the two to misrepresent me? Or was it just a mistake that you will now clear up for us? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Dunno?... Maybe out of humane decency? a mutual respect for life? or maybe the idea that the punishment fits the crime? If a DRUNKEN yob runs at me... I will try to avoid him... Alot of drunken people are out of control, not too many of them deserve to die for it. We see things differently. My view is that people choose their actions in life, and those actions help determine whether they are worthy of others giving respect to their lives or not. A guy who goes about hurting others, stealing from them, raping them, killing them, there is no reason to grieve for the end of his life coming as early as possible. He is a DETRIMENT to the human decency and respect for human life you mention. You and I seem to be at odds as to whether a person can allow himself to degenerate to where he is no longer worthy of life because his life stands to represent all that is evil in a human being. I feel that a person can push his misbehavior to a point where he forfeits his right to any "respect for (his) human life." To fail to realize that a person can do this is to grant his life value and importance equal to that of, say, a doctor who saves lives, or a volunteer who helps people at personal expense of time, effort and wealth. For instance, if I were in a lifeboat with two others, one a volunteer, and one a convicted felon, and the time came to push one overboard because there was food enough for only two to survive, I would not have to flip a coin, but I guess you would, based on what I can gather of your opinions on this subject. I can't understand why, though. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I quoted Jeffrey (post no.13). Why would ANYONE want to take credit for a Jeffrey quote? Look somewhere else for your father figure. This is getting too surreal. Boobies, indeed. Look at the header of your post. You failed to quote ME. Your post gave the appearance of attributing what I said to Mike's name. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Without a doubt. Goes without saying. Who shouldn't? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I do that as a snub. I guess it worked! "and it is not like they just asked Nigel Hetwoodham of 83 Brookhill Road for his thoughts on the matter -- the guy is a government higher-up." If you wanted to, you could verify it. The article appeared on page 11A of the Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA) on 22 April 1999. It was written by Sue Leeman of the Associated Press. Beyond that I can't help you. But are you really ready to claim that because we don't have a transcript of the interview (which would prove nothing, anyway) the AP article is not to be credited as true and accurate? I assume that the statement was made during an interview with someone from the press, over the radio. Or maybe it was at a press conference, a recording of which was later played over the radio. Did you see where the article said, "Robertson told British Broadcasting Corp. radio"? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

So how did the notion of the GOVERNMENT censoring Michael Moore enter this discussion? Quade implied that the government is cracking down on "dissenting media." It is not. There would be civil war in this country if it did. The day we have a Michael Moore put in jail for saying negative things (not libelous, just negative, because libel can be punished) is the day we'll have an uprising, and rightly so. I may have voted for Bush, but I wouldn't support his silencing freedom of speech and the press. But Michael Moore is NOT "the press." He is not a reporter, he is a propagandist. There is a gargantuan difference. (H.P. Lovecraft would call it "cyclopean"! ) Moore is no more important to our ability to get news and information from clear, unbiased sources than Morton Downey Jr. or Jerry Springer are. (Remember Downey? The schmuck who started it all?) -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Your constant goading and taunting and singling me out for annoyance makes you unworthy of my opinion. Suffice it to say that if my opinion is given, it will not ever be because you sought it. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I want to state that I was hating him probably before most people here. My brother was trying to exhort me to read "Stupid White Men" (like I was gonna bother reading some piece of trash that had a title that right off the bat insults me). I picked it up, read the absolute moronic drivel that he had to say about gun ownership, and told my brother that here was a moron author who had nothing to say that I needed to know, thanks anyway. And that was well before I we all were given "Bowling for Columbine" -- it was some time early in 2002, I believe, and it was the first time I heard of Moore. Amazing, I had come to loathe him within about five minutes of ever becoming aware of his existence! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I think that this ought to be considered part of "HUMAN law." When someone steals from you, he is stealing that part of your time in this life that you had to "spend" in order to acquire the possession being stolen. If it's, say, the uninsured-for-theft car you bought for $3000, and you need that car and will have to work to replace it, the thief has just stolen from you the period of time you will now have to work to pay for a replacement car. We don't get vouchers back from god for more time on earth after some piece of shit steals from us. I think that if the majority of humanity knew that it was "human law" to kill those who would steal in addition to those who would kill, we'd have a better society. Because we generally say that theft does not warrant death, we end up with a lot more theft than we would otherwise have. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

