[thechat] Bowling for Columbine

Tara Cleveland tara at taracleveland.com
Tue Jan 28 10:58:18 CST 2003


Madhu Menon wrote:

> Big assumption there. That said robber acts in predictable ways i.e., won't
> hurt you unless you pick a fight first. But this isn't a normal person
> you're talking about; it's a criminal. They don't always act logically.
> They might kill you anyway because you can... identify them!

Our house has been broken into twice. Both times my husband walked into the
house and caught the thief in the act.

The first time he noticed that there were things moved around, then heard
someone upstairs and called the police. He then walked around to the back
alley where the thief was exiting down the fire escape. He stopped the thief
and asked for his VCR back. After some arguing about whether the VCR was the
thief's or Dave's, the thief was finally convinced when Dave pointed out
that his name was on it, and he had witnessed the thief exiting our
apartment with it. The thief handed back the VCR and left on his bicycle.

The second time was very similar, Dave entering house, noticing stuff moved
around, hearing someone and calling the police. This time, however the 911
operator told him to leave the house immediately. Dave went out the front
door, a minute later the police showed up and went upstairs (with guns
drawn) and caught the thief. Apparently, the guy was pretty upset and asked
the police to return his bicycle (another thief on a bicyle?!?) to his wife
and kid. Kinda sad really.

No guns (except for the police), nothing taken, two bad guys, one caught, no
one hurt. Pretty good record I'd say. I'd say, leave the guns up to the
police.

Interestingly, although Dave picked up a massive wine bottle (to knock out
the bad guy) the second time, he said he was glad he didn't have a gun
because he didn't think he could use it - he chose the wine bottle over a
big kitchen knife for the same reason. Also, chances are that if he had a
gun in the house the thief would have found it before Dave arrived home, and
would have been able to use it against Dave, not the other way around.

Tara




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