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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Mar 11, 2024 17:39:04 GMT -5
"People are tired of crime and want officials held accountable"
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Post by minx on Mar 12, 2024 14:00:05 GMT -5
People don't want to be bothered to look out for each other, so they expect officials to do it for them.
Fixed it for ya.
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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Mar 12, 2024 14:15:54 GMT -5
I'm sure it wouldn't take you long to quote me from using the same words for 20 years of fug.
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Post by minx on Mar 13, 2024 8:49:33 GMT -5
Hahahaha!
Some pundit in the WaPo wrote an op-ed about his experience with a dude breaking into his house. He yells for the dude to leave. Still hears said dude. Calls 911 and goes to get the old Smith and Wesson from the closet. Doesn't have on his glasses, so struggles to get off the trigger lock and load it. Armed and ready, he goes downstairs to confront the intruder. Guy in on his sofa, kind of incoherent. He can't decide - show the gun or not. And would he really kill this guy? Well no, he's just on the sofa. Dude hears the sirens in the distance, freaks out, then jumps up and runs out the open front door. Police arrive, take a description of the dude. Before they can leave, another set of cops call that they have dude in custody. They bring our brave pundit out to make a tentative ID. Yup, it looks like him. But he's not going to press charges - dude just looks drunk, and after all he didn't harm our brave protagonist. Cops tell dude to go forth and sin no more.
The moral of our story according to our narrator? - it's good to have a gun just in case. - you should lock your door, as he thinks he left the front door unlocked. - this was a scary event that has left lingering fear. He obsessively checks all of his doors and windows now to verified they're locked and secure. - he KNOWS that if he was in real danger that he could have used that gun, but all's well that ends well.
No mention of The potential consequences of said gun being locked and unloaded in a closet. The time it took to unlock due to lack of glasses. The amount of time he had to do all of this due to the dude not being violent or trying to destroy anything. The response time of police due to him living in a posh neighborhood. The police never getting a full ID on said dude before letting him leave (Don't worry sir, if he does this again we'll know who he is).
But the most important point of all How does he KNOW this dude won't do this to someone else? And why does HE feel that because HE was unharmed that it's okay to make the judgment call that dude is harmless and it's okay to allow him to potentially break into another person's house?
The entire point of the article was that despite being scared shitless, he kept his cool because he's a responsible gun owner. And that if you're responsible, it's okay to have a gun for protection.
Truly pissed me off. I did like one of the comments though. "I too am a responsible gun owner, and use my gun for protection. In this instance, rather than grabbing my loaded weapon from my nightstand, I would have used a baseball bat. However, being responsible, I would have taken both into a bathroom where I could lock a door while I called 911 and hunkered down. And I would have pressed charges and let a DA or judge decide whether this guy was harmless or not.
But a good example of those crying for stricter crime laws, but not being willing to do anything to help enforce them.
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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Mar 13, 2024 12:15:25 GMT -5
"Programs. We need more programs."
The quote was from a clip of the Mayor of DC during a press conference, being run on one of the local news programs. Being that I was not really watching, I'm not aware of the context. However, it sounded like a familiar theme- We must blame someone, something, everyone, everything, and never put the responsibility squarely where it belongs. And we've got a segment of society holding this belief, perpetuated by segments of media and politics, that "officials" (government) are to blame for not "doing anything" to stop criminals from committing crime, or any other interventions that relieve the individual's responsibilities for negative outcomes in their offspring.
Something else that never gets talked about- Cradle to grave programs (see above in quotes) like Family Planning, WIC, Head Start, Free Lunches, After School activities, Sports and REC departments, Career Training, At Risk programs, Social Services support, Housing Assistance, Family Counseling, Inmate Rehabilitation, Community Service, and just about everything under the sun that has FAILED. So we blame the police, the judges, the lawyers, the guns, the teachers, the smartphones, the books, the music, the video games, and the list goes on forever but never never ever will the Mayor of DC respond that the actual cause and the actual solution is not within the power of any "official" to rectify.
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Post by minx on Mar 13, 2024 15:01:44 GMT -5
In fairness, many of those programs are valuable and should be kept in place.
One of the problems is that they all work independently of each other. So the after school program doesn't check what the family situation is or if that child is actually eating more than that free lunch. Another problem is that almost all of these programs are understaffed. Social services can't work properly when a case worker is responsible for checking on 30-40 families and providing support every month.
It 100% comes down to parents and the greater community of course. Why did most of us stay in line? Because not only our parents, but the rest of the community kept an eye on us and made sure we stayed in line. Too many parents get hyper if you even talk to their child, but also too many others don't want to get involved. I'd like to believe that there are fewer Karens out there than social media implies, and that most people wouldn't mind a polite correction of their child's misbehavior.
When mine were toddlers, we frequently encountered teens in the playground or in the ball pit at McDs. I would just politely note that these places were tons of fun, but that there were little ones there so could they be mindful of them? Almost all of them apologized and either moved to a different area, or left entirely. I think I had to raise my voice once.
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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Mar 13, 2024 15:57:32 GMT -5
"In fairness, many of those programs are valuable and should be kept in place".
In fairness to me I wasn't suggesting anything to the contrary. However, a better chosen phrase would have been "has failed too many".
There's no question in my mind that some provide extremely useful resources to some people in need of public resources. However, the same model doesn't work for at least the other half and looks to me lowering the minimum standards of the American citizens living in poverty despite doing right in every other respect and measure. I'm talking more about a symbiotic relationship with the government where one should never and was pretty decidedly never intended to be. Kind of have to start deciding if we need to love the sinner and hate the sin or vice-versa. Which is funny when you think about what a mirror image shows you but doesn't always tell you.
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Post by k9krap on Mar 13, 2024 16:03:09 GMT -5
When I lived in downtown Fredericksburg, near the college, we had a similar event. We (my first husband and I) were awakened by my dog frantically barking at the back door. When I got up to investigate, I saw that someone was trying to get the door open! So, I called the police. It turned out to be an inebriated young man that lived a few houses down from me. We didn’t file charges, either.
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Post by minx on Mar 13, 2024 16:45:48 GMT -5
My apologies John - I went back and re-read what you wrote and I did interpret it incorrectly.
If we are going to have government step in and help (and I think we should), then it shouldn't be through a hodgepodge of programs like we currently do, where some are state-run and some are federally run. Should be one pot of money - so feds provide the money and the rules, then states handle the applications and eligibility.
Your kid gets a free lunch? Then look into getting the entire family on SNAP and Medicaid if needed. That type of shit, mainly a one-stop shop that is the same for all states. Shouldn't be that I get more welfare if I live in VA than I would in MS because VA has more liberal qualifications.
Of course, that brings up a new can of worms regarding undocumented people where the kids qualify for a program, but the parents don't.
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Post by minx on Mar 13, 2024 16:48:30 GMT -5
And Pam, I think your situation is a little different. The dude in the story was in the house rambling around, and ended up sprawled on the living room sofa while the homeowner confronted him. Assuming he's not making this shit up, he should have pressed charges.
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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Mar 15, 2024 12:08:06 GMT -5
Unfortunately some states think access/help should be made as difficult as possible to get. Despite the hoopla, I know of no place in these here United States or any of its territories where it's easier than it should be.
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Post by minx on Mar 15, 2024 13:56:58 GMT -5
Preach brother!
We see people at the food pantry who are a little stunned at how easy it is to get food from us. You complete a simple form, we enter you into the computer and give you food. No other checks with the exception of things like diapers - we need to have something on that form indicating you have a child living in your household who would need them. There simply aren't enough of them to just hand out to everyone.
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