What is the compelling argument for preserving the life of this hypothetical shitbag criminal who's attacking me? Why would I WANT him to continue to live, once he has given me the moral and legal justification for taking his life to save mine? Why would I want him to live to possibly sue me (it happens) or contradict my statements about how it happened -- because you know he is going to lie, if he was truly the criminal doing the unprovoked attack on me. Who needs that shit? And why should society be upset with you if you killed him flat out? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Look, the law is going to consider ANY firing of the weapon "use of deadly force." You won't save yourself much in the eyes of the law if you go into court and claim that the reason you hit the guy in the leg or shoulder and that's why he's still alive is because you were not shooting to kill. Your actions were, simply, deadly dangerous, and it will not be assumed that you were just super pinpoint accurate and able to fire a nonlethal shot. I just don't see what favor people think they'd be doing society by sparing the life of a shitbag criminal whose crime permits his victim to kill him justifiably. I would have no problem with every violent criminal waking up tomorrow and committing suicide. The world can get past whatever inconvenience it would suffer by losing the sales tax they pay or the marginal jobs they may have... We'd even take up the slack of replacing them as fathers and mothers if they happened to be. These are not the precious lives we think of when we think of human lives. These are pernicious, dangerous lives that are more of an evil than a force for good. So just as I wouldn't mind them committing suicide or dying in accidents, I wouldn't have a problem with dispatching one if he were threatening my life or that of someone I care for. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I might just pull it if I see one more dumbass gun thread!! Would everyone just chill with the guns already. They are weapons, like this thread and the others and you're KILLING us with it!!! Sounds like someone needs to spend more time in Bonfire and less time in Speakers Corner. Why do people complain about gun threads rather than just refrain from reading them?? And why do they use their own personal distaste for them as an excuse to tell others what they should or should not care/post/read about?? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You'd use the decocking lever and lower the hammer without firing? I find it interesting that people are saying they'd never own/carry a gun, but then they say without equivocation that they would use one to save the life of their spouse or themself. What I can't understand is, in light of such statements, why these people are so opposed to owning guns since they obviously understand the utility of them. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I think that yes, I could make that decision, and if my life were truly threatened, I would pull the trigger. Why on earth wouldn't I? Isn't your example set up as a tautology: To shoot is to save your own life. Where's the question? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I think that you don't really want to advertise that you have $5000 worth of skydiving equipment in your house to the whole neighborhood. You have my sympathy about the whole situation, though. That truly sucks. If I were you, I would seek to trap the cat on your property, and turn it over to animal control, informing them of the name of the owners. Let them have to pay to get a cat with no tags on (does it have ID tags?) back from the pound! Maybe "accidentally" get some spray paint on the cat that the owners will have to deal with. (Maybe if they get so upset that their cat came to some minor harm, they'll take seriously their responsibility to it.) Ohh... shit... there's a homeowners' association?! Why didn't you say so?! They've GOT to have bylaws about pets! Prove that someone's pet got onto your property and you got 'em by the short hairs!! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You guys have been saying for a long while now that brits have no interest in seeing the U.S. institute brit-style gun control policy. The article (a clipping of which I found while cleaning tonight) states otherwise, and it is not like they just asked Nigel Hetwoodham of 83 Brookhill Road for his thoughts on the matter -- the guy is a government higher-up. I'm sure that brits have representation on the U.N. committee on small arms, which seeks to impose global gun control via TREATY. We Americans, under Bush, told them they can go PISS OFF, but that doesn't mean you don't have diplomats hard at work trying to push a binding treaty on us and the world that would nullify our rights under the Second Amendment. It'd be interesting to find the voting record in the U.N. on that subject. But it's late and I'm going to bed. That's because before I was a proofreader, I was a champion Olympic long-jumper. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Sophistry. Bush would not be the one making the law, and if such a law got passed, if it had enough support it could be veto-proof. Not that that will happen, given that we have an increased majority of Republican congressmen coming in next term.

Amen. t There you go, bringing religion into it again! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

My hours are somewhat reversed due to the fact that I work nights. I get home after 0200 and read and post for a few hours after that. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Yeah, well, it's easy to believe in registration and licensing, "purely as a record of who owns what firearms"... And that's exactly why registration and licensing are pushed on the gun-owning public -- so that the government knows who to go to when they decide to confiscate the weapons. It'd be wonderful if we could have registration and licensing without the attendant DANGER of the registration lists being used EXPRESSLY to take away the people's guns at a later date; unfortunately, trying to have registration and licensing without having that danger is like trying to have a coin with a "heads" side and no "tails." And please, if you believe in the utility of gun registration, inform me how that can be used to prevent crime if a person is bent on committing it. I think you would be surprised at how infrequently a gun trace of the last legal registered owner aids in the solving of a shooting crime. We have that, in the U.S., via the instant-check system. There is no need to keep a registration list if a person's background check comes back such that he is authorized by the government and the FBI to purchase a gun. Why would there be? -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Um, as I read the article, it says, "...Britain urged the United States..." That's a "group," is it not? That was the British Secretary of Defense George Robertson speaking in his official capacity for the nation of England, no? There is no failure to distinguish between individuals and groups in my post. I notice that you do not say anything about my main point. I wonder why that is. -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Ohh, SHIT. You mean I have to agree with Paulipod?! Hey, Pauli, why don't you come up with some creative ways we can deal with smoker-litterers that involve guns, knives, swords, dismemberment maybe... I think bigway's into that kind of thing, he'll get a kick out of it! -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

How often do you type "LOL" and really truly mean that you were actually laughing out loud? This time I mean it! "LOL!" -Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"