What scares you more , a home owner with a gun or trigger happy cops ?

[newmember]

[Pelican]

1. Neither.. odds are well in my favor...

[NYC_SKP]

2. Trigger happy cops, cops with nightsticks, etc.

I don't go snooping around homes, so the homeowner doesn't concern me and what happens to any burglars doesn't much concern me, either.

However, out on the streets trigger happy cops can do some serious harm.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Trigger-happy cops

who come busting down my door acting on an anonymous tip from the Teabagger next door.

Well, except that I live in a pretty calm rural area where that kind of stuff hasn't happened yet. But if I lived in more of a "mainstream" setting, that's what would scare me.

[NYC_SKP]

14. I was shocked by some stories in my own community around drug busts.

Bad information around a drug deal where the wrong address was given and ninja cops invaded the home.

Innocent occupants, not surprisingly, resisted and then unnecessary deaths.

There were two or three incidents in one year, about 12 years ago.

[RC]

3. Trigger happy cops.

The know that they have a good chance of getting away with blow away some innocent.

[newmember]

6. good chance? they already get away with it

[Orrex]

4. The media would probably misidentify the trigger-happy cop as a pit bull

[pinboy3niner]

5. That's a good question...

...for a newmember looking to stir up shit.

[apples and oranges]

7. A trigger happy cop kicking in the door of an innocent homeowner with a gun

Bad combination.

[newmember]

9. Or a home owner with a golf club

All these cops were cleared of ANY wrong doing

[NYC_SKP]

19. Wow. That was a "No Knock" search warrant being served.

The shooter claims that the resident was close enough to do him bodily harm and was therefore justified in the shooting.

So if anyone comes through your door with guns, unannounced, claiming they are cops, just relax and let it go.



More of the story:

http://www.standard.net/stories/2010/11/19/police-video-shows-fatal-roy-shooting

[newmember]

20. When you see officers cleared of any wrong doing here

you know they can get away with murder.

[clarice]

26. Shut up!.nt

[apples and oranges]

34. We need to fix how US citizens/residents are treated first, and the way we treat suspected

terrorists will fall in line. Police have the power to harass and/or kill just about anyone they want. Thanks to cameras, they're a lot more careful now.

[apples and oranges]

27. Just wow

[cloudbase]

10. The cops.

They have minimal accountability for their actions.

[Iggo]

11. It's a tie.

[ewagner]

12. More terrifying....

...a whacko homeowner with a gun confronting trigger-happy cops...

[gollygee]

13. Hmm

does the home owner have a permit to carry their weapon out in the world? I am not worried about people having guns in their house, but people in mall parking lots with guns scare me more than cops. Homeowners can be trigger happy too.

[HappyMe]

15. Well, I don't know.

I don't plan on doing any breaking & entering, so I don't have any reason to fear either.

[Adsos Letter]

32. +1

[onehandle]

16. A home owner with a gun. Hands down. We are all in and around homes all the time.

Most people rarely have interaction with cops.

[premium]

17. No doubt,

trigger happy cops, because they know they can get away with shooting an innocent civilian.

[Sunlei]

18. an armed road-rage person.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. What's homeownership have to do with it?

I don't trust trigger happy anybody. I don't count ownership of goods or property as an indicator of skill, wisdom, intelligence nor as reason to trust a person. Homeowners have been known to be both trigger happy and cops. Cops own homes.
In a way, the phrasing of your question scares me more than either group in the question.

[newmember]

24. "What's homeownership have to do with it?" in this case a lot

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022915249

[NYC_SKP]

30. Homeowner or home renter, doesn't matter, right?

I think that's the question bluenorthwest is asking.

Surely you meant legal occupant or resident, as opposed to homeowner in the literal sense.

I have a mortgage, the bank owns my home.

I might as well be a renter.

[newmember]

42. Yes, it doesn't matter if someone rents or owns or is living in a tent somewhere

Police need to held accountable for shooting first and asking questions later.

They are getting away with murder.

[Bluenorthwest]

51. The implication that 'homeowner' is a trait to be trusted while you also

use 'trigger happy' for the cop makes the question you posed into a piece of trickery. The point you make here is worthy of a far better presentation than trigger happy vs rich thus good.
Trigger happy before any other word is bad. Don't trust,as I said, a trigger happy person. I also have zero reason to trust a person because they own something. I also have no reason to assume that a person who owns a house is not trigger happy, nor to assume they are not a cop. Homeowner and cop are not mutually exclusive classes, and neither group is worthy of trust merely for being in that group.
Do you trust a trigger happy homeowner? Do you claim there are none? If you don't answer yes to both, your OP is dishonest, and that has nothing to do with cops, home owners, guns or the price of beans.

[William769]

22. What scares me is a asshole invading my home with with a gun

And the only reason it scares me is he will be met with the same and I don't like to have to use force to in my home.

[gcomeau]

23. Since you decided to label one "trigger happy"...

...I can only assume you are attempting to generate a one sided response.

On the other hand what worries me more... trained law enforcement professionals or random untrained people with no clear cause to be carrying guns with guns? Slightly different answer...

[pinboy3niner]

28. Good catch!

Can't have a trigger-happy homeowner in the OP's setup, can we?

