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But Seriously...

Discussion in 'Permanent Threads' started by Juice, Jun 19, 2015.

  1. NatCH

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  2. Revengeofthenerds

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    With the world going to shit, at least for the next few months here in the states -- unemployment is gonna skyrocket and then elections and covid and hurricanes and covidcanes all mixed in and.... yeah -- figured now would be as good a time as any to look into self defense insurance. I know there are a few people with their LTC on here so this info could be of use.

    For me, the idea of lawfully defending myself or my family and then being involved in an expensive civil suit by the criminal's family is a bit terrifying. After talking to some attorney friends and doing my own research, the consensus seemed to be US Law Shield. They're based out of Houston but provide coverage everywhere. $11/mo and unlimited civil and criminal defense litigation coverage, peace of mind basically.

    I don't like this whole "guilty until proven innocent" mindset people are starting to get into.
     
  3. downndirty

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    I heard in GA you can only buy 100 rounds of ammunition at a time. When I asked why, they said there was a run on ammo because of "the rioters". In rural, more cows than people Georgia. It just doesn't seem like a realistic threat assessment.

    I'm struggling with this notion that people truly believe they are going to open fire on civilians and the consequences of that outweigh the risks of whatever the rioters and protesters were going to do. Like, you're going to commit manslaughter over graffiti? You think if there's a legit riot, they won't shoot back? I dunno a lot of the folks who give Baltimore it's reputation, but I do know they don't leave their guns at home when shit's going down.

    I also think...ask some people who have taken lives before. Or been shot at, or been threatened with gun violence before. These people have a much more sober, realistic and....authoritative perspective, especially the ones whose day job isn't capitalizing off of their service. The folks that I've talked to, various vets of military and law enforcement generally reinforce the truth: when it comes to armed conflict, you are an amateur, with no authority and the odds are astronomically higher that you entering into some armed confrontation ends badly for you. If an officer comes on the scene, their immediate focus is on the armed person, and I can't imagine they are going to patiently ask "Oh, are you someone who's legally exercising their 2nd amendment rights against people exercising their 1st amendment rights? Let's crack open this picnic basket and talk about it."

    However, I think carrying is a deterrent. I think if you stand in front of your house with your rifle slung over your shoulder should tell anyone "not me, not today". If you decide to shoulder that rifle, point it at another human and pull the trigger, in most cases, it's a bad fucking decision. At best, you go to jail. So, you have to balance the vast number of things that don't happen by displaying you're not an easy target, by the horrific outcomes should you have to pull a trigger.

    I think the people who have a plan in place, ie, "when my gun comes out of the safe, here's what's going to happen. Here are the circumstances where I will take that rifle off my shoulder, because it's unacceptable to me, like being restrained, people also toting guns entering my home disregarding my warnings, or someone physically coming between me and my children" are doing the best they can. But if they run those plans by law enforcement, listening to those conversations, you hear a lot of LEO going "yeah, that's a lot of gray area" and "most of the time, it's not going down like that."

    As a gun owner, especially these days, in such charged times....I worry that reaching for that rifle is a reflex that needs to be questioned.

    I am grateful I don't have to make these decisions in my daily life. I feel for people who are so threatened they think this is the best course of action, and I question their assumptions. I also kind of think that's why these riots are in public places....private homes get you killed (plenty of weaponry in a pinch in a garage or kitchen).

    I also believe, and I cling to this belief: we have a lot less to fear from one another than we are lead to believe.
     
  4. Juice

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    As with anything, don't let the crazies sway your opinion one way or the other; because that's what the narrative by both left and right-wing media is designed to do. With the massive amount of privately owned guns in the US, legally-owned gun violence is pretty low. And even then, most gun-related deaths are suicides. I also own a bunch of guns, and I recoil at the thought at having to use them in a defensive capacity and I'm confident the vast majority of responsible gun owners feel the same way. As for the people who are anti-gun or neutral but don't understand them, I hope they would educate themselves on a the subject before forming an opinion, but also with anything, that usually isn't the case.
     
  5. downndirty

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    Right! I wonder what the percentage of "forced entry" is drunk family members.

    I remember back in the day, when my mom put a pistol in her nightstand, having a real serious talk about "Mom, the only person breaking into the house at 3 am is drunk me, because the doorbell is loud, your dog is annoying, and drunk me thinks I can be sneaky. So dont shoot me."

    What's more likely? Someone running incredible risk to attack someone in their home, or someone shitfaced forgot their keys?
     
  6. Juice

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    Having (almost) been the victim of a home invasion when I was home alone as a kid, my opinion on that is drastically skewed. But after suicides, I would imagine that gun deaths are probably attributed to accidents similar to the scenario you outline above, sadly.
     
  7. downndirty

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    I think it goes:
    Suicides
    Accidental solo deaths, ranging from "I was cleaning it and it went off" to suicide without a note or cause
    Accidental homicide.

    I would be really curious what the numbers are for crimes prevented or deterred, compared to homicide and manslaughter involved with personal pro gun owners.

