Whit just eliminated your primer problem.

     Sorry, I didn't mean to down play what's done. It's not an easy job. But my friend is a machinist and he recently went off on an hour long speech about what their new CAM/CAD can do and how much easier his job is. :)

First of all, dham either post somehting useful or shut the fuck up, the whining "yea - do as shes says "is just...belh

I don't at any point remember advocating disarming police... But to the actualy point, you're as per usual looking black and white, think grey. Sure there will always be guns, its a matter of how many and how easily they are accessed.

MaggieL:
I had a vague plan of working from the bottom up. That required people to state an opinion on the basic fact that more advanced weaponary availiable to a large cross-seciton of society results in more deaths. If its used that is, and statisticly the more poeple with guns will result in more people being shot. i mean if they don't have them, they cna't shoot with them. Ill try and pull up some stats from the US then from Britan or another non-arms to public country later...

Would you agree iwth that vague statement?

Cold war? Consider how many times we came within inches of nuclear war, and more keep coing out of the woodowrk - i wouldn't define it as a safe/nice way to live. When your put the equivilent capability (in relaitve terms we'll say an Ak-47) in the hands of 270million people the chances of it being used are just the tiniest bit higher.

Controlled example: Lock 100 random people in a house, ,bigbrother style, give them all a wide range of high power weaponary, see if anyone, and how many, get shot. See how many of them die as a result.

Put another goup of random people in a house wihtout any weaponary and see how many people die. People will always want to hurt each other, its a matter of how badly they can do it.

Question: Why do you choose to carry an concealed firearm? Safty i assume? WHy don't you feel safe? Because the bad guys have weapons? Becuase there is not enough cops ot keep the streets safe?

Assume shots fired at people - i'm not that silly geeez.

Now, let's lock a group of 100 people, NONE of whom have guns in a house, with a group of another 20 or so people - thoses 20 DO have guns, and make the rules. They rely on taking part of what every one of the 120 people for themselves in order to eat. How long will that stay stable? How long before those 20 rule everything? Now take SOME of the 100 people, and give them guns - the 20 people don't KNOW which of the 100 have guns. How differently will thoses 20 people act?

Those 20 people will act a bit different, huh? They are called the government

I guess that's the difference between being a citizen and a subject

Democracy is 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on what to have for dinner
A Republic is 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on who to have for dinner
A Constitutional Republic is the wolves finding out the sheep are armed

And about your sig - Bill Clinton was, and still is an ass

Here's something useful for ya, jaggie.

I don't feel safe because people with malicious intent generally have the advantage. They are planning an attack - you are not planning on being attacked. However, if you increase your firepower, you are more likely to find yourself in a winning position. Your odds of survival are greater.

That is why many law-abiding citizens of this country feel it necessary to have firearms and, yes, carry them.

More police won't solve the problem. Un-arming the criminals is a laughable notion and if you were actually proposing that as a solution (I'm not sure that you were - I'm just saying, *if* you were), then you're missing a bigger picture that a couple of people have been trying to point out. Criminals will always have weapons - they don't care what the law is. If they did, they wouldn't be criminals.

The fact of the matter is this: If all the persons aboard the flights that hit the WTC and the Pentagon had been armed (yes, EVEN the terrorists), the likelihood of them continuing on to their targets is pretty fucking slim. I challenge you to argue it the other way around.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
--- Prof

ChuckyG brings up another good point: The people of the United States are given the right to replace their government if necessary. If the government were to ever become so corrupt that it needed to be ousted, we probably couldn't do it with sticks and stones. We need weapons to keep the government in check.

Actually, I meant that with high velocity air rifles the builders job should be even easier.

I don't know if anyone else has taken note of this but with the corporate downsizing of the 80s and 90s quite a few large companies outsource all their machining. My neighbors have a family owned shop full of cnc equipment and compete successfully for contracts from IBM etc.. They are also avid hunters... you do the math.

I was surfing last night all over the place and happened across some text that apparently was generated from the rec.guns newsgroup. Don't ask me to find the site again because I didn't bookmark it.

It was a set of scenarios for people who want to carry concealed weapons. The bad guy is here, you are here, what do you do?

If concealed carry folks studied these sorts of things, everyone would be much safer, not less, because they outline under what conditions you should draw, show, fire - and when you shouldn't do anything of the sort.