[HappyMe]

31. Now, now.

You know there's no such thing as a 'trigger happy homeowner'!

[clarice]

25. The guy breaking into my home with a 9mm. nt

[bemildred]

29. Any guy with a gun.

Especially if he is waving it around.

[damnedifIknow]

33. Trigger happy cops

It's become a major problem and not only trigger happy but it takes a certain type of rage to beat a person to death.

[treestar]

35. Cops.

I'm very careful if pulled over. Don't reach for anything. Keeps hands on the wheel. It's their most vulnerable point.

[MrScorpio]

36. Trigger Happy cops, hands down… nt

[pinboy3niner]

37. This gun thread should be locked by hosts

Per DU rules, it is devoid of current news and should be relegated elsewhere.

[sinkingfeeling]

38. About the same.

[GoneOffShore]

39. Exactly the same.

[Hoyt]

40. Yahoos steeped in guns, particularly those that carry in public and acquire multiple lethal weapons.

[Paladin]

41. +1. (nt)

[premium]

44. -1. nt.

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

43. I worry mostly about trigger-happy 18-year-old sexual predators with pit bulls

Am I getting the hang of DU yet?

[librechik]

45. cops: they egg each other on with groupthink

individual homeowners haven't got that kind of organizational agenda. I bet half the accidental shootings by cop could have been brought to a climax by cops trying to help each other do "the right thing" which is often the wrong thing.

[SoCalDem]

46. Neither

I am not a fearful person

[sakabatou]

47. Trigger-happy cops

[caraher]

48. When you put it that way

the choice is obvious.

How about this question: What scares you more, an untrained homeowner harboring fantasies of gunning down bad guys in self-defense or a professional law enforcement officer trained to handle situations that may call for lethal force?

It's all in the framing...

[newmember]

53. not exactly batting 1000 now lately are they.............

"or a professional law enforcement officer trained to handle situations that may call for lethal force"

Or lets phase your question this way

What scares you more cops who think they can get away with murder ( since it's obvious they do )or a person
who owns a gun in their place of residence.

Better?

[caraher]

63. All of which proves how silly this question-posing game is

Since we live in a world with gun-owning homeowners AND trigger-happy cops AND homeowners who imagine themselves as gun-toting heroes AND police who are well-trained professionals AND cops who think they can get away with murder...

what is the real point of selecting two of the above and asked whom one fears more?

It just seems like a sterile exercise in spin whichever way you choose to pose questions. Are we supposed to disarm cops because some are bad (no disagreement there)? Encourage more people to carry guns? Is there some particular proposal that thinking about this question should illuminate as either a good or bad idea?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

54. Nope. It's still the out-of-control, trigger-happy, "professional" cops.

An "untrained homeowner ..." who minds his own business and stays in his own home doesn't bother me at all.

[Chisox08]

49. Both but at least the cop is supposed to be a professional

[Yo_Mama]

50. Trigger happy cops

Because I can avoid the armed homeowner, but the trigger happy cops may end around me and I can't control it.

I can't say that I have ever spent much time or energy worrying about either, though.

[NCTraveler]

52. Neither one scares me.

Do you live in fear over the thought?

[orpupilofnature57]

55. Corporations

[Marrah_G]

56. Neither

[rdharma]

57. 'George Zimmerman' types. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

58. I know it's become un-American, but I don't live in fear.

However, If I had to choose I'd disarm the cops first, then the rest of us.

[Thinkingabout]

59. Either if they are trigger happy, the gun thing goes too far with many. They seem to think a gun

fixes all problems. I am amazed at the "gun folks" who have made themselves paranoid and fear everything. I refuse to confine myself at home.

[get the red out]

60. Trigger happy cops

I'm not thrilled with everyone having guns, but honestly, I've read too many stories about cops getting the address wrong and storming into a house and shooting the innocent family dog because he/she barked. If anyone gets close to the house that our dog doesn't know she BARKS, we can get her to stop, but for a trigger happy cop the "park-it" command would come too late for our harmless, but loud, Border Collie. And if the sob shoots her he might as well go ahead and shoot me too, and probably my husband along with me.

A couple of years ago this happened in our city and the cops shot some poor Labrador Retriever dead for just coming around the corner of the house in his own yard. They had the wrong house. No, "I'm sorry" doesn't replace a friend.

Yes, this scares me

[DreamGypsy]

61. North Carolina singer-songwriters who formerly resided in the San Francisco Bay Area...

...scare me.

[me b zola]

62. I don't like nor support either, however...

People who abuse authority are much more dangerous to society and should never ever be tolerated.

That being said, I would be more than pissed if any of my neighbors decided to use a firearm to fend off an intruder. My grandchildren live here and an errant neighbor's bullet could easily kill one of them.

When I first came to live with my husband and he worked nights, he kept trying to tell me to use the shotgun to protect myself from intruders. It took years for him to get though his head that I want to protect myself and that does not mean necessarily that I need to take a life to do so, and that my neighbors have the right to not be subjected to my errant bullet through the walls of their home. I had to appeal to the D&D Dungeon Master in him to understand that creative thought is much more powerful than brute force

[Ikonoklast]

64. People that post questions that are loaded in a certain way, in order to get the response they want.

Fail.