    I know the math isn't good for personal pro, but I'd be really interested in how you could estimate the number of crimes deterred. I think it was here, where a poster told a story about being alone in a parking lot, being spied on by three or four people, cops are at least a half hour away, and going to the trunk, visibly pulling out a gun and seeing the people spying on him back off. Those kinds of situations where a crime didn't occur, or where a gun was a sign that you're not an easy target would be hard to quantify, but really valuable if you could.
     
  8. walt

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    I can think of only one time I have left a loaded gun, my deer gun, loaded next to our bed and that was when two convicts escaped from a local prison. We all slept upstairs at the time, and my plan was “you can have anything you want downstairs, but you start up the steps you’re dead.” My wife made no argument, and they were captured a day later a few miles from here.

    I can’t imagine using deadly force over a television or someone not showing any sort of violent behavior towards me and mine. I’ll do time with a clean conscience over my wife’s safety, not a replaceable appliance.

    I rarely carry my pistol these days because I don’t go too many places to begin with. It and all my guns are locked up, always. But when I do carry, I call it the heaviest pound in the world.

    Friends have asked what happens if someone breaks in and my guns locked up. My response is “then I have time to think about what I’m about to do” and not accidentally shoot one of our sons who is just up for a piss in the middle of the night.

    Someone marching by the house in a protest, forget it.
     
  9. downndirty

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  10. Revengeofthenerds

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    for me, the insurance thing was something I should have done when I started carrying years ago. It just makes too much sense to protect yourself when protecting yourself. This was just the tipping point so to speak.

    go figure, last night I shot two armadillos out my door. They were terrorizing my yard. Didn’t even have to brandish!!! ... fuckers
     
  11. Crown Royal

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    If dogs start barking, and as long as they don’t say “yap yap” or “yip yip”, 99% of trespassers are going to get the fuck out of a dodge. Heck, most will book the second ANY dog makes noise... but a deep, growling snarl and snapped bark in the dark has same the spine-tingling, bladder-voiding effect as the sudden sound of a shotgun being racked.

    We have two big, dopey basset hounds. Now on sight, anybody who breaks in and sees them are likely just going to crack up, they’ll wag their tails and lick their ears off. But when you so much as step on our property at night they know it, and they sound like Cerberus lives in our house. NOBODY is attempting to get in, not with that ferocious death siren booming through the living room.
     
  12. Revengeofthenerds

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    when I got my CCL, our dumbass instructor told us about the one and only time time he had to draw his weapon at his house. He saw someone shining a light through their windows, and so he took his pistol out of his night stand and watched for a bit. They walked around the house, kept shining the light in different windows, so finally he grabbed a flashlight, and pointed both his light and handgun at the person ready to defend his home. Turns out it was a cop doing a wellness check on his elderly neighbor and he just got the wrong address.

    I don't know what the moral of the story was, but all I got from it was that our instructor was a fucking idiot who just told a story about pointing a loaded weapon at something he hadn't properly identified.

    Our house is a good quarter mile if not more from the nearest road and doesn't look like a prime target from the outside so I'm not worried about delivery guys and the like circling back.

    I wouldn't rely on that. Logically, you are afraid of what you don't know. You hear a dog barking, you don't know what that dog looks like, how big it is, what breed etc. Your imagination runs wild and goes worst case scenario, all the sudden you're thinking Cujo. You hear a shotgun rack, you don't know where they are but you know they've seen you. And you know they now have a loaded gun and are one step away from ending you. That is, logically.

    You think someone who breaks into your house is acting logically? Is breaking into a home, especially if it is clearly occupied, something one would do if they had a sober and functioning brain? Sure, most criminals will likely hear your dogs and figure it's more trouble than it's worth, but some might not. It's like how cops empty their magazines into criminals -- you shoot until the threat is no longer a threat, because every once in a while you get a dude like this:

     
  13. Crown Royal

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  14. downndirty

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    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli.../police-racism-violence-ideology-george-floyd

    Interesting read.

    Part of the issue around this, again, is that the solutions proposed are being dictated to the cops.

    I think the lesson that a lot of cops are learning isn't don't be racist, or don't be violent, but don't get caught and don't go viral.

    I also think this conversation needs to start with "how can we defuse situations, so unarmed civilians are not victims of police violence", as opposed to "RAAAR ALL COPS ARE RACISTS, FASCISTS AND NAZIS". The core issue is justice, and from that you can address bias. But if you start with "cops have a racism problem", you're going to get a lot of amused smirks from people going "no shit, and they're not the only ones, but you can't exactly prove that in most cases and the ones who are dumb enough to get recorded saying the n-word or whatever will get fired to appease the mob and then hired somewhere else, lesson learned, nothing changed but the zip code."