They made clear that, under many situations that may seem like the ideal case to start an old west gunfight, the best practice is to do nothing. If there is no evidence that your life is at risk, you don't pull out a gun. Example? If you are challenged for your wallet or purse and you have no evidence that the mugger is using deadly force, you just give up your goods, shrug, and say your money was worth less than your life.

Most of the scenarios came from real-life situations. In some of them, the actual person carrying told their story.

Having seen a lot of this sort of thinking amongst the gun crowd makes me feel better about the whole situation. Most people who carry seem to do so with a very strong understanding of the responsibilities that come with it. They understand the meaning of deadly force and don't want to use it unless absolutely necessary. The common notion that gun carriers consider themselves to be modern-day wild west gunslingers is false.

Tony -

Exactly.

We have a number of guns in the house. Two of them are handguns (yes, they're all legal and everything). One of them is here exclusively for self defense (the other is for training and taking pot shots at the neighborhood kids - ya know, fun stuff :) ). That gun is unloaded and unclipped - to fire a shot, the clip has to be loaded, a round introduced into the chamber and the safety turned off. We've never used it, and we expect that we never will have to. It's there ONLY if someone is doing bodily harm. You might be really pissed off if the neighbor's kid breaks in and steals your computer at night, but you'll feel real bad if you KILL him for it. Most law-abiding gun owners that have them for protection (and hunting, though I do not - and target shooting, which I have been known to do on occasion) value life - that's why they have guns protecting themselves in the first place. It's a very rare occasion that we'll actually find it necessary to use one. And so we don't.

That's called "begging the question". Your hypotheticals are full of holes, jag. Now go do your homework or something. I'm not going to try to debate this issue with you any further, you're not prepared.

My sidearm has a purpose that goes beyond "shooting at people". I've never shot at a person, and I hope it's never needful. By analogy, I didn't install fire extinguishers in my house hoping I'll have a fire. But if I *do* have a fire I"ll use my extinguisher on it while waiting for the fire department to show up. I don't belive that only firemen should have extinguishers.

Tony, I'm glad you noticed that a lot of us who carry are concerned about tactical ethics and the appropriate use of deadly force. ESR wrote a great piece called "Ethics From The Barrel of a Gun" that's worth a read, google the title and you'll find it. And the rec.guns material is apropos too. Every gun owner has a legal and moral responsibility to understand the issues involved.

And the laws about what force may be legally applied *vary* from state to state. That fellow locally who gunned down the naked drunk who was trying to get into his house at 3am was way over the line, for example (especially since he kept firing after the drunk was down) and he's likely going to go down for manslaughter. In Texas, he probably wouldn't.

The firing after he was down part would be the damning thing. Otherwise, the law generally tends to side on whether or not you felt you were in danger. Once someone is down though, they're down...

Sad, really. 'Cause that was definitely out of line. Like I implied earlier, I would only use deadly force if I felt I or a loved one was in direct danger.

If that was the scenario - naked man trying to get in the house at 3am - what would be the best action?

The naked person can't possibly have deadly force. The first question is, will he ever get past that door? Is the door flimsy? If no, you call 911, turn on all the lights, and watch and wait. If yes, if you have 30 seconds you get the cell phone and the gun and go out the BACK door, probably dialing 911 at the same time. You take the gun so that A) he won't get it, and B) you have some recourse if he has non-drunk, non-naked friends outside.

You could hide inside the house, but then you might not know if the situation's over.

Tony -

I tend to agree with you here as well. If I were in that situation, I would turn on all the lights, call the police and wait until they got there. The guy would probably be arrested and charged with indecent exposure and public drunkenness, get some community service hours and all's well. The doors in my house are thick and sturdy (that's important in any house, and I wouldn't have it any other way), and the windows are relatively tough. If they did manage to come through a window, I would likely tell them "I have a gun, and I will not hesitate to use stopping force if I feel I'm in danger. Please leave immediately." Of course, if they were trying to get in because they were scared or whatever (you know how drunk people can get), I'd try and wrap them up in a blanket and get them some help. All depends on the situation. In any event, shooting a naked drunk person is wrong, and shooting them after they're down is despicable. The person that did that should have his/her gun-owning rights taken away and should definitely serve jail time. To keep that right, one needs to act responsibly with it. Otherwise, they don't deserve it at all.

Undertoad,
first, in most states, you are in NO obligation to retreat from your own house - you may hold your ground, and if after you announce yourself, the perp continues into the house, there is a presumption of deadly force

Second, there can be deadly force with a naked person! If you a 95 lb elderly woman being attacked by a 250 lb 6 foot 5 young male, that would be considered deadly force - however, if your a 175 lb middle agged man being attacked, it almost definately not!

