21st March 2010, 5:48 AM
I'm with Weltall here. I mean yeesh, you aren't protecting a lone ranch in the wilderness, you are protecting a single house yards away from two others on a street surrounded by even more. I assume that's the average lifestyle of everyone here. No one's hopping your gates to steal your cattle. They'd be doing a home invasion. A rifle is pointless, not to mention all the dangers of punching through your walls, into your neighbor's walls, and probably killing one of them. Are you really going to reach for a rifle next to your bed? A shotgun certainly has that zombie stopping power, but it's a bit much, and again, you aren't defending a ranch against city slickers here, you're just trying to have some assurance from robbers. Besides, anything big is going to be hard to reach for when you're startled out of bed, and do you really intend to keep that thing loaded and ready right next to you every night? You might as well keep a bow and arrow next to you.
If you're going to do this, be sensible about this. As much as criminals are a threat to you, I get the need for self defense. However, weapons of that caliber aren't meant to defend, they're meant for raw RETRIBUTION. You are not Clint Eastwood. If you have this fantasy in your head that it's you or them, at at long last you get to be judge jury and executioner, you need to stop that power trip right there. We're trying to run a society here, at least TRY not to kill someone unless you think it's necessary. And no, the "possibility of them having the gun you didn't see" is not enough reason to fire the moment you see them. Identify your target, identify their threat. Don't get sloppy just because you think you have the excuse. Try to be better than them. "Gritty police dramas" aren't all there is to life. I remember when ideals weren't laughed at as naive...
If you're going to do this, be sensible about this. As much as criminals are a threat to you, I get the need for self defense. However, weapons of that caliber aren't meant to defend, they're meant for raw RETRIBUTION. You are not Clint Eastwood. If you have this fantasy in your head that it's you or them, at at long last you get to be judge jury and executioner, you need to stop that power trip right there. We're trying to run a society here, at least TRY not to kill someone unless you think it's necessary. And no, the "possibility of them having the gun you didn't see" is not enough reason to fire the moment you see them. Identify your target, identify their threat. Don't get sloppy just because you think you have the excuse. Try to be better than them. "Gritty police dramas" aren't all there is to life. I remember when ideals weren't laughed at as naive...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)