In article <cv6ev6$go6$1@bent.twistedbits.net>, jon@dakota-truck.net writes:
>
Unfortunately many people do not believe the court system works too well,
myself included. If it did, many would be criminals would think twice about
their criminal actions or intentions. Also many criminals tend to be
recidivists, that alone tells us, the public, that their crimes were bad, but
not bad enough to put them away or sway them from a life of crime or moral
indecency. Which leads us to the "natural selection" part of the equation. If
that is the "answer" to the equation, well then so be it. I would personally
feel horrible to have to pull a gun or even inflict pain (let alone kill)
another human, but to do it in self defense or in the defense of a family
member, I wouldn't think twice. Jon's probably right, I should have carried
this to the off-topic list, my apologies.
Mike
>
> "Pindell, Timothy" <TPindell@otterbein.edu> wrote:
> [...]
> : Is the cause of the low crime rate due to people actually defending
> : themselves and killing criminals in the act, or is it the
> : weapon-friendly nature of the municipality that gives criminals cause to
> : consider a target they perceive as weaker? What is the ratio of
> : criminals killed per attempted felony? Has the law increased the number
> : of firearms used in home defense, or just increased the perception by
> : criminals that a firearm may be present? I'm not trying to be a jerk.
> : As a gun-owner myself, I just find the topic interesting.
>
>
> Its the perception. As a rule, criminals prefer easy targets.
> They're lazy, and cowards - which is why they are criminals in the
> first place... Why burglarize a home when you know there's at least
> one gun waiting for you inside? Easier to go one town over, or find
> a house with a Kerry/Edwards sign and rob that one instead. ;-)
> Taken to a larger scale, its not merely a matter of shifting crime
> away to other areas - if the entire country was well armed, the
> criminals would be inclined to find another line of work.
>
> That said, personally owned firearms are (sucessfully) used
> somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 million times per year in
> self defense in the United States. BTW, the vast majority of these
> incidents don't result in killing the criminal, or even pulling the
> trigger for that matter - when the steel clears the gunleather,
> the bad guys tend to make themselves scarce. ;-)
>
> So, it really works out to be a little bit of both. The threat
> of armed resistance will cause criminals to target people and
> locations which they calculate to be "low risk". If they guess
> wrong, and a firearm is indeed present, it serves to not only
> alleviate the immediate threat, but to curb future ones (either
> by taking this particular criminal out of circulation [via
> the court system or "natural selection"] or by sowing more doubt
> into the criminal community.)
>
>
> (BTW, if this is likely to turn into a lengthy thread, we should
> probably think about jumping over to the dmlofftopic group.)
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
> | 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
> | 1996 Intruder 1400 - 1996 Kolb FireFly - 2001 Ram QC 3500 CTD |
> `------------------------------------ http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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