WV man standing his ground, except it wasn't his

[RenaissanceBiker]

Oooh, a chick wearing a "Hog" sweatshirt! Nice find!

She can ride.

 

[Rolfe]

So can I. So what?

Rolfe.

 

[WildCat]

Yes it does, this is not a one off unique unlikely to be repeated event. Americans shoot each other for spurious reasons on a monotonous regularity.

People killing each other for spurious reasons with monotonous regularity is hardly a trait unique to Americans.

 

[Information Analyst]

It easier perhaps to understand the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude if you're in a high crime area or rural location especially if law enforcement response isn't as quick or effective as it might be.

One of the most controversial cases in recent decades was the shooting of a burglar by a English farmer who claimed there'd been a history of robbery and that the police weren't up to scratch. Trouble was, the burglar had been shot in the back and the farmer had had his shotgun licence revoked for an earlier shooting incident.

He also used a high-capacity* shotgun for which he would have needed a Firearms Certificate, rather than a Shotgun Certificate, and he booby-trapped the house and left it in darkness.

* As defined by English law.

 

[RenaissanceBiker]

So can I. So what?

Rolfe.

So I wasn't replying to you. But I will.

I honestly don't know whether the USA really is a significantly more dangerous place so that taking steps to be prepared for a violent assault is something one really has to attend to, or whether it's just the level of paranoia that's crazy and the place is really much the same as everywhere else.

At least you honestly admit your ignorance, but this is a false dichotomy. Neither the USA nor "everywhere else" is a homogeneous safety zone. Some places are worse than others and some people are more paranoid than others.

I remember going for a walk in the countryside, alone, when I was staying with friends in the USA. I genuinely felt jumpy, in a way thay would never occur to me at home. At one point I strayed from the wood where I was walking into what appeared to be the large garden of a large house. There was no boundary fence and the path I was on led straight on to the lawn. I swiftly turned and went back into the woods, fearful of being taken for an intruder.

This sounds like the paranoia you seem to be accusing others of.

This fear came from having read various media reports of innocent foreigners (and indeed locals) being gunned down in the USA. Like this story, I suppose. However, what, 300 million people? Most of them probably don't shoot at random ramblers. But how to tell?

Ugh, you are judging Americans based upon media reports? Watch some of your own media reports and ask yourself if they are a honest representation of your neighbors.

I suspect it's largely self-perpetuating, and that the people who are afraid, are actually afraid of other people who are themselves afraid, in a never-ending spiral. I just don't know how much of it is justified.

You also don't seem to know how much of it is true or a true representation of most of America.

We don't seem to see it on US TV shows, of which we get a lot. People run around doing whatever they're doing, without apparently carrying a gun, or being constantly on the qui vive for someone deciding to take a pot shot at them. But then they also go to hospital and receive treatment without anybody mentioning how it's going to be paid for.

Who knows?

Rolfe.

OK, I admit it. The Walking Dead is actually a documentary. We really all live like that. The media is involved in a conspiracy to cover up our massive zombie problem.

 

[The Don]

People killing each other for spurious reasons with monotonous regularity is hardly a trait unique to Americans.

The U.S. homicide rate is significantly higher than Western European countries. The homicide rate excluding gun homicides is comparable. Americans seem to kill people spuriously or otherwise at 2, 3 or 4 times the rate of other countries.

 

[tsig]

Responsible guns owners have been murdering a lot of people lately.

They're responsible gun owners right up til they pull the trigger, then they become "No true responsible gun owners".

So it's totally unfair to blame responsible gun owners for shootings.

 

[tsig]

It's murder, plain and simple. He's going to die in prison. The victims' family must feel beyond awful. I'm sorry that this happened, and it was totally senseless and pointless.

Collateral damage in the cause of gun freedom.

My freedom to own a gun trumps your right to be free of dying of gunshot wounds./gunowners mantra

 

[tsig]

Travis, I understand you don't like guns and you have told us why and I understand that too, but consistently misstating how SYG laws actually work gives the implication that you actually think that is how they work. I do not think you are anywhere near lacking in intelligence sufficiently to believe that. If I am wrong and you do truly believe it as opposed to just looking for something else to support your beliefs about guns then I have overestimated your intelligence and I apologize for that but you definitely are not correct re:SYG laws.