Understanding when you can use deadly force is not trivial, and I would suggest anyone who ever goes armed in any way should read up or take a class on this, pertaining to the laws (both on the books, and the usually more restrictive case law) in your state

Well, the story here is that the homeowner was awakened by a naked man trying to enter his *back* door. It emerged after the shooting that the man was his neighbor's son (who didn't live there) who apparently had the odd habit of going out naked at night and peeing in the backyard. BUt apparently this particular time he was too drunk to realize he's somehow gotten to the *neighbor's* back door. I imagine we'll never know how hard he was trying to get in, but then considering how drunk he was I suspect if he was frightened and disoriented he wasn't gentle. So Mr. Homeowner is awakened by noise at his back door, and finds naked guy back there. From the neighborhood where this went down I would expect there might be an enclosed back patio, lots of glass and so forth; it might have been reasonable to think he might have enetered the home.

But what kept this from being a "no bill" out of the Grand Jury was that forensics showed two shots to the head from an angle consistant with being fired while standing over the prone figure of the naked guy. I suspect there may be an element of homophobic panic here.

But the naked drunk is elegible for the Darwin Award, IMHO.

     I find it interesting that no one has brought up the possibility of shooting to wound in this situation. Deadly force is certainly to extreme but I think shooting the drunk in the leg would be well deserved. Is this because of the all to legitimate fear of civil lawsuit?

     By the way, as a martial artist I can think of many potentialy leathal attacks I could easily do naked. Unless the shooter knew in advance that the attacker was drunk it was a potentialy deadly situation. I don't know about the rest of you but if someone barged through my door I had better know them or they better back down instantly. Otherwise I'm not likely to give them much chance to do anything. Nudity, not withstanding some guy charging in to the home is not something you be cool about.

     Of course I'm probably going to be even more pissy about the whole deal if the guy is naked, but that's just me.

Shooting to wound is a BAD idea, and may even get you put in jail!

The only time you are justified in using deadly force is if your, or another persons life is in immediate danger (Reasonable man test). If you believe your life is in danger, you shoot to END THE THREAT, ASAP! That means shooting for center body mass. Remember, it's actually hard to shoot a person - you've been surprised, the adrenaline is going a mile a minute, your probably half awake, your SCARED - it's kinda hard to aim in that situation. This is part of the reason you hear about cops firing 5 or 10 shots and only hitting with one or 2 (The first shot amost always goes into the floor between the cop and the perp - the cop actually pulls the trigger before the gun is even up).

If you admit to shooting to wound, it means that you were not that worried, and therefore did NOT have a valid reason to shoot - or at least that's what a DA who wants you convicted is going to say

I'm a gun owner - I don't own a pistol (I don't feel the need), but I have read a bunch on this. Folks, you shoot someone, even in valid self defense, you are in for a heap of legal problems. You're probably going to have to prove it in court at least once, and probably twice (The probable is the victims family, the possible is the DA if he doesn't think it's a "Good Shoot")

Most gun owners know this, and have thought about it.

Well, Masad Ayoob says that when asked "Did you shoot to kill?" your answer should be "No, I shot to live."

But the facts in this case aren't pretty.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. charged an Upper Gwynedd man with voluntary manslaughter yesterday in the shooting death of a naked neighbor who, he told police, appeared to be trying to break into his townhouse.

Castor said he decided to bring the charges after concluding that Paul Bellina, 52, had continued to fire at neighbor Craig Holtzman even after Holtzman was fleeing. The final shot was fired downward at Holtzman's head as he lay on the ground, mortally wounded, according to Castor's reconstruction.

"I came to conclude beyond any doubt that the fatal rounds were fired outside, when Holtzman was incapable of providing any threat," Castor said at a news conference.

The incident occurred about 4:30 a.m. Sept. 13, when, according to an affidavit filed in the case, the 31-year-old Holtzman, whose blood-alcohol level was 0.22 percent, left the basement of his parents' home to urinate outside. He then mistakenly tried to enter Bellina's home, which has a basement door [sliding plate glass -MSL] identical to theirs.

Unable to enter and having sounded a burglar alarm, Holtzman turned to walk away. That is when Bellina unlocked and opened the door, ordering Holtzman to put his hands up and lie down on the ground.

