Fear breeds fear; guns breed deathRe: New law on deadly force provides common sense , Oct. 11 letter
The rampant paranoia of people who feel their lives are never going to be safe unless they own a gun or guns constantly bewilders me. What makes these people feel they are more valuable or important than the people they shoot?
As for the vaunted Castle Doctrine, where is the sense or intelligence in the right to shoot another being based on brief and fleeting impressions of threat or fear for safety? People who are so fearful of the world around them that they need to have a gun in their possession all the time are obviously inclined to find others as potentially threatening, regardless of the reality of the situation.
A case in point is the shooting death of my nephew, Mark Drewes, by Jay Levin in Boca Raton two years ago. Levin was an accountant and as such should not be a person involved in business dealings that would require him to be armed. Levin saids he thought the noises outside on a breezy evening were someone coming to kill him.
Instead of calling the police, he loaded a gun, opened the solid front door that protected him, walked outside his house and shot a figure running away in the back. That figure was a 16-year-old boy playing a simple, harmless, non-destructive prank known as ding-dong-ditch.
If Jay Levin hadn't been excessively fearful of the world outside his door, he wouldn't have had an arsenal of guns and ammunition to pull out of his closet. If he hadn't had guns and ammunition so easily available, he would have done what reasonable people do: He would have stayed inside the house and called the police. If he hadn't had a loaded gun in his hand, he might have waited to see if there was an actual threat to him or his property rather than reacting to what he imagined was happening by shooting the first thing outside that moved.
If he had not been unreasonably fearful, had used common sense and not had a gun, a beautiful young man who never hurt anybody would still be alive.
There are too many Jay Levins out there; too many little people of limited social skills, limited practical intelligence and limited conscience who not only fail to think before they act but refuse to take responsibility for their actions. What this law does is offer people like that a haven for their stupidity and irresponsibility. Our Constitution does not give us rights without responsibility, so where is the personal responsibility in this?
We have the National Rifle Association to thank not only for the deletion of personal responsibility from the equation, but for all the people who will die as the result.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/17/Pasco/Fear_breeds_fear_guns.shtml*FW Note:Too bad about his nephew, but if the kid had followed along with this fellows premise regarding personal responsibility, he wouldn't have endangered himself by trespassing on someone else's property, and his family wouldn't have raised such a dipsh*t of a kid.
What makes these people feel they are more valuable or important than the people they shoot?
Ummm...
Survival Instinct?
:shock:
