All-purpose gun legislation thread

Sure, two teenagers and a young adult died. But the bones of the story is pretty much a gun rights supporter’s dream:

  • Three armed men break into a house intending to rob it and/or do harm to the owner.
  • A gun on the premises is retrieved.
  • The defender engages the invaders verbally… one hopes to incite them to leave or get on the ground to wait for the cops or some other instruction which (if complied with) would have resolved the situation peacefully.
  • Diplomacy having failed, the defender open fire on the intruders inside the house. Two died, but one attempted to retreat and the defender, seeing no additional threat, let him go.

The above is pretty much a textbook “this is why we have the 2nd Amendment” scenario.

Now, I can easily imagine more details coming out that invalidate much of the above. Perhaps the owner’s son saw the invaders approaching, and rather than calling 911, he grabbed his rifle and waited in an ambush for the three men to actually break in. Perhaps his “verbal engagement” with the burglars was something along the lines of “Die Motherfuckers!” POW POW POW and he killed them without giving them a chance to surrender or retreat.

Oh good, we have one more anecdote with which to ignore the mountains of data about the impact of widespread gun ownership on society!

At least the Timexes of the world can enjoy a good stroke for Bad People Getting What They Deserve.

Sorry dude, but don’t break into other folks’ houses and try to steal their stuff. You do that, bad things are likely to happen to you.

Yeah, we should give more teenagers assault rifles, good point

Felony murder is a strange animal.

Man, that whole situation is tragic. That kid will have to deal with killing 3 people, and even justified killing is going to weigh on you. I don’t see how any of this was worth it.

It would be terrifying to have 3 teenage boys bust in through the door in my house. I certainly don’t want people to die, but they were clearly in the wrong here. This isn’t a vigilantly story. They showed up armed. Hell even if they didn’t, how would the home owner know that.

Jesus Christ, you people.

I’m not comparing this kid to George Zimmerman or saying that these burglars made good life decisions. I’m saying that this is a tragic outcome that very likely would have been better for all involved if a fucking home defense AR-15 hadn’t been involved, and that based on KNOWABLE FUCKING THINGS we can be pretty damn sure that fewer guns in society mean better outcomes in aggregate for these and a ton of other situations.

I find the moralizing about “these are bad people getting what they deserve” fucking abhorrent, if that wasn’t clear, and the fact that this will be trotted out as a single data point to refute the MOUNTAINS OF FUCKING DATA that say otherwise is a tragedy itself.

I didn’t think I had to spell it out quite so explicitly, but well here we are. Good job, team.

A worse outcome is if the police showed up and the home owners were dead. Can you even accept that?

I don’t know. As a christian, all lives are equal in eyes, even the life of sinners.

I think if someone breaks into another person’(s) house, the worst outcome is the innocent individuals are killed. A better outcome. of course, is no one is killed, but the home owner didn’t start this conflict.

I know I am not unique when I say that people being violated and killed in their homes is not a good thing.

What the fuck? I mean, a worse outcome is if the burglars raped their dog and left its severed head in the bed alongside the homeowners without waking them up.

A much more likely outcome is that the burglars bug out when confronted, as the vast majority of burglars aren’t there to assault anyone, much less murder them. Can you even accept that?

Shit, you found me out. Hoping innocent people die is what I’ve arguing for this whole time!

This is a pretty special strawman you’ve constructed, Nesrie. Truly some of your finest work.

If you’re anti-gun/pro-gun control, this story is a tough nut because it is the quintessential 2nd Amendment homeowner defending his family situation. Like other large issues, you have to downplay this specific case as an outlier to keep your assertion. This versus “mountains” of data saying guns in the US are a net negative. Unfortunately, it’s a difficult position to maintain in debates because you have to essentially argue that the homeowners’ families’ potential loss of life is less important than the greater issue, or fall back on the “But what if they weren’t going to kill or hurt anyone?” tactic which isn’t very convincing on its own, especially if the intruders were armed or had a history of violence.

“This case is an outlier and here are the mountains of data to prove it” isn’t that tough a nut to crack.

Yep. Is it tragic? Sure, but breaking into someone’s home while armed pretty much says there was going to be tragedy regardless. I’ll take the criminals suffering the tragedy over the guy minding his own business in his house every single time.

Honestly, the bigger issue here, imo, is the felony murder for the girl that didn’t go in with them.

It is because you’re arguing against emotion. We can all say that statistically this is very rare, but emotionally no one is going to agree that letting the intruders in to do whatever is a great option.

Edit: I’m about as anti-gun as most lefties, but I’m not going to ever say that home invasion scenarios aren’t the perfect anti-gun control argument. They do happen. The outcomes are often terrible.

You might need to step back and calm down a bit here. I am not making a claim about the specific gun used here. I am simply glad that the home owners are okay even if it’s unfortunate people died.

Yeah it’s tragic people died but largely due to choices they made that would almost guarantee that would happen if someone was home.

They were armed. If armed men bust into your home you can pretty safely assume you’re going to be severely injured or killed.

I am very anti-gun, but this situation seems like the perfect justification for use of a gun as a home defense tool. This is the nightmare scenario for a homeowner, 3 people, armed, enter your house. Outnumbered… Jeeze.

It is still tragic that young people died, but I think that the kid (the 23 year old) probably had little choice. He could have been in trouble.

Just a real shitty situation.