Holtzman put his hands up, the affidavit said, but then began walking toward Bellina, disoriented and ignoring his requests to stop and get down. As Bellina backed into his basement, Holtzman followed him. There, officials believe, Bellina shot Holtzman twice with his 9mm Ruger handgun.

After being hit, Holtzman uttered, "Ouch," and then turned and fled, only to be shot twice in the back and once in the arm, Castor said. Following him, Castor said, Bellina shot Holtzman three more times, in the head. Bellina hit Holtzman with a total of eight shots, the affidavit states.

Bellina, a Vietnam veteran, has said he was protecting himself, his girlfriend, and her 10-year-old daughter, who were in the house. He told police that he simply "kept firing until the threat was dead," the affidavit states.

But, according to Castor, the legal line from self-defense to manslaughter was crossed when Bellina stepped outside his door. "At this point, Holtzman is no longer a threat to him. Holtzman is fleeing and probably mortally wounded, and therefore there is no permission under Pennsylvania law to use deadly force," the district attorney said.

Under Pennsylvania's criminal statutes, a person commits voluntary manslaughter if, at the time of the killing, he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation.

Bellina's attorney, Patrick J. McMenamin Jr. of Montgomeryville, rejected Castor's conclusion. "It was absolutely a case of self-defense," McMenamin said after Bellina's arraignment on manslaughter and reckless-endangerment charges in Blue Bell before District Justice Patricia Zaffarano. "I think the evidence will show that he was afraid."

After posting 10 percent of $30,000 bail, Bellina declined to comment except to ask reporters to get out of the way of his van. A preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Tuesday. If convicted at trial, Bellina could be sentenced to a maximum of 22 years on both charges.

Bellina, who owns a home-inspection business, has said that he did not know Holtzman, an assembler of gym equipment who had recently moved in with his parents, whose townhouse is next door to Bellina's on Browning Court in Upper Gwynedd's Gwynedale neighborhood, off Sumneytown Pike near South Broad Street.

According to the affidavit, however, Holtzman's brother Eric told police that the men had met when Craig Holtzman had discussed buying Bellina's motorcycle.

There was no answer at either the Holtzman or Bellina residence yesterday.

The decision to charge Bellina came after two weeks of speculation while authorities awaited the results of toxicology, ballistics and forensics tests. Castor had initially believed the shooting to be justified and said again yesterday that he believed Bellina felt he was justified in his actions.

At least one legal expert said he was not surprised by Castor's decision. "I can understand under all the circumstances why a prosecutor might think he has to file charges," said Leonard Packel, a criminal-law professor at Villanova University Law School. "But I don't know what a jury will do," he said.

Castor acknowledged that his decision would likely be second-guessed.

"I think that there will be great speculation now and in the months to come," Castor said, "but I am confident that, under Pennsylvania law, this is the correct decision."

--http://inq.philly.com/content/inquir...e/NSHOOT27.htm

Better late than never.

As for the fire extinguisher analergy - last i checked the primary purpose of having a fire extinguisher in your home was not to kil people.

     Thanks for the answer CharlieG, that makes alot of sense. It's also a prime example of why I don't own a gun. I simply don't have the training for it. Therefore it would be irresponsible for me to have one. Of course should I ever get the training I most likely will get a gun.
     Wow, and thanks to MaggieL for letting us out-of-towners in on the story.
     Damn, Bellina just went nuts with the whlole shooting thing. He's in it deep as it's hard to claim self-defense on the three head shots. Holtzman being outside and on the ground, not to mention that he clearly wasn't concealing a weapon on his person... Still I can understand the 'keep going till the threat stops moving' idea. It's a shame that somebody died because they were to drunk to find their house. Not to mention the fact that he went to the door of a man ready to shoot.

Yeah, that's an ugly one, and if I was the DA, I would bring the guy up on charges, and let the Grand Jury return a true bill/no true bill, and take it from there

I could find my copy of "In Gravest Extreme" to quote Ayoob, or I would have :D

That study was OK as far as it goes - of course the murder rate in the US has gone WAY down since that study was published nearly 4 years ago, using data from about 6 years ago, and England's and Japan's murder rate has gone way up.

Japan is an interesting case - if you combine the murder and suicide rates of both Japan and the US, you will find they are very similar - In the US, we tend to kill other people when we don't fit in, and/or are angry. In Japan, the culture is that the problem is "me", and so not to bring shame on your family, you kill yourself

That is very interesting!