    This is going to sound ridiculous, but racism, at it's core, strikes me as a belief, not fundamentally a practice. Beliefs can be changed, but it takes time. In the meantime, it's hard to demonstrate what someone believes in under ambiguous circumstances, and well...if we pretend that racists can't have jobs in one of the most common industries in the country, it's a crippling delusion. You can address racist behavior, if and when you catch it, but you can't police thought and therein lies the problem. We don't seem to have a problem with racism in the trucking industry as much as the law enforcement industry, because one of them is a fundamental part of the social contract. It's kind of the same problem as athletes throwing a game: you can't be 100% sure they flubbed the throw by mistake.

    I think you overcome those beliefs with intent and with experience. Part of the issue is the separation: all-black neighborhoods and all-white neighborhoods, the decline of social and community institutions that bring diverse groups together, and the barriers erected culturally (I'm reminded of Amy Schumer's joke: all of my black friend) combine to make a vacuum of shared experiences. I remember attending the funeral service of a black man in a black church with my white family as a child. My sister (who was a toddler at the time) was upset by the unfamiliar faces/circumstances, the loud noises and the emotional displays of grief. I was amazed by the kindness of the people, the vivid colors they wore and the gorgeous singing (to this day, I love the televised gospel music on Sunday mornings if I can find it). I hadn't experienced this before, and it changed my perception. Later in life, when I was confronted with people advocating racist beliefs, I had practical experience that made me realize they were full of shit. Absent that experience, their "knowledge" would have filled the void of ignorance I had. Same thing with Latinos: I spent a lot of time working construction with folks from all over Latin America, and when they are patiently helping you through an apprenticeship, you respect them and you seek mutual understanding.

    Not everyone gets those shared experiences, or worse some of those experiences are negative. That vacuum and the separation are a huge part of the problem.

    Lastly, I think if there is legislation that results from this, the result will be in the form of putting jurisdictions on larger financial hooks for this violence.
     
  15. AFHokie

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  16. Revengeofthenerds

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    Funny timing, we were recently talking about how red flag laws are constitutional BS and I just got an email from my LTC insurance that they’ve now included red flag law defense for all their members.

    this will be overturned in the courts as soon as someone challenges it, there’s just not any case law on it yet.

    The hypothetical example we made of someone calling the cops on their neighbors and taking their guns because they’re acting objectively “suspicious” (technically they’d have to go in front of a judge, but the neighbor wouldn’t need to be present or even know it’s going on) is something that WILL happen. It’s just a matter of time.
     
  17. downndirty

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    I'm in therapy for depression and I drew a hard line at medication for it. One of the main reasons for that was a diagnosis on the books that might one day be used against me, and the most likely scenario would be guns. I logically know it's unrealistic, but it stuck in my mind hard enough to refuse a course of treatment and some providers who wouldn't work with me on that.

    My neighbor HAS called the cops on me for "acting suspicious" because I was pacing outside on the phone with a headset on and couldn't hear him/didn't pay attention. The notion that something like that would somehow enable my property to be seized is terrifying: a Karen pretending the HOA is her covenant with justice now decides what I can and can't own? Nope.
     
  18. walt

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    Years ago my uncle's now ex-wife called the police on him saying he threatened her and threatened to kill himself. Anyone who knows my uncle knows he's the last person who would do such a thing, and knew she was nuts. So I went to the ER where they'd taken him to let the staff know this was all bullshit ( I was a paramedic at the time, so knew them all well. )

    Long story short, they realized he wasn't a threat and let him go. But still he was asked by the police to surrender his guns until they cleared things up. My uncle lives for hunting, so while it was a painful decision, he agreed, if only to keep her from selling them.

    So one of my problems with red flag laws is shit like that. It's too easy for someone to say you're a threat and then YOU have to prove you're not.

    I won't touch those meds anymore either for a variety of reasons including this. When a nurse is doing my intake and they ask if I have any guns in the home, the answer is "no". It's none of their or my insurance company's business and has nothing to do with why I'm there. And when I worked in a medical office, I always skipped that question in the chart.
     
  19. downndirty

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    I also think how bad we suck at prohibition. All my drug experiences suggest that gun control legislation predicated on prohibiting certain guns will be ridiculous.

    Along those lines, to a certain extent the 2nd Amendment itself is absurd now. We're going to defend ourselves against tyranny with our rifles, while the government has some of the most destructive objects ever conceived by man. I'm actually a proponent of "anything a grunt gets issued, I should be able to have".

    Telling people I have guns, especially healthcare providers spooks me.

    One of my worst nightmares and the biggest lurking demon when it comes to universal health care is the information collected and what is done with it. I think that will be the next wedge issue: data and privacy. Right now the scary stuff is what NSA is doing for security and it's a lot of DOD applications. In the next few years, it'll filter down to more granular levels of government like taxes, healthcare, etc. and it scares me because the people making these decisions are as tech savvy as an electrocuted possum corpse.

    I can imagine a nightmare of a police database of which homes are gun owners, and how they respond to calls in those houses, or how they knock on those doors....fuck that.
     
  20. downndirty

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    I dont think you can call that "war", and they certainly don't pose the threat that our hometown terrorists do.

    This is my point: there are a lot of reasons the US government doesnt commit outright genocide, but the fear of armed retribution isnt high up there.