An anecdotal example.

[gorfle]

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/16432212/detail.html

Woman opens the door armed with a steak knife. She was unable to defend herself against her similarly-armed attacker.

Firearms are great equalizers for self-defense.

[slackmaster]

1. My policy is to bring at least a short sword to a steak-knife fight

A Louisville Slugger is pretty good too.

Then again, an AR-15 or a shotgun is better.

[notesdev]

2. Gun bans

simply skew the playing field to the physically strongest/largest, and those who have the fewest compunctions about resorting to violence.

A firearm makes the tiniest woman the physical equal of the strongest man.

To ban firearms is effectively no different than to license physical coercion by the strong against the weak.

[iverglas]

3. ah

A firearm makes the tiniest woman the physical equal of the strongest man.

And what does it make tiny men?

[notesdev]

5. ooh

>And what does it make tiny men?

Hummer customers?

[maxidivine]

6. Equivalent of the strongest man

[SteveM]

7. Yeah. Seems logical. Everybody's in agreement. Next!... (nt)

[iverglas]

4. of?

In the criminal complaint, police said Andrews was angry at Maas because she told him that he smelled bad earlier in the day.

"That burned me up all day and I decided that I was going to kill her," Andrews is quoted as saying in the criminal complaint.

... "He sat on her couch for a little while as the victim choked on her blood," the criminal complaint said. "After she died, he exited the apartment."

Andrews was taken to a hospital for treatment. Police said he will be charged with homicide.

... In the criminal complaint, Andrews referred to "medication" and said that it wasn't working, according to police.

"I told you this would happen," Andrews said, according to the complaint. "I told people I was going to kill someone."

Hmm. Maybe the need for better mental health services.

I would have suspected that we were talking about substandard housing of the sort where disturbed antisocial people who smell bad tend to have to live, for want of resources, and where the low-income people who can't afford better themselves suffer the consequences of our failure to provide for people with mental health needs, as this woman did.

But oh look! It's on CCTV! And it isn't even in England! Ask google maps for 4800 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, and view picture, and turn the picture around, and you'll see a couple of low-rise apt buildings, one of which would be the building in question. I don't know Pittsburgh, so I can't say, but it looks like a rather ordinary habitation.

Anyhow.

Maybe it's an example of what a bad idea it is to tell an obviously disturbed antisocial person s/he smells bad.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_570174.html

A Shadyside man told police he fatally stabbed his neighbor last night because she told him he stunk, according to a police affidavit. ... "She always looked down on me and treated me like dirt," Andrews told police, according to the criminal complaint.

Maybe of what a bad idea it is to tell an obviously disturbed antisocial person s/he smells bad and then open the door when s/he knocks on it as soon as you get home.

Maybe if she'd had a gun and he hadn't, she'd be alive now. Maybe not.

Maybe if she just hadn't opened the door. Heck, she could even have called the police.



fixed the missing word ...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. Dangerously close to blaming the victim.

Maybe it's an example of what a bad idea it is to tell an obviously disturbed antisocial person s/he smells bad.

Maybe of what a bad idea it is to tell an obviously disturbed antisocial person s/he smells bad and then open the door when s/he knocks on it as soon as you get home.

David