[lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
- From: "Lawrence Helm"<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:20:09 +0000
You aren't paying attention Phil. Maybe you aren't enjoying this as much as
Mike and I are. The Korean incident I described had to do with my guarding
three murderers awaiting court martial. They were not enemy soldiers.
Your ignorance about what is involved in guarding or warding off an intruder is
abysmal. You seem to imply that she should have reasoned that since most
criminals don't kill that it will be okay for them to come after her. Whatever
they do, they probably won't kill me. Why are they coming after me? To get my
gun and use it on me as the pacifists say? Perhaps that or they just plan to
beat me up, break a few arthritic bones, but what's that to the rights of these
criminals? I should just let them do whatever they like. Let them rob me or
rape me. After all if I become destitute or so beaten up that I must spend the
rest of my life in the hospital, at least I haven't taken one of the little
darling's lives.
You sound just like a Canadian, Phil. Americans who have lost the ability
during war to distinguish friend from enemy often go off to Canada, where
ignorance of that distinction seems to be enshrined in the Canadian psyche.
Your mind is playing tricks on you Phil, making the murderers I guarded in
Korea enemy soldiers, and the thieves robbing this old lady innocent joy
riders. Thieves had robbed her before. Who are you to say what those
robberies comprise? You want to take care of the poor, why not take care of
the old and decrepit who want not to have the things they've accumulated over a
life-time stolen from them?
What do "feelings" have to do with anything. I have attempting to enlighten
you on this subject, that if you are guarding someone, you DO NOT THEM COME
AFTER YOU. This is common sense. This is covered for Marines in Basic
Training: This is covered in basic common sense. Whatever reason the bad guys
have for coming after you, they clearly do not intend you good and you are
ordered to stop them if you are a Marine. But if you are an old lady from
Kentucky and they come after you, you are entitled to defend yourself.
Feelings aren't critical here. Whatever I felt as a Marine or the old lady
felt confronting the thieves, we were standing there with our common sense
turned on, knowing that the people standing before us were our enemies. We
knew that if they could, if they thought we were weak and perhaps from Canada,
they would take advantage of us, take our weapons away from us and incapacitate
us to some extent before running away.
Lawrence
------------Original Message------------
From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, Apr-24-2007 3:55 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
Lawrence Helm wrote:
"What is the same is a person with a gun in the right opposing criminals.
It makes no difference whether he is an American Marine in Korea or an
American Woman in Kentucky. Neither, if he has a brain in his or her head
will let criminals come after him or her."
First, enemy soldiers aren't criminals. Second, very few criminals are
likely to kill. The claim that the mere approach of a criminal is evidence
of a threat to life is illogical at best, paranoid at worst. That the
person felt some drunk good ol' boys, who wanted to take a decrepit tractor
for a joy ride, were actually out to kill her, strikes me as being highly
paranoid. And we both agree that mentally ill people should not have guns.
Again, what a person feels is not justification for what they do.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
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