A person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
That is correct when talking about the US justice system. The prosecutor has to prove the guilt of a criminal rather than the criminal having to prove his innocence.
However, your argument is a red herring. During the commission of a crime, I have the right to defend myself. I suppose you are suggesting that I let the criminal harm or kill me because he hasn't been arrested, tried, and convicted for a crime he has not committed yet? That's kind of twisted, because by the time I am given the opportunity to be judge, jury, and executioner, I am most likely physically unable to perform all of those duties.
Never fear, though. All shootings in these situations are investigated. Rarely (and I don't remember ever reading about a single case) is the shooter found to have committed a crime while protecting himself.
So you are basially saying that you have the right to be the judge, juri and executor
While I would love to be the executor of a criminal's estate, I don't think I have the right. That's an interesting idea though.
Also, your theory about criminals being more proficient with guns than most civilian gun owners is also false.
I don't know about where you live, but in the US the vast majority of criminals are influenced by alcohol or drugs. Most civilian gun owners aren't. That in and of itself proves most civilians are more proficient and sound-minded than criminals.
Or that I won't draw the gun for trivial reasons (about to be stabbed by a spoon).
How is someone assaulting you trivial? Let's look at the 2 options on the table. You will use hand-to-hand combat to prevent someone from physically assaulting you. I'll put a hole in him with some hot lead. Now, who will come out ahead in these two scenarios? Who knows with you. Maybe the guy loses the spoon and just kicks the shit out of you. Or maybe he drops the spoon and pulls out a knife or gun and kills you. I don't have to worry about any of that. The attacker is dead or dying.
By physically attacking someone regardless of your weapon of choice, you give up your rights.
By the way, around here, if you live far enough from a police station (don't remember how far, but it is reasonable)
What is a reasonable distance? Through this statement you admit that wherever you live, there is an obvious need for protecting yourself through the use of a gun. Is the need any less 50 feet inside the reasonable distance? Can you expect the police to protect you no matter how close you live to the police station? The answer is no and no.
I'm sure you would be horrified to know that here in Texas we can legally protect our personal safety with lethal force at any time. We can also protect our property with lethal force under the cover of darkness and other special circumstances. Texans recognize that people have something called personal responsibility. If you don't want to get shot, don't commit a crime.
you could download a Torrent that claims to be the latest copy of Fedora, only to find it's hard core kiddie porn - how were you to prevent this from happening?
That however does not constitute a violation of the law. If you see that you just downloaded kiddie porn and then don't do anything to remove it from your hard drive, then you will be in trouble.
These drug analogies are seriously flawed. A proper analogy would be that some assclown goes to a friend's house and smokes some crack. Unknowingly, some crack ends up in the assclown's pocket. The police are watching the house because it is a known crack house. Upon leaving, the assclown is arrested for possession. That is a better analogy. This guy wanted to look at child porn and was too stupid to cover his tracks. Now some lawyer is playing around with technicalities. Notice no one has denied he went to the child porn sites.
The sick pervert in question knowingly downloaded child pornography which in and of itself is a crime. Somehow, I doubt he "accidentally" downloaded hundreds of kiddie porn files disguised as Fedora over a 4 hour time period.
My oh so great country is protecting the rest of the world by wiping out this vile scum. Many of the other supposed leaders in the world would rather hide their heads in the sand instead of standing up to the terrorists. Since this is a WAR and those fine upstanding citizens are terrorists, they have NO rights. Are POW's in general charged with crimes? No, they are released back to their home countries.
Of course, I'm sure you will come up with some reason to blame America first rather than the perpetrators of terror.
Whew! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I have a new found respect for the Chinese government since they don't force all women to abort their 2nd child.
There is a glaring fallacy in your analogy. 1989 was not an eternity ago. Many of the same people in charge in 1989 are still in charge. China hasn't changed. The people are still not free, just ask any ole' Falun Gong member. Oh wait, you can't find them because they have to meet secretly so that they won't be shot or jailed. No nation that forces its citizens to have abortions is a free or "improved" nation.
the days of the lone student standing in front of a tank are well behind us.
