Facing terror and a horror within (Gun Grabber Alert)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | Aug. 18, 2002 | RENEE GLEMBIN

[MacDorcha]

My first thought as I saw this creep, this sicko, put a look of horror such as I had never seen on my beautiful daughter's face - and a hook of terror in her heart where there had previously been none - was that I wished I'd had a gun. If I'd had a gun, I thought, I would have aimed it square at his back, and I would have killed him.

so, wait... let me get this straight.... they would've attacked the creep AFTER it was too late? why not just pull the gun on his face and tell him to back off? regardless of if the nut had a gun or not, they felt violated, and should have had the sense to make the person back off.... doesnt it occur to her/him that PREVENTING death and harm is THE arguement of us "gun grabbers"? i must finish this post by saying..... that is onemessed up pinko-libby-P.O.S.-Commie-fool esssay....

[MacDorcha]

i also must say... this person never quite read anything about (now this is going to be comic-book geeky of me, but i feel the moals still fit) Spider-Man... he didnt even attempt to stop the robber that ran across him, and look what happend to dear ol' uncle.... what if that guy was just cracked out and went for a jog.... eventually found himself at the writer's door(sans the writer to "protect") and happend to actually have a gun(either finding it, or just deciding agaisnt it earlier)and a few more cc's of drugs in his veins stopping any inhibitors he had left in his system, and blowing out the brains of the writer's family as they answered the door.... what then lil miss libby?

[Liberty Ship]

I was just thinking about posting Dr. Thompson's article when I saw you had.

Renee said, "Which left me to wondering: Something would have happened if I had been one of the estimated 70 million people who own, and often carry, handguns. I would have easily, in a split-second decision based solely on the raw passion I have for my child, shot at this man for pretending that he was going to shoot and kill her."

This is SO typical of the liberal anti-gun mindset. Dr. Thompson explains it well, but the problem is that they live in a world of such strongly repressed denial of their true emotions as they stumble around with their loving happy faces on that when someone finally pushes them over the edge, they have the impulse control of a 5 year old. There is no reasoned, measured response to anything in their lives. They are infantile and can not fathom anyone else operating on a higher plane.

Furthermore, her statement contains a self-validating, self-agrandizing "for my children" sisterhood-of-moms aspect which leaves a bad taste in my eyes.

Pathetic. It makes you want to just walk up to them, put your finger to their foreheads and say "BANG!"

[joeyman]

This gun grabber should not own any gun at all. She is emotionally and intellectually unstable. (She's a nut).

[KrisKrinkle]

"My first thought as I saw this creep, this sicko...If I'd had a gun, I thought, I would have aimed it square at his back, and I would have killed him."

OK, the writer shoots the goblin (in the back as he is leaving after having done no physical violence) then the legal establishment puts the shooter behind bars for however long, and the net loss to society is what?

[88keys]

I was going to just say, "what a moron"!! But you are exactly right and much more thoughtful in your comments!

I do agree too that I'd like to walk up to these folks and point my finger at them, though...or maybe just a menacing stare, in case they might be able to react by shooting me in the back...(BTW, wonder if the thug in question was a homeless fellow?!)

[Liberty Ship]

"...(BTW, wonder if the thug in question was a homeless fellow?!)"

I have a mental image of the album cover of Jethro Tull's "Aqualung."

"Sitting on a park bench,
Eying little girls with bad intent.."

OR, it could have just been a conservative investment banker on a Starbucks break who had just made a quarterly tax payment and recognized the mother for the starry eyed liberal she is and beat us to the draw...

[ExSoldier]

"She is emotionally and intellectually unstable. (She's a nut)."

Yup, SOMEBODY slipped into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn't looking!

[Djarum]

Raging Against Self Defense: A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality

bump

This is a perfect companion article to Dr. Thompson's analysis of the mind set most gun-grabbers experience.

[goldstategop]

Renee Gemblin is an idiot... if my life were threatened and I had a gun I would shoot to save myself and worry about the fallout later. Gunbanners like her all want us to be victims so they can feel morally superior. Though I wonder what good such a feeling could be if her daughter were murdered and she could have save her by killing her would be assailant first. The point I'm making is if gunbanners feel an aversion to defending their own lives, fine its a free country, but by the same measure if I want to protect myself with a gun in a situation where I'm in extreme danger, I shouldn't have to pay with my life just so some gunbanner's twisted sense of guilt over the availability of firearms in our society is appeased.

