Posted on 09/17/2009 1:25:06 PM PDT by George - the Other
"This is certainly nothing to celebrate. The glorification of the incident online and around town belies the horror of the killing and its aftermath. Even if it ultimately is judged to have been legally justified, the question of whether the situation couldn't have been handled differently will remain."
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Whenever there is a murder or serious crime, civic leaders and the police tell us the way to reduce it is to get involved.
However, this editorial wants the citizens of Baltimore to assume the role of helpless victims, that it wants them to be fearful, to run, cower and hide, while they wait for the police, which you have already written about being overburdened as it is, to hopefully show up in time and do "something."
I celebrate law abiding citizens killing intruders. Every time.
Bad guy dead.
Message sent.
I can’t think of anything wrong here.
In other words, it wants the citizens to be slaves, not free people.
That seems to be the idea that Congress wishes we would accept.
"An armed society is a polite society," as Lazarus Long used to say. And sometimes, they're armed with swords.
If somebody, anybody, wants to defend themselves, I don't care how or where. That's their decision to risk. Another good quote:
"Personal freedom begins when you tell old Mrs. Grundy to go to hell." --Lazarus Long.
Of course, for these folks, that “handled differently” won’t include a handgun.
What do you know, something we agree on.
Bad guy breaks into home... bad guy winds up dead at hands of the person he tried to rob/harm. That’s worth celebrating in my book.
Live like a thug, die like a thug.
The author seems to not understand what JUSTIFIED means...
Me too. And I don’t care what they use.
The criminal could have stayed home and not gone out to rob a house.
I didn’t read it that way. I agree to a point, that we can accept solemnly accept that sometimes bad guys need to be killed, without glorifying the deed. In my adult life, I’ve come to support the death penalty, but I don’t find any joy in an execution. If anything, I feel the deepest sympathy for those who had to carry it out.
But even burglars don't deserve to be killed with a razor-sharp sword.
He doesn't deserve any sympathy. Whatever works. If the guy broke into my house and came at me, he'd be met with a Sig P220.
Bare hands is the most impressive though.
So for that reason, we should all cower in our houses, abdicating the right to self-defense to the police?
Tell you what Baltimore Sun, you do that and I'll promise not to write anything critical of you making that choice.
Cowards.
This worked really well, actually.
If the robber were slain with a gun, you’ve got all kinds of potential problems: It would have made a loud noise, it might leave pieces all over the place, and the projectile might have traveled and made unintended trouble.
With a sword, it’s quiet, quick, and nothing flying around.
Concealed sword permits for everyone.
There’s one easy way for people to avoid this fate.
Don’t break into other peoples’ houses and try to steal their stuff.
I find cheering much too mild a response to the killing of vermin.
The patriot needs to be hoist on the shouders of the community and paraded through town with much revelry...then the patriot needs to awarded prizes medals and a brand new handgun of their own choosing, so as to make their heroics, in the future, less dangerous to themselves.
LIBERAL TRANSMOGRIFIER: "It's only worth celebrating if the victim, not the criminal, was killed. Today is a day of bereavement, mourning the honest criminal who was only trying to feed his three crack-whore girlfriends, his 12 children, and his rather vicious drug habit."
Yea !!! Right !!! rehabilitation is the answer ,,, I’ll bet this perp had a real nice resume of past criminal accomplishments . No more . . .
I'll chip in for a hooker.
Is it a cause for cheers?
Yes. Absolutely, unequivically, yes.
The message needs to be said, nay shouted, loud and clear. “if you are a POS loser who would rather steal from the industrious than earn for yourself, we have no use for you. If you are a POS then you are worthless to us. If we catch you stealing that which we have labored to earn, expect no regard. If you are so arrogant as to threaten us, expect no quarter and no mercy. If you are THAT much of a POS, not only will we feel justified doing whatever is necessary to ptotect ourselves from you, we will do it with relish. For in protecting ourselves we are protecting every single person you might prey upon in the future”
Its only too bad the method of dispatch couldn’t have been even more brutal. Some messages have no room for subtlety.
Yes, they do.
If crooks don’t want to die they can simply cease and desist from all criminal activity. It is a choice.
No one knows when someone breaks into their house whether they are armed or not. A successful robbery often invites a return engagement. Who knows whether it may escalate next time? Who knows if the next time you wake up to find the creep with a weapon hovering over your bed?
