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Dave_LF wrote:

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Their lives were wasted when they decided to become thieves.

This strikes me as horribly final and terribly cold. Are you saying that once a person commits a crime - any crime - that person is then doomed? That there is no possibility of any kind of redemption or improvement? Ever?

A criminal can change. A thief can serve time and emerge a better citizen and perhaps do some good with his life.

A dead person cannot.

A criminal can also commit more crimes and hurt more people. Can criminals ever change? Certainly. Especially if they were very young at the time or there were some sort of extenuating circumstances--maybe these guys were in debt to the mob and desperately in need of money, or maybe they were just drunk and acting stupid. But an adult who commits this sort of crime in a rational frame of mind is probably not going to change. And while individuals are free to show mercy and accept the concomitant risks for themselves, they are not obligated to and (shifting topics) I don't think the state has the right to put innocent people at risk to give the guilty a second chance.

I would also distinguish between different types of crimes. If a criminal is simply anyone who has broken any law, ever, then we're all criminals. But breaking into a stranger's house in cold blood and making off with his personal property is a particularly egregious thing to do. It's an invasion; it's an insult; it's a violation. You have to be pretty far gone before you'd be willing to do that.

It's too bad the world can't ship people off to Australia anymore, but I hear they've gotten all uppity over there.

Dave_LF wrote:

Anthriel wrote:

But this guy was in no jeopardy whatsoever. Nor was anyone else. Two lives were completely wasted

Their lives were wasted when they decided to become thieves. Whether the shooter is found guilty or not, it's still their own fault they're dead. That's the risk you take when you break into someone else's home.

You know, oddly enough, even though this is written pretty harshly, I understand your point here. I somewhat agree.

When someone chooses to... oh, I dunno, start the chain of lawlessness?... they are, in a way, responsible, I believe, for everything that happens after that.

A few months back, we had two news helicopters, here in Phoenix, which collided in mid air pursuing a fleeing felon. All four men in those choppers died.

I was one of the few people who felt that that felon was complicit in their deaths. If he had not chosen to rob and beat a storeowner, and then flee the scene, those four men who died doing their jobs would not have been in the air. Yes, the controls for the chopper were not in the felon's hands. But the situation was.


Criminals are bad. I get that. But, C_G? If you were to live next door to me, and you saw some guys running out of my home with anything that did not have a heartbeat, please just call 911 and do what you can to support the police. I don't want anyone dying, even those who are choosing to rob me, if it can be helped.

Good post, REL. Very excellent.

Louis L'Amour wasn't a bad writer, but he wrote fiction. The "west was won" by farmers, as you pointed out, and while they probably all had guns, the truth is that they were used to shoot gophers or food animals, not outlaws. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about what it was really like settling the West, and her Pa never shot no one, not once.

The burglars in this case were in the wrong. But while burglary might once have been a capital offense, it is not so any longer. To kill two men over property, when there was recourse to the police? Murder.

Once forgery was a capital offense, and when it was taken off the list of crimes for which you could be hung all the criminal lawyers moaned and whined that it was the end of the world as they knew it. But the world chugged along.

Harsh penalties and the fear of death do not stop crime. If they did, our history would be very different. In fact, our less barbaric times are less violent than earlier eras. One of the reasons, oddly enough, is that whisky costs more nowadays and is less freely available and there is a societal displeasure with daily drunkeness. The use of illicit drugs fuels much of the crime we have now, and so one would think that common sense would tell us to deal with drugs differently. But common sense has little to do with any part of the issues we are discussing.

It is absolutely true he didn't need to get involved. Yes, we can agree that he didn't need to get involved, since he is not his neighbor. We all know that if he had stayed in his own house he would never have been in any jeopardy. He was completely safe in his own house.

So now we're conflating two issues. The first issue is the killing of a burglar. The second issue is intervening on behealf of the neighbor.

I've stated quite clearly where I draw the line on the first - if he's fleeing or surrendering or unconscious he's not a valid target. Other's have stated quite clearly that criminals are never to be killed ever.

So where is the line on the second issue. Putting aside the whole issue of the death, supposing he had been able to simply hold them in place until the cops arrived, he still had no need to intervene. Yet he did intervene on behalf of his neighbor. How many people think that half of this situation was wrong?

C_G, did you mean to post the exact same thing twice? Maybe to emphasize that you had addressed all of this, before?

Here's the part that I was responding to:

Quote:

So now we're conflating two issues. The first issue is the killing of a burglar. The second issue is intervening on behealf of the neighbor.