[itzmygun]

However, if a gun had been in my hand during that moment of fear, anger and confusion, I would have used it to do something illogical and irrevocable. I would have crossed the line of reason. I would have easily become that thing I have claimed to hate.

If you would be this unstable with a dangerous weapon, then you should not be allowed to drive either:

We took the car this time and drove a few blocks from home to the police station, just a few blocks from the bus stop where we had our confrontation. As my daughter and I got out of the car, she screamed, "Mom, it's him!" and, incredibly, it was.

How did she restrain herself from mowing him down? She's obviously exaggerating when she says she would have shot him. But hey, if she didn't she wouldn't have an article would she? Oh wait, she would, but it would be PRO-GUN. Idiot.

[Redcloak]

If I'd had a gun, I thought, I would have aimed it square at his back, and I would have killed him.

As usual, the hoplophobe uses projection to legitimize his or her fears. Since they would exhibit so little self-control, they assume that everyone would be as out of control. Nevermind that her daughter was in very real danger of becoming this guy's plaything, she's more wrapped up in her irrational fears. And those fears make her want to lash out, but not at the guy who actually threatened her child.

Instead, she's going to lash out at anyone who might have had the courage to take a firearm and actually defend themselves against this guy. Since she feels inadequate as a result of her self-imposed helplessness, she wants to make sure that everyone around her is similarly helpless. Their ability to defend themselves is a threat to her. But of course, the real threat to her was close enough to smell; not some imagined phantom of what she'd have done "If I'd had a gun".

[eyes_only]

It's all about...

 

Me, who had been in the process of developing an essay critical of the use and availability of handguns in this community. Me, who could not understand why people would want to own a gun. Me, who had intended to write that gun ownership, even by well-meaning, law-abiding citizens, only increased senseless violence and did nothing to abate it.

 

These advocates argue that citizens should be trusted to use their rationality to know when, and if, and how, to use a firearm for their own personal protection.

 

Except a few politicians, and Yooooooooooo.....

[SteveH]

The "disturbed" man was clearly intending to rattle the writer's cage. He pulled his hand out before he said "I have a gun." He walked away quickly.

The woman could not ask the man to stay away because she had no means of backing up the request with force and did not want to provoke the man into becoming more angry and possibly violent.

The man undoubtedly relies on the fact that most people are conditioned to be civil toward others and expect civility in return, while relying on either safety in numbers or the police to keep order. In this case, the woman had neither.

Here is the cusp of the article, in my opinion:

But the sad truth is that, in all probability, nothing will happen until something happens.

The author apparently suggests that some civilian will take it upon himself to rid society of the "disturbed" "dangerous" man, in vigilante fashion, without sufficient cause and outside the law.

Thus, the "disturbed" man, who she perceives to be a criminal (reinforced by the alleged acceptance of her side of the story by the police and the issuance of a report for the suspect), becomes the victim, and those who she imagines might have the means to respond with lethal force via a gun become the perpetrators.

She resurrects her sense of morality, not to mention her political correctness in the eyes of her editor, via writing that "That makes about as much sense as anything that I have read from the various pro-gun advocate literature and Web sites I have perused."

Many, apparently including the writer, the editors of the newspaper, and the "disturbed" man, have been conditioned from an early age that they should never defend themselves or their loved ones when threatened, and that they should always rely on government services to protect their persons and possessions.

The one person in the story that in fact seems to understand the irrationality of the anti-gun conditioning and its unintended consequences, paradoxically, may be the person who was labeled as disturbed and dangerous.

[dd5339]

Bump

[harpseal]

Clearly you understand what being armed means while the author of this piece does not. The threat is responded to by drawing one's own piece when it is determined that a real threat exists. The author of this piece only had blind panic when the person threatening the seventeen year old girl appeared to have a weapon.

The author is irrational in choosing this incident because I doubt very many who have a CCW would have shot in this circumstance. There is a calmness that one has when one can respond to a life a death situation with teh force necessary to preserve life that the author is not cognizant of. No this incident was not a justifiable shoot for the defender. The fact that being armed makes one consider that fact has not dawned on the author of this piece.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - yorktown