Thursday, July 12, 2012

Protecting Possessions

When we were away the other weekend, someone kicked in the corner of our garage door.  We are unsure if it was bored teenagers or an attempted break-in.  There were 3-5 other garages damaged in the exact same way the same weekend.

I was discussing this with Marc's brother who is visiting from England. He's 17.  His commentary on it reminded me of my little brother's attitude: let's get guns to protect our house.

Really?  Why?  Despite the NRA pushing these horrible Stand Your Ground laws.  Doing so makes no sense.  We have insurance.  And what material goods are worth risking your life over, even without insurance?  Yes, it is wrong of someone to take them and I'm not advocating that you leave your doors unlocked.  Instead I'm questioning this American need to defend one's home and castle.

I'd throw myself in harms way to protect my son - of course.  But take a bullet to for my flat screen TV? No thank you! And guns in the house are so dangerous to the occupants. If you keep them safely - ie in a gun safe in an out of the way area, they aren't going to be available to you when facing a burglar. So do you risk your family's safety to protect against a hypothetical burglar?

None of this makes sense. And then we see the loss of life of the poor teen in Florida at the extreme.  He wasn't even breaking into a house, he was just walking in the wrong neighborhood.  Funny how, what is the "right" neighborhood for people with my skin tone is the "wrong" neighborhood for minorities.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I've mulled this "Arm yourself" thing for a while. I am all for the 2nd Amendment, but I DON'T want a gun in my house. As a society, we have the right to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government, or imbeciles who want to take what isn't theirs, but you are so right-risking getting shot, or having to live the rest of one's life knowing you killing another human being over a TV is not something I want to live with.