Mark Steyn: IN THE ABSENCE OF GUNS -

The Spectator - UK - SteynOnline ^ | June, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[glock rocks]

No wonder, even as they’re being pounded senseless, many British crime victims are worrying about potential liability.

look here, bozo. you touch my wife, I'll put a .45 through your skull. she's got a nice rock on her finger. I've got a nice glock on my hip.

dorothy, we ain't in london anymore.

[JulieRNR21]

Second Amendment BUMP

[The Iguana]

Another great one from Steyn.

Is this a repeat?

[Sloth]

Outstanding article.

[Torie]

was leaving her house in East Anglia

You know something is rotten in England if that could happen in East Anglia. That was the region of England where the Pilgrims came from. It still tends to be rather conservative, Cambridge notwithstanding.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

BANG!

[Notforprophet]

I think this is a new Steyn?

[pragmatic_asian]

"To a North Country Yankee it’s self-evident that, when a burglar breaks into your home, you should have the right to shoot him - indeed, not just the right, but the responsibility, as a free-born citizen, to uphold the integrity of your property."

I'm going to have to disagree with the eagerness with which Steyn shoots people. Call me crazy but I value life more than property. Even burglers are people, a-holes at that, but the taking of life over property (even stuff you work for) isn't worth it to me. I'm not saying I would let them go, but I wouldn't shoot them on sight like he's suggesting. What I do with the handcuffs otherwise is between me and the wife.

[Travis McGee]

Steyn Bang!

[CapandBall]

Steyn Ping

[Travis McGee]

That's great, if a criminal invading your house at 2AM gives you a polite choice. But if you are awakened suddenly by the window in your daughters room shattering, and find some creep crawling in the window, are you going to merely shoo him away, so that he can grab your neighbor's child another night?

There is great value to shooting criminals who break into houses not their own. It stops them forever, and discourages their buddies from going down that road.

Don't pity them. It's a simple equation really, don't break in to American's houses, and you won't get shot.

Break in, and take your chances.

[herewego]

leave them for Quincy,M.D.
blood stains be damned.

[NovemberCharlie]

This is an old one; I see I'm not the only one who decided to browse the archives tonight.

[Travis McGee]

Never shoot to wound.

[Dan Cooper]

Quincy, MD is a show about a coroner.

[wardaddy]

Boy...Steyn rarely misses a homer does he?

Excellent essay.

His style is so easy and always to the point.


Wish I could write like that.

[gcruse]

It's from June of 2000. Someone is sure to chirp up "Hey, it's old, but I never saw it before," and "Bears repeating," but it is irritating to get half way through what seems an overly familiar article to see Million-Mom March and realize this is an old item. Then to do what the original poster should have done, and look at the publication date, is just too much work, else it would have been done the first time, eh?

[Defiant]

Boy...Steyn rarely misses a homer does he?

Maybe he corks his bat?

[wardaddy]

If a stranger is in your home at night and you are sure it's a stranger and not your teen daughter's boyfiend sneaking in, then he has a bullet coming.

And keep shooting till he's down and out.

If you live alone...hell, do want you want. Offer him tea and scones but you owe your family a proper defense if you're the hombre of the home.

Now, I say that, yet in college I had a drunk old black man in my bedroom at Ole Miss rifling change whilst I was asleep. For some reason known only to G-d, I pistol whipped him(with my loaded M28) and threw him out of my house. He was quite drunk. I did not call the law given the other contents likely to be found in a college boy's rented home in the bleary-eyed 70s lol.

A few days later, his son (to whom he had confessed after being queried about his injuries) came by to apologize and offer recompense and thank me for not killing his dad. His son was a law student and the old man had been the yard man before at the property I rented.

Today, with a wife and 4 young children in a roomy home and feeling a lot less immortal now than then, I doubt the outcome would be the same. I see somebody in the hallway near my babies or upstairs near my girls, I'm killing them more likely than not...like I said...make sure it's not Romeo sneaking around...aside from that....any stranger is fair game in your home...at least here in Nashville.

A few months ago some kids, one was a society-brat dopehead broke into a mansion near me and went for the goodies armed with a Romanian semi-AK and a 9mm.....they did not bank on the owner (a publishing house magnate) to be a Korean War vet and full of piss and vinegar. The ensuing gun battle left both perps with ratshot from a .357 to the head. The owner said they were damn lucky he didn't grab his 1911 loaded with Glazers in the confusion. I'll say. The homeowner was in his early 70s. The perps were late teens/early 20s. One of them's dad was Charlie Chase of the Crook and Chase TV show on TNN.