Only because the students are afraid to stand up for what they believe, especially when the rest of the free world won't stand with them.
Yeah, Clinton cared enough to buy knee pads for his interns.
Because that's how the Patriot Act defines it. I don't have to do anything like build a bomb, I only have to support those who want to overthrow the government.
Let me get this straight - you would have a problem with locking up someone who finances the brutal murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children? Maybe your pro-Bin Laden charity could purchase airline tickets for Al Qaeda's representatives.
Forever burned in my mind is the image of men and women jumping from the World Trade Center so that they wouldn't burn to death. Anyone who supports the cowardly pieces of crap behind 9/11 should get to take a nice vacation at Gitmo.
Right now men and women are not held equal under the law. The supreme court has ruled in the past that all the rights of the constitution apply only to men and no case has come up to change this.
So, you are saying that women don't have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to carry firearms, the right to not incriminate themselves, etc.? And I have been letting my wife wear the pants in my family all of this time....
I do not have a vote that counts for the election of the leader of my country.
Especially if you live in Texas and want to vote for anyone other than W.
Habib is an _Australian_ citizen and got subjected to -if proven to be correct- what I could only label as War crimes by the US government.
The news article forgot to mention the clandestine kidnapping of this fine, upstanding gentleman from his nice cozy bed in Australia.
News flash! These poor, mistreated souls are the very same people who flew planes into buildings, who bombed a subway in Spain, who cut off the heads of innocent civilians trying to help Iraqi citizens. Your sympathies are sorely misplaced.
As a Republican Texan, I must say that Ron Paul is either full of crap or a blithering idiot. I don't care if he has a "R(TX)" after his name. I tend to lean towards he is full of crap. Do you really think that the whole Senate and House voted on something no one had seen? If you do, then you are living in conspiracy theory land.
Slashdot Mirror
A person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
That is correct when talking about the US justice system. The prosecutor has to prove the guilt of a criminal rather than the criminal having to prove his innocence.
However, your argument is a red herring. During the commission of a crime, I have the right to defend myself. I suppose you are suggesting that I let the criminal harm or kill me because he hasn't been arrested, tried, and convicted for a crime he has not committed yet? That's kind of twisted, because by the time I am given the opportunity to be judge, jury, and executioner, I am most likely physically unable to perform all of those duties.
Never fear, though. All shootings in these situations are investigated. Rarely (and I don't remember ever reading about a single case) is the shooter found to have committed a crime while protecting himself.
So you are basially saying that you have the right to be the judge, juri and executor
While I would love to be the executor of a criminal's estate, I don't think I have the right. That's an interesting idea though.
Also, your theory about criminals being more proficient with guns than most civilian gun owners is also false.
I don't know about where you live, but in the US the vast majority of criminals are influenced by alcohol or drugs. Most civilian gun owners aren't. That in and of itself proves most civilians are more proficient and sound-minded than criminals.
Or that I won't draw the gun for trivial reasons (about to be stabbed by a spoon).
How is someone assaulting you trivial? Let's look at the 2 options on the table. You will use hand-to-hand combat to prevent someone from physically assaulting you. I'll put a hole in him with some hot lead. Now, who will come out ahead in these two scenarios? Who knows with you. Maybe the guy loses the spoon and just kicks the shit out of you. Or maybe he drops the spoon and pulls out a knife or gun and kills you. I don't have to worry about any of that. The attacker is dead or dying.
By physically attacking someone regardless of your weapon of choice, you give up your rights.
By the way, around here, if you live far enough from a police station (don't remember how far, but it is reasonable)
What is a reasonable distance? Through this statement you admit that wherever you live, there is an obvious need for protecting yourself through the use of a gun. Is the need any less 50 feet inside the reasonable distance? Can you expect the police to protect you no matter how close you live to the police station? The answer is no and no.
