[Info-vax] Completely OT: Frank Lloyd Wright

[Dirk Munk]

David Froble wrote:
> Dirk Munk wrote:
>
>> That's good. Just think of the guy who shot his 15yr old son a couple
>> of weeks ago, because he thought the boy was a burglar. Life must be
>> hell for him now, waking up every morning in the knowledge that he
>> killed his own son.
>
> We've been here before.  You believe what you want to believe, and
> nothing can convince you of anything else.
>
> Yes, that probably is a terrible tragedy.  But let's look at it for a bit.
>
> 1) The guy shot someone he could not identify?  Wrong!
>
> 2) The guy resorted to shoot first and ask questions afterwards?  Wrong!
>
> 3) The guy shot to kill, and not to just discourage?  Wrong!
>
> You may think guns are terrible, but in the three items above, in which
> of them did the gun do something wrong?  None of them.  It was the nut
> holding onto the gun.  Most likely an untrained nut.
>
> You don't shoot someone unless you know who and why you're shooting.  If
> someone is standing in your house, and you have a gun, you should call
> the police, not shoot him.  Now, if he's bearing down on you with a
> large knife, then you need to take action.  Maybe shoot him in the leg
> and he won't be so able to chase you.
>
> Got a wife?  Maybe a daughter?  How bad would you feel if they were
> being hurt, or worse, and you could do nothing to help them?  That door
> swings in both directions.
>
> But, with your attitude, even if you had a gun, you probably would not
> get training, and would probably hit your wife and daughter instead of
> the bad guy.  Yeah, for you, no guns ....

There is a big house in the centre of my city. Some 20 years ago it was 
restored, and the builders were amazed when they noticed that the walls 
were about one meter thick. They were even more surprised when they 
found lope-holes in the walls. It turned out that this house had 
belonged to an important family in the middle ages, and it was build as 
a fortified house with the entrance on the second floor. In those days 
it made sense, but we have left the middle ages behind us. The notion 
that you need a stockpile of deadly weapons at home to defend yourself 
against criminals is rather alien to us, as it should be in a remotely 
civilised society.

If you check the statistics, you will find that the side effect of 
having guns at home many innocent people then are killed who otherwise 
would not have been killed. But those victims are collateral damage 
caused by stupid idiots who don't know how to handle a gun, so they 
don't count as much as the victims of crime.

Suppose you have a disease, and the medicine you are taking for that 
disease is far more likely to kill you than the disease itself, would 
you take it? I wouldn't, but it seems you would.