The Sun is correct that the homeowner did nothing to deserve carrying this possible feeling of guilt around with him for a long time. All the doing was on the dead man’s part. Any feelings of guilt suffered is the dead guy’s fault.
Agreed.
He held out his sword in self defense.
The culprit attacked him anyway.
What is he supposed to do, let the culprit stab him with a knife so he can bleed to death too?
If the culprit did not attack him, the culprit would not have died.
The culprit is dead and the victim lives. That is true justice.
I'll bet they support charges against the breitbart filmakers.I'll bet they support ACORN.
I agree, it's too quick. I would recommend slowly being eaten to the bone by ants...but hey, that's just me.
I don't believe that the use of deadly force to protect property is appropriate. But it's not unreasonable for someone who is at home when their home is broken into to think that their life may be in danger. Having to have taken a life is not something to celebrate, it's true. But that does not mean that it was wrong to do.
Citizens killing criminals is always a reason to celebrate.
Gun, sword, sledgehammer, wood chipper, chain saw, swizzle sticks, 220, 221 .... whatever it takes.
Outlaw swords and only out laws will have swords...
And Pirates....
Ninjas...
The odd Knight...
And a few students...
Good one.
The Baltimore Sun takes a firm stance on the side of the villains. No, they weren’t there. No, their lives weren’t on the line. This is a textbook example of why most of Baltimore is such a disgusting hell hole of a place. The evil has taken over the city, and it runs the newspaper.
And the fact that it was done with a sword makes it even more cool!
The natural instinct of any human is to stand and fight when faced with imminent risk of harm rather than turn and show his back to someone who plans mischief. It's why we have adrenaline, to give us an edge when endangered.
Of course I did say any “human”, some of these cowards would quickly fail the test for humanity.
Just think you live miles from anywhere, late for work, flat tire, no spare, no one to call, and you'll be fired if you miss today.
Got enough to think about?
Leave the guy alone.
Y'dun good, buddy-boy.
Never bring bare hands to a katana fight.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-edboardbios,0,4450844.html
He wouldn't if liberal/progressives like the author of this crap didn't try to make victims feel guilty for doing justice. If more people gave the guy an understanding pat on the back type reaction, the guy who used the sword (the actual victim in this scenario) wouldn't spend the rest of his life feeling anguish. But that wouldn't play well in the liberal/progressive world would it?
According to the editorial, the homeowner was responsible for this incident because he didnt wait for the police. The burglar was just a non-sympathetic victim who didnt deserve to die by sword. Apparently the author doesnt understand the risks of burglary.
“Was protecting some possessions worth precipitating an event that will change the rest of his life?”
A homeowner walking anywhere on his property has not “precipitated” anything. The idiot that attacks a man carrying a sword in his own house has done the “precipitating”.
Additionally, the moron writing the article assumes facts not in evidence. How does he know the man was only after property? Maybe his intent was to kill for the shear joy of it.
A man that breaks into your house likely knows quite a bit about you. Based upon the neighborhood that you are in and what your house looks like. He may even have cased your house for days. He has the chance to prepare for the encounter that he chooses to make. The home owner likely knows nothing about the intruder. Under such circumstances a person who does not assume the worst, may not survive.
>>>>The burglar, Donald D. Rice, wouldn’t ordinarily deserve much sympathy. He was a career criminal with a long record of thefts. He had just gotten out of prison the previous Saturday after serving six months for a conviction in Baltimore County. By all accounts he was neither an admirable character nor an innocent victim.<<<
So why give him any sympathy? If the brave, young would be victim had not ended his career as a criminal, Rice might have killed a truly innocent person someday.
>>>Was protecting some possessions worth precipitating an event that will change the rest of his life? We think not.<<<
You could apply the same logic to calling the cops. What if a cop was forced to shoot and kill the career criminal? Would’t that affect the cop for the rest of his life?
I guess we should simply let the thugs take whatever they want. If they want to steal our possessions, let them have them. If they want to rape our wives and daughters, we must allow them to. We can’t risk a confrontation that might leave a predator dead, and “change the rest of the life” of the innocent man who killed him. /sarc
Do not try this at home with the sword you bought at the corner grocery.
This was probably a quality repro.
-or, he picked it up while bumming around 16th century Japan. There can be only one.
One of what, they never say. Although, apparently, Clan MacLeod has two of them (three if you count the animated series).
“But even burglars don’t deserve to be killed with a razor-sharp sword”
See, that’s where you and I disagree Mr. Editorializer.
But I’m a very soft-hearted person :)
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