I don't believe he intervened on behalf of the neighbor. I believe the neighbor was not being threatened, since those two guys were actually leaving. I think he "didn't want them to get away with it", and he shot them because they were "bad guys" and he thought he could get away with shooting them. Because they were bad guys, you know.

Did the neighbor want such an intervention on their behalf? Did the actions of this man protect the neighbor in some way? The first we do not know. The second answer is no.

So my comment:

Quote:

Criminals are bad. I get that. But, C_G? If you were to live next door to me, and you saw some guys running out of my home with anything that did not have a heartbeat, please just call 911 and do what you can to support the police. I don't want anyone dying, even those who are choosing to rob me, if it can be helped

... was intended to respond to you.

vison wrote:

See, I think a gun is just a gun. It's a tool like many other tools, albeit with an inbuilt danger factor one doesn't find in a hammer or in a Skilsaw.

Power cutting tools scare me more than firearms! I've known quite a few people injured with such tools, and I've never known someone who has been shot. Not personally, anyway.

REL wrote:

(Louis Lamour wrote about instances where women traveled alone across the west and could do so without fear because of the respect that men gave to women in that time period.)

That wasn't a phenomenon of firearms, that was a cultural shift due to the extreme scarcity of women. Such politeness would have been inevitable even if the weapons available were flint tipped spears!

Quote:

Personally I like how Maria said she would have dealt with the situation.

In all fairness, my solution would probably get me hurt or sued.

vison wrote:

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about what it was really like settling the West, and her Pa never shot no one, not once.

How does one decipher a triple negative? I've read that Laura Ingalls Wilder actually gave up on her books and gave them to her daughter to edit, rewrite, and get cleaned up for publishing. Since they were marketing to children, it's quite possible that any truely unsavory events were edited out. Or, even, that her father didn't tell his daughters about the very scary stuff.

What you read in the Wilder books isn't necessarily the bare, ungarnished Truth. They were trying to produce a publishable work, and succeeded brilliantly. And Louis L'Amour's work should not be dismissed as mere romantic fiction, either. He was famous for the quality of historical research he put into his tales. Many of his stories were based on newspaper articles and personal letters and flavored with his own extensive knowledge of people and how they tick. I think we can take much of what he wrote as more or less correct in essence, if not in exact details.

MariaHobbit wrote:

I've read that Laura Ingalls Wilder actually gave up on her books and gave them to her daughter to edit, rewrite, and get cleaned up for publishing.

This is an unfounded rumour and hotly contested by most Laura Ingalls Wilder researchers. Rose Wilder Lane (her daughter) was also a writer and her writing style was so markedly different than her mother's that the claims that Rose actually wrote most of the "Little House" books seems unlikely.

There was a biography of Rose written that makes this claim and there is an interesting review of that book HERE


Okay, back to the topic at hand. ;-)

Yes, I meant to post it twice. I felt it wasn't addressed.

Because he did intervene on behalf of a neighbor. Yes, he really did, unless you agree with vison that this guy really was a hyper-steroidal adrenalin-rusher who wanted to go out and kill badguys and his neighbor's house was nothing more than a convenient excuse.

As I asked, had he not killed them would you still condemn him for intervening on behalf of a neighbor? Had he been a 100th level Kung Fu Master, who by twisting the burglars' pinky fingers was able to put them in a paralyzing nerve lock until the police arrived and then released them with absolutely no harm done to the burglars, would you still condemn him for intervening on behalf of a neighbor?

Because in what I reposted, I separated out the killing from the intervening, and in your response Anthy, you put them right back together again, which is why I thought you didn't respond to me at all.

Cenedril_Gildinaur wrote:

As I asked, had he not killed them would you still condemn him for intervening on behalf of a neighbor? Had he been a 100th level Kung Fu Master, who by twisting the burglars' pinky fingers was able to put them in a paralyzing nerve lock until the police arrived and then released them with absolutely no harm done to the burglars, would you still condemn him for intervening on behalf of a neighbor?

Well, obviously not.

Obviously some would.

Osgiliate: I've read all of the Little House books many, many times. And I've read some of Rose Wilder's writing, and the 2 are so different it is absurd to claim they were written by the same person. Laura reworked and edited her books a lot, but in the end, her prose shines.

As for "historical fact", things can be true without telling ALL the truth.

/Osgiliate

Thanks for the link, Jewelsong!! Enjoyed that.