Just in case, I will give it a last try: because in a number of states and many cities prosecutors/DAs used shooting cases where a person was in their home when an intruder came into the house - often armed to try to advance their careers (and it wasn't just shooting). After the homeowner/resident shot/knifed/coshed the intruder, the DA/prosecutor would charge the homeowner/resident with murder or manslaughter - even though it was clearly self-defense - because the h/o /res did not get out of the house instead . And other similar.

The SYG laws simply remove that duty to retreat law - though before these came along I did instruct people how to get around the DTR rules and have freely admitted it. Unfortunately some prosecutors actually even went after people who were truly forced into the situation I taught people how to manipulate the bad guy(s) into. Glad I do not need to go that far anymore. YMMV.

The solution to bad prosecutors is bad law?

 

[The Don]

I honestly don't know whether the USA really is a significantly more dangerous place so that taking steps to be prepared for a violent assault is something one really has to attend to, or whether it's just the level of paranoia that's crazy and the place is really much the same as everywhere else.

I remember going for a walk in the countryside, alone, when I was staying with friends in the USA. I genuinely felt jumpy, in a way thay would never occur to me at home. At one point I strayed from the wood where I was walking into what appeared to be the large garden of a large house. There was no boundary fence and the path I was on led straight on to the lawn. I swiftly turned and went back into the woods, fearful of being taken for an intruder.

This fear came from having read various media reports of innocent foreigners (and indeed locals) being gunned down in the USA. Like this story, I suppose. However, what, 300 million people? Most of them probably don't shoot at random ramblers. But how to tell?

Your chances of being shot in the United States on purpose, by accident or by mistake are much, much higher than in the U.K but still very low.

Here's a link that suggests that the risk of being fatally shot is 10.6/100,000 and the risk of being non-fatally shot is 23.6/100,000 but the majority of deaths are suicides and I presume that the majority of injuries are unsuccessful suicide attempts (though I have no evidence to back that up). This would mean that your chance of being shot (fatally or otherwise) annually is somewhere between one in ten thousand and one in five thousand. If you're just visiting for a couple of weeks then that drops by a factor of 26.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/resourcebook/Final Resource Book Updated 2009 Section 1.pdf

Unless you have specific cause for concern (and IMO specific concern would include being in a notorious gangbanger area or being in a house where weapons are loaded and are unsecured), you're probably more at risk of winning the lottery.

As relatively bad as gun violence and gun fatalities are in the US, they still don't present much of a risk to tourists most of the time.


Edited to add....

Just to make it clear. IMO the U.S. has a gun/attitude problem and insofar as I have a dog in the fight (more than half of my living relatives, both mine and those by marriage, are in the U.S.) I believe that the U.S. would be a safer place with a different attitude to guns for self defence (i.e. not at all) and gun ownership (fewer guns, held for sporting purposes) but U.S. gun culture is not a reason to be frightened in the U.S.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

High quality facial hair like mine is a sign of maturity and personal responsibility. Besides, chicks dig it.


23 years and going strong. She's also a responsible gun owner with her concealed carry permit. If this marriage fails it will be spectacular!

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/111684fd9f8592e8f3.jpg[/qimg]

"It's alright, Mrs RenaissanceBiker, what the Ranger don't know won't hurt him."

*sounds of scuffling, blows landing*

"#@$!! The Jellystone Park Ranger! Get off me!!"

 

[Xulld]

They're responsible gun owners right up til they pull the trigger, then they become "No true responsible gun owners".

So it's totally unfair to blame responsible gun owners for shootings.

Yes, in the same way it is unfair to blame you for me not having a job for a few years with a broken back that you did not cause.

What a strange life, to spend so much time thinking and planning for the possibility of being the victim of a violent attack.

This is something I have literally never wasted a second of my thinking time contemplating.

Rolfe.

No murdered, assaulted, raped loved ones? Makes sense . . . .

I shot for sport, but never carried before my life was forever changed.