For another thread a few months back, I looked up the stats for violent crimes in England, and they are really on the rise. The number of people shot in the US is much higher than in England, but those numbers only affect a small set of people. The numbers who are robbed or just beaten up are much higher, much more likely to impact someone, and in England they are about 50% higher than here.

Plus, the shooting in the US is largely social darwinism at work. As Dennis Miller says: sometimes the herd needs a little thinning.

Now, I know, that makes me a cruel, cold, heartless and thoughtless person. But if you watch "Cops", even just once a year, you see the people who are shooting each other. I don't hang out with these people, and if I did, the escape route would be very clear. Unlike other social problems, this one doesn't trap you into its lifestyle; if you just don't hang out with the shirtless guy at the laundromat with crack vials in his pocket, chances are you won't get shot. Probably half my friends over the years have been gun owners, but I've never been shot.

OK, Jag wins another award for point-missing and blatant red-herring maneuver on the fire extinguisher analogy. I shan't feed the troll any more than that, beyond mentioning that quoting Jefferson while advocating gun prohibition isn't the smartest thing to do.

Re UTs shirtless laundromat guy, while I don't *hang out* down there, I'm not able to afford to live in the nice isolated suburb that UT lives in (which isn't actually that far away from here geopgraphically) Nonetheless I'm within credible striking distance of several such laundromats; inasmuch as there's not much left that's worth stealing any closer to Laundromatville--it's kind of grazed-out. (locals: I'm talking about Norristown). So when I need to drive though/near those neighborhoods, having a dozen rounds of 9mm jacketed hollow-point standing by is somewhat reassuring.

That doesn't mean I don't keep the car doors locked.

As for the "unfortunate" drunk, as I said, I think he's Darwin Award fodder. Anybody who's *that* fucked up wandering around outside his home is a public menace. What if he'd stumbled out into the street in front of a car at that hour? He might have caused an accident that injured or killed someone else who *wasn't* being an asshole at the time.

This doesn't excuse excessive force on the part of the 'Nam vet...who recently withdrew his manslaughter plea bargain; he may be hooking up with a new lawyer who's thinking of a PTSD defense. That's plausible, at least. Either way, if he's convicted on the manslaughter charge *OR* sucessfully mounts a PTSD defense, in this state he loses his right to *own* firearms, much less *carry* them. Which from what we know is probably A Good Thing.

Yabbut before I lived here, I lived in an apartment complex that was literally on the Norriwtown border. I still didn't get shot.

I got punched out once, but never shot.

I'm not sure we can make any kind of judgement on him. Yeah, he was excessively drunk. I personally am opposed to people being un-sober - so I can make no apologies for him there (though I still don't think we can judge - any number of things can lead to excessive drinking).

Sure, he could have wandered into the road and gotten hit by a car, possibly injuring or killing someone else. That would have been tragic. But he didn't. He got confused, tried to get back into the house, and was murdered for it. What if a blind person loses their seeing-eye dog, stumbles in front of a car, gets hit and kills the driver? Is it their fault for being out in society? Are they a Darwin Award nominee for being in a crowded city while being blind? How do you judge that?

Let me pose an unlikely, yet not impossible, scenario for you.

Robin goes out with some guy. Seems like an alright guy. Decides to have some drinks. Maybe a few too many drinks. Maybe it feels really good so she gets fucking shitfaced. This guy does the respectable thing (after letting her get totally trashed) and drops her off in front of your house. But because she's totally trashed, she knocks on the front door of another house. No one's answering, and she starts yelling "Mom! Let me in!" Not 5 minutes later, she's laying dead on the front patio/porch/stoop with 3 bullet holes in her head and a few in her abdomen/chest. Would you honestly say the same thing about that? "Well, I loved her, but her mental deficiencies coupled with her pathetic judgement render her a fine nominee for the Darwin Awards." Come on. Of course you wouldn't.

My point is, I sense this feeling of elitism over the drunk guy. Did he make a bad decision, both in getting drunk and in going outside to urinate? Obviously. But it shouldn't have killed him. I think that maybe if he had done something that's so obviously stupid and carries a very real possibility of, uh, being removed from the gene pool, then it would be "Darwin Award fodder". But that's not what happened. He made a little slip up that probably thousands of people have done and survived. He just happened to have an overly-eager-to-use-his-weapon neighbor.

I don't think we can judge him based on what we know. I don't think we can say any more than "it's a bad idea to get that drunk" and "it's a doubly bad idea to go outside when you're that drunk". Questioning his intelligence is beyond any of us.