The argument over the murder of the two thieves is not an argument over a person's right to self-defense. The killer's life was not threatened, nor his neighbour's, the only lawful reason for using deadly force. What he did was not only illegal, but immoral. The killings cannot be justified.

As for guns being more dangerous than Skilsaws, Maria? It is possible that you could murder someone with a Skilsaw, but it's much easier to shoot someone. A gun is solely a weapon, but you can make a nice gun cabinet with a Skilsaw. You can't do the reverse.

I would like to point out my wild west great grandparents didn't shoot criminals, they hung them. And they did own guns, lots of them. Including a revolutionary war pistol. I always found the Laura Ingalls Wilder and L'Amour a picturesque representation of what the west, not what it really was. I have read both and I have read my great grandfathers journal, my great great aunts journal and a few other journals of those in the west, and sorry Wilder wrote a prettied up picture of reality and L'Amour wrote a romantized picture of reality.

Most cowboys were peace loving people who herded a small herd of cows and farmed. Life for western women was a great deal harder than what anyone writes about. And the use of guns has been greatly romanticized and exaggerated. Most of those in the west could afford the guns, but the bullets were a different story, and then they had to know how to make their own bullets (not something that most had time to do). Bullets were a rarity and only used sparingly. It’s like the mythos of Billy the Kid, in reality he probably on killed two people, one in self defense at the age of 11 or 12 and the second was over a poker game (which was a murder).

The truth about the wild west is it wasn’t easy, there were no big gun fights in every town. The sheriffs usually policed more than one town. Cowboys and Indians had to get along to survive and cowboy and their families often relied heavily on Indians for medical issues. Women were a scarcity because most died early and often in child birth. Men married more than once and often the wives have been lost to history completely. And most in the west weren’t 'legally' married because there were very few licensed preachers. Chaps and spurs were a item only worn on special occasions, as were the good beaver felt hats. Most of the clothes were made of cotton and wool and towels were made from flour sacks. Buying a dress was a once in a life time thing, if that, there was no such thing as a wedding dress. If one crop failed it could mean starvation, if the herd was stolen it was the end of the farm. Most cowboys owned a few head of sheep, goat and chickens. If the rooster died it was not good. And if the baby needed milk and the cow had a calf the baby got mares milk. Most lived in sod houses and shacks, not great wonderous wood cabins. Jails were built out of old railroad ties and other scrape parts. And the criminals were hung, not shot.

Well, I do understand your point, C_G. Your question is would it be morally okay for the guy to intervene on behalf of his neighbor if the perps were not hurt? Right?

I just think that the appropriate level of intervention was for the man to call 911, which he did. If he were to have gone out there with the intention of stopping the robbers with a pinky hold, or whatever, and the bad guys had had guns, and he had been shot, it would have been a shameful waste of his life. And he didn't have to do anything other than engage the police. The physical escalation was uneccesary, in my book.

I think if he were to have engaged those two guys in ANY physical fashion, it could have escalated in many different horrible ways. One of the horrible ways happened. It's just not worth risking anyone's life.

There are times when facing down the bad guy has to be done, and frankly, I believe the "God led" woman who shot that murderous predator in the church absolutely did the right thing. Absolutely. If it's necessary to protect lives, sometimes people have to just be stopped.

In this case, no one's life was in danger, until Mr. Helpful trotted outside with his shotgun, and upped the ante for everyone.



Did I get closer that time to answering your question?

CG, I don't think anyone is arguing that he was wrong to intervene. People are arguing that he was wrong to kill.

Hey, Ara-Anna, good post!!!! Exactly so.

But I still love The Little House books! Lovely reading, and "true" as far as they go. They just don't go that far.

Oh I like her books, but after I read the journals I was like well... sad for my foremothers. There is a story of one of my great....grandmothers freaking out because the only mid-wife was a Native American who did the whole native religion sage burning ect. ceremony, at the birth of her first child. But by the third child the ceremony became soothing to her.

Back to the regularly scheduled debate.

Thanks for that post Ara. I believe the mythologising of the West, first in cheap novels and then in Hollywood has done American society a great deal of harm.

Ara-anna wrote:

Oh I like her books, but after I read the journals I was like well... sad for my foremothers. There is a story of one of my great....grandmothers freaking out because the only mid-wife was a Native American who did the whole native religion sage burning ect. ceremony, at the birth of her first child. But by the third child the ceremony became soothing to her.

Back to the regularly scheduled debate.

Seems to me those journals should be "written up". Why don't you? I'd read them, for sure. Love that sort of thing!

Oh they have been published by the families. I will try to get information with in the next few days.