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 ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html