 

[Belz...]

http://gawker.com/man-shoots-new-neighbors-he-thought-were-stealing-from-1509601587

A West Virginia man faces two counts of murder for killing a pair of men from a distance with a rifle after he wrongly assumed they were on his land. The victims, it turns out, were his new neighbors, checking out their property for the first time.

He's being charged with 1st degree murder. Lesson here: Know your property lines!

Lesson 2: Don't shoot people even if they happen to step on your turf.

 

[Belz...]

I think first-degree murder is probably a reach

I'd call it premeditated.

 

[LTC8K6]

I don't recall any calls to ban your basic bolt action rifles. Not sure what gun law anywhere, other than a total ban on firearms, would have prevented this guy from shooting the black "robbers" with his bolt action rifle.

 

[The Don]

I don't recall any calls to ban your basic bolt action rifles. Not sure what gun law anywhere, other than a total ban on firearms, would have prevented this guy from shooting the black "robbers" with his bolt action rifle.

In this particular case, where the facts are not 100% clear we cannot draw any conclusions but recent revelations do make it seem that this was a deliberate murder rather than a fearful person mistakenly opening fire trying to protect his property.

More generally, it depends. Here in the U.K. it's very rare that trespassers and/or thieves are armed with guns and so whatever fear may have drive people to open fire on people approaching their house is much, much rarer (only a couple of cases spring to mind in the last 20 years, Tony Martin being one of them) so fewer handguns could lead to fewer people being shot with bolt action rifles because there is less fear.

 

[Xulld]

I don't recall any calls to ban your basic bolt action rifles. Not sure what gun law anywhere, other than a total ban on firearms, would have prevented this guy from shooting the black "robbers" with his bolt action rifle.

Well with how reasonable he reacted to new neighbors one could totally assume he would react equally responsible toward laws requiring him to forfeit property that is lawfully his . . .

 

[LTC8K6]

In this particular case, where the facts are not 100% clear we cannot draw any conclusions but recent revelations do make it seem that this was a deliberate murder rather than a fearful person mistakenly opening fire trying to protect his property.

More generally, it depends. Here in the U.K. it's very rare that trespassers and/or thieves are armed with guns and so whatever fear may have drive people to open fire on people approaching their house is much, much rarer (only a couple of cases spring to mind in the last 20 years, Tony Martin being one of them) so fewer handguns could lead to fewer people being shot with bolt action rifles because there is less fear.

Except the big call in the US is to ban the AR-15, not any handguns, or any bolt action rifles, or any shotguns.

The big call in the US is to ban guns that are rarely used in crimes.

Most burglars in the US are unarmed. Most states in the US do not allow you to kill a burglar over property alone.

Even if these two victims had been burglars, the charges would be the same, imo. The shooter had no justification to shoot burglars at a shed far away from his house.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well with how reasonable he reacted to new neighbors one could totally assume he would react equally responsible toward laws requiring him to forfeit property that is lawfully his . . .

Yes, a total ban on firearms wouldn't work at all in the US. People like the shooter in this case, are certainly never going to turn over their firearms. You'd have to forcibly remove them from him.

Most gun owners that I know would never turn over their guns either. They probably wouldn't start a firefight over it, but they would not just willingly hand over their guns because someone told them they had to.

I'm not turning in mine if ordered to, even though they aren't for self defense at all. I use them strictly on inanimate targets and I could certainly get along without them. I'd hate it, but I'd get over it. I'm not sure what I would do, but I won't be handing my guns over to the government. I'm not an NRA member, either.

It seems like a lot fewer people than expected actually registered their guns/mags in CT, but the numbers are preliminary.

 

[IXP]

What a strange life, to spend so much time thinking and planning for the possibility of being the victim of a violent attack.

This is something I have literally never wasted a second of my thinking time contemplating.

Rolfe.

It's got nothing to do with planning to be a victim. It is planning to get away with murder. I once had a long argument with a gun enthusiast who was actually better at making the argment than those on this forum. After we had exhausted our arguments and no one had moved on the issue, he gave himself away by fantasizing out loud about an attacker in his home and how he would stop him (dead). There was a blissful smile on his face while imagining the situation. That is when I finally understood the gun nuts.

IXP