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Stranger Danger and Guns ("What an idiot!")
The New York Times Sunday Review ^ | September 28, 2014 | Nicholas Kristof

Posted on 09/28/2014 1:44:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

EARLIER this month, my iPhone vanished.

I looked up its location on an app called Find My Friends that my wife and I use, and I had a shock: The app said my phone was in a house 15 miles away, in a neighborhood that I’d never visited.

I drove there. It was night. The house looked creepy.

My wife stayed in the car, cellphone in hand, ready to summon the cavalry. I walked to the front door and rang the doorbell.

Nothing. The lights were on, so I rang again and knocked hard. I spent five minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door. Finally, a man emerged.

“I think you have my phone,” I explained tautly.

“Your phone?” he asked.

“YOU HAVE MY PHONE!”

“Oh,” he said, “your phone.” He pulled it out, still with my name, email address and office phone number pasted on it, and meekly handed it over.

I left, no questions asked.

Full of myself, I posted about the adventure on social media — and provoked a firestorm. A typical comment on Facebook, from Glenna: “Are you insane?”

Many followers scolded me, while others — particularly those abroad — expressed bewilderment that it should be dangerous to knock on a door and ask for one’s property. Heidi asked: “What kind of society do we live in when knocking on someone’s door to retrieve a lost iPhone becomes perceived as life-threatening?”(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: apps; banglist; cellphones; crime; guncontrol; metrosexuals
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1 posted on 09/28/2014 1:44:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No reception in my neighborhood.


2 posted on 09/28/2014 1:49:15 PM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I guess the author had better luck than the "Dude"


3 posted on 09/28/2014 1:49:36 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (zerogottago)
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To: mountainlion

So because he’s stupid, he thinks the rest of us should give up our means of self-defense.

I wish he had to say that to Traci Johnson’s face, which is fortunately still attached to her body, thanks to a citizen legally carrying a gun.


4 posted on 09/28/2014 1:52:26 PM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They should re-title this to “A Convenient Way To Get Your Ass Killed”.


5 posted on 09/28/2014 1:53:27 PM PDT by Ben Mugged (The number one enemy of liberalism is reality.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
“What kind of society do we live in when knocking on someone’s door to retrieve a lost iPhone becomes perceived as life-threatening?”

A diverse, multi-cultural society.

6 posted on 09/28/2014 1:53:40 PM PDT by seowulf (Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.---Ambrose Bierce)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

7 posted on 09/28/2014 1:53:47 PM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Ahh, yes, the typical liberal bovine excrement. ‘I was a fool because law abiding citizens have guns.’ Of course, his examples are utterly bogus - I defy you to find someone in the UK, no matter what the neighborhood, who could not point out at least three streets within a half hour's drive to NEVER GO TO. Where the police themselves probably will never go to either.

Things, of course, are just peachy in the UK - they've been unmanned, err, well, I guess it would be more polite to call it disarmed for quite some time. To the point where there are handy dandy knife turnin boxes all across the UK. Because that's the liberal mantra there - that knives are evil and must be turned in, lest someone gets hurt. Like, well, from a Muslim who attacks people with a knife in broad daylight and the stoic UK people turn to that one lone weapon they have left in their arsenal - the cell phone camera, so that they can film the attack.

Of course, many of those who filmed it were lambasted on social media for being racist. Racist for filming a black Muslim knifing people in the street.

So yes, accidental shootings do happen. 15 Japanese tourists were killed in the US last year, exactly none of them from accidental shootings. Most were killed in traffic accidents, so of course, we'd best ban cars. Or all drive on the other side of the road because that was where the tourists most expected the car to come from.

8 posted on 09/28/2014 1:58:07 PM PDT by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, I’m convinced.


9 posted on 09/28/2014 2:00:09 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
My wife stayed in the car, cellphone in hand, ready to summon the cavalry

"9-1-1. Please hold."

10 posted on 09/28/2014 2:00:43 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Larry Lucido

Nicholas Kristof and his wife probably have the chief of police’s home and cell phone numbers.


11 posted on 09/28/2014 2:02:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
From the article~ About one-third of American households have guns, according to a Pew survey (a bit more, Gallup says), and these firearms kill 32,000 Americans a year... (Emphasis mine)

Really Mr. Kristof? Then how many Americans do bathtubs kill each year? How many Americans are done in by murderous ladders, swimming pools, and those evil automobiles?

The stupid, it burns.

12 posted on 09/28/2014 2:03:19 PM PDT by deoetdoctrinae (Gun-free zones are playgrounds for felons.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And even still:

“Hi, my husband is dead and I’m seconds away from being raped or killed.”

“We’ll be there in minutes!”


13 posted on 09/28/2014 2:03:36 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Comment section closed. I wonder why?


14 posted on 09/28/2014 2:04:02 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The man who damns money obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it earned it." --Ayn Rand)
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To: Ben Mugged

Agree


15 posted on 09/28/2014 2:04:40 PM PDT by berdie
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To: deoetdoctrinae

How many of those 32,000 “killings” were justified self-defense by those gun owners?


16 posted on 09/28/2014 2:05:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And people this stoopid get to vote. Is it any wonder that Obama is till in the White House, Nancy Pelosi is still in the House of Representatives and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are still in the Senate?


17 posted on 09/28/2014 2:08:03 PM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (quod est Latine morositate)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

How many of the 32,000 “killings” were committed by 15-25 year old black inner city males on other 15-25 year old black inner city males?


18 posted on 09/28/2014 2:12:40 PM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (quod est Latine morositate)
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To: kingu

Good point. England has entire “no-go” in their peaceful, unarmed society. No-go includes LE.


19 posted on 09/28/2014 2:16:29 PM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: Larry Lucido

So because this self-centered, entitled, egotistical azzhole thinks he should be able to go where he wants, when he wants, to deal with whomever he wants, even strangers he’s never laid eyes upon who are holding his Apple-picked phone, not only should the rest of the law-abiding citizens have to give up their guns, but the police (whom I sure he excoriated like the rest of the left since Ferguson) should have to drop everything to come protect him from his own entitled stupidity.

What would he say if a thug with a stolen, unregistered gun had answered the door? The UK still has guns floating around too, only the criminals have them.


20 posted on 09/28/2014 2:20:52 PM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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