Well i did some homework, porvided solid statisical evidence with analysis by experts that a gun saturated society results in more shooting deaths which you then proceeded to ignore and instead branded me a troll for another minor comment. ah fuck this thread i'm sick of it.

Hey jaggy-poo -

mefinks she was making a condescending statement about your age. You know. Being 16, you probably go to school and have homework. "Go do your homework" == "get out of here, youngun, you have not the wisdom to participate in this conversation". Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

BTW, props for backing up your statement (at least somewhat) with some gathered facts.

I know perfectly well she was.

Just to clarify the fire extinguisher analergy:

If you use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire it results in (as in a house fire in an occupied house - for the nitpickers here) a life or lives saved. Shoot an intruder and it resuls a life or lives saved - at the cost of one. That's a fundamental difference. I"m trying to find that report or some other stats etc but its harder than i thouhgt it would be. Mabye MaggieL would prefer if i quoted the NRL ;)

The point of the analogy was that you don't equip yourself with a fire extinguisher in the hopes that a fire is going to happen, and I haven't armed myself because I'm itching for a firefight. Please refrain from clairifying my analogies until you understand them. It had nothing to do with bodycount.

And the comment about Jag's age isn't that "being young, he must not be able to engage in debate" but rather "I finally understood why he was unwilling to engage in debate when I found out how young he is".

Dham, you did your best to load your hypothetrical emotionally by brining my daughter into it. But knowing her, I know it's a much more unlikely scenario than even you admit it is--she shares my values about a lot of things.

The place to get *that* shitfaced--so throughly besotted that you don't know where you are--is *not* anywhere outside your home...even in the backyard. It's just plain *stupid* to do that, which is what Darwin Awards are awarded for.

I'm unmoved by "poor guy, he was too drunk to be responsible for himself" arguments. He deliberately incapacitated himself, and then went bouncing around in public. As it was, he randomly picked the worst possible house on the block to try to *break into*, and consequently got killed rather than arrested, or caused some other disaster. Perhaps he *thought* he was trying to get into his own house. But the reason he couldn't even *tell* was *his* doing; I'll shed no tears for him.

His irresponsibility could have killed *someone else*, so he wasn't the only potential victim of his own recklessness. Saying "he didn't deserve to die" is empty--he willingly started a crapshoot where he or any number of the people around him could have gotten hurt. Would he have "deserved" to die if he'd wandered into the path of an oncoming train?

If you're going to deliberately fuck yourself up, especially to that degree, you have a responsibility to protect others from the consequences of your decision just as much as someone who decides to arm himself has a responsibility to ensure that his use of deadly force is appropriate.

I've been intoxicated myself...sometimes *very* intoxicated, and deliberately so. But I was at pains beforehand to ensure that *I* would be safe and would not endanger others just because I was taking a mental holiday. The fact that you make yourself incapable of being responsible does not relieve you of responsibility.

If I'm an "elitist" because I accept responsibility for my own behavior and distain those who don't, then I'll wear that title proudly.

Am I my brother's keeper? If not, well then sorry to bug you. If so, then when?;)

Uh-uh. I don't leave the house. I'm not letting some drunk and violent (he broke down the door) guy have free run of my house. Besides, I don't have a cell phone. This applies whether I have a gun or not, BTW.

Two small corrections: The naked guy was *at* the back door, and it's not clear from what I've read at what point the shooter realized he was naked or drunk.

And nothing I read said he *did* break in, only that he was *trying* to get in through a locked sliding glass door, and evidently making enough noise at it to awaken the shooter.

In case anybody's unclear as to my point of view, I'm *not* holding a brief for the shooter, what's known about the case is enough that he should at least stand trial for manslaughter.

But the drunk was a bozo.

argh
I never said you were itching for a firefight - merely that one has gain at zero cost and the other has gain at a cost......

As for being unwilling to debate i find that ironic since you seem to be more interested in nitpicking an analergy than attempting to mount a plausable defense to the damning evidence the CDC has produced.

And here's a further update on the case. The shooter, Bellina, is being sued by the drunk's family. Also named in the suit is Bellina's business (deep pockets, of course)...and the *bar* where the drunk got drunk. So this clown disn't accidently get out into public, he was actually out *driving* in that condition, or worse....since he had time to get home, take off his clothes and then got outside to pee. His BAC was .22 at autopsy.

The newspaper article also discloses that the drunk set off Bellina's burgular alarm trying to get into his house.

Hear! Hear!