I'm sure you would be horrified to know that here in Texas we can legally protect our personal safety with lethal force at any time. We can also protect our property with lethal force under the cover of darkness and other special circumstances. Texans recognize that people have something called personal responsibility. If you don't want to get shot, don't commit a crime.
you could download a Torrent that claims to be the latest copy of Fedora, only to find it's hard core kiddie porn - how were you to prevent this from happening? That however does not constitute a violation of the law. If you see that you just downloaded kiddie porn and then don't do anything to remove it from your hard drive, then you will be in trouble. These drug analogies are seriously flawed. A proper analogy would be that some assclown goes to a friend's house and smokes some crack. Unknowingly, some crack ends up in the assclown's pocket. The police are watching the house because it is a known crack house. Upon leaving, the assclown is arrested for possession. That is a better analogy. This guy wanted to look at child porn and was too stupid to cover his tracks. Now some lawyer is playing around with technicalities. Notice no one has denied he went to the child porn sites. The sick pervert in question knowingly downloaded child pornography which in and of itself is a crime. Somehow, I doubt he "accidentally" downloaded hundreds of kiddie porn files disguised as Fedora over a 4 hour time period.
My oh so great country is protecting the rest of the world by wiping out this vile scum. Many of the other supposed leaders in the world would rather hide their heads in the sand instead of standing up to the terrorists. Since this is a WAR and those fine upstanding citizens are terrorists, they have NO rights. Are POW's in general charged with crimes? No, they are released back to their home countries.
Of course, I'm sure you will come up with some reason to blame America first rather than the perpetrators of terror.
Whew! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I have a new found respect for the Chinese government since they don't force all women to abort their 2nd child.
The US has been snatching people with no proof whatsoever
Either you work for the Pentagon and have inside knowledge, or you don't really have any basis for your last post.
Politically, 1989 was an eternity ago.
There is a glaring fallacy in your analogy. 1989 was not an eternity ago. Many of the same people in charge in 1989 are still in charge. China hasn't changed. The people are still not free, just ask any ole' Falun Gong member. Oh wait, you can't find them because they have to meet secretly so that they won't be shot or jailed. No nation that forces its citizens to have abortions is a free or "improved" nation.
the days of the lone student standing in front of a tank are well behind us.
Only because the students are afraid to stand up for what they believe, especially when the rest of the free world won't stand with them.
he actually cares about others.
Yeah, Clinton cared enough to buy knee pads for his interns.
Because that's how the Patriot Act defines it. I don't have to do anything like build a bomb, I only have to support those who want to overthrow the government.
Let me get this straight - you would have a problem with locking up someone who finances the brutal murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children? Maybe your pro-Bin Laden charity could purchase airline tickets for Al Qaeda's representatives.
Forever burned in my mind is the image of men and women jumping from the World Trade Center so that they wouldn't burn to death. Anyone who supports the cowardly pieces of crap behind 9/11 should get to take a nice vacation at Gitmo.
Right now men and women are not held equal under the law. The supreme court has ruled in the past that all the rights of the constitution apply only to men and no case has come up to change this.
So, you are saying that women don't have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to carry firearms, the right to not incriminate themselves, etc.? And I have been letting my wife wear the pants in my family all of this time....
I do not have a vote that counts for the election of the leader of my country.
Especially if you live in Texas and want to vote for anyone other than W.
Habib is an _Australian_ citizen and got subjected to -if proven to be correct- what I could only label as War crimes by the US government.
The news article forgot to mention the clandestine kidnapping of this fine, upstanding gentleman from his nice cozy bed in Australia.
News flash! These poor, mistreated souls are the very same people who flew planes into buildings, who bombed a subway in Spain, who cut off the heads of innocent civilians trying to help Iraqi citizens. Your sympathies are sorely misplaced.
As a Republican Texan, I must say that Ron Paul is either full of crap or a blithering idiot. I don't care if he has a "R(TX)" after his name. I tend to lean towards he is full of crap. Do you really think that the whole Senate and House voted on something no one had seen? If you do, then you are living in conspiracy theory land.