Support for Gun Control in US at its Lowest Level in More than 50 Years

[PanzerJaeger]

A recent example of what I was talking about earlier in the thread. This woman waited in sheer terror for 21 long minutes on 911 for police while a man went from door to window to door trying to get into her home. The police cannot protect you. They can try really hard to find a criminal, but they will not be present during the crime.

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer.

Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home.

As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911.

"I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

Stewart soon turned himself in to police.

McKinley said that she was at home alone with her newborn that night because her husband just died of cancer on Christmas Day.

"I wouldn't have done it, but it was my son," McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO. "It's not an easy decision to make, but it was either going to be him or my son. And it wasn't going to be my son. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child."

[Husar]

Why do American burglars always break into homes when the homeowners are there while here they always seem to wait until the homeowners are not at home and just rob them in absence?

By the way you Americans describe that you'd think hundreds and thousands of gun-abstaining Europeans would die every year because of the nasty burglar-killers invading their homes while they are defenseless.

That's not happening. So what exactly is the point?

To me it just looks like the USA have a far more violent society in general.

[PanzerJaeger]

Why do American burglars always break into homes when the homeowners are there while here they always seem to wait until the homeowners are not at home and just rob them in absence?

The article and video made it sound as though the intruder may have been looking for something more.

By the way you Americans describe that you'd think hundreds and thousands of gun-abstaining Europeans would die every year because of the nasty burglar-killers invading their homes while they are defenseless.

Who is saying that? Do home invasions not exist in Europe anymore? That certainly was not the case when I was last there. I am sure that there are Europeans who have been victimized in their homes who may have been able to defend themselves had they been armed. Hundreds of thousands each year? Surely not, but no one is claiming that.

That's not happening. So what exactly is the point?

I think your confusion results from the misunderstanding described above. The chance of being involved in a violent crime that would necessitate responding with deadly force in the US is extremely small, albeit probably statistically higher. Like Europeans, most Americans will never encounter such a situation in their lives. For most, gun ownership is like an insurance policy. The chance of your home burning down is extremely small, but when it happens, that policy is invaluable.

To me it just looks like the USA have a far more violent society in general.

Yes and no. The vast majority of violent crime in any society is concentrated in very small geographic pockets correlated to the poverty rate and the population density, usually inner cities. Are America's ghettos more violent than Germany's? Probably, especially in comparable gun violence stats. Is American suburbia more violent than comparable German communities? Probably not.

[Don Corleone]

This story has caused a broo-ha-ha on radio here in the greater Boston area. There's a camp that believes the woman should be sent to jail and never allowed to see her son again. They believe that she should have offered herself physically to the intruder to slow things down until the police could arrive. They also say that the intruder has as much right to be in the home. One caller on WTKK said Thursday morning "This is all because of private property". (editorial humming: Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs...)

Then there's the folks that are supporting the mother to the extreme, saying that people have a moral obligation to shoot first and ask questions later, that the moment the guy entered the house, his life was forfeit.

Thankfully, most of us are a bit more nuanced and fall somewhere in-between. Had the intruder been content with larceny, and collected valued items from the living room and absconded, there would have been no need to shoot him. I stick to what I learned in my concealed-carry class... "If somebody's life is in jeopardy, you do what you have to do. But if you shoot somebody in the back carrying a television, you're no better than he is".

Echoing PJ's comments: @Husar.... is it your contention that if brutal home invasions happen infrequently, we should tolerate them? How many rape/killings a year are "acceptable"? And for Shaka, I can play the anecdotal evidence game too... Christmas at the Petit family house would have been very different this year had this family been able to defend themselves? The police's role? They arrived after the house was on fire... and couldn't save the 3 women (including a 12 year old girl) who had been repeatedly raped and beaten for days, who ended up being burned alive, quite possibly the most excruciatingly painful way of dying.

I believe among other things gun ownership is fundamentally a women's right issue. As the old saying goes "God made all men, but Sam Colt made them equal".

[Husar]

No, there's absolutely no reason to tolerate a home invasion, but pro-gun people and the US media make it appear like the good guys always win the gun fights.

The real question is how the self-defense cases weigh up against all the murders and mistakes that are enabled or made simpler by guns.

If guns keep 100 people alive each year who would be dead otherwise but also kill 1000 people who could've gotten away otherwise then is there really a benefit?

It's easy to look at an isolated and emotional case like a mother defending her child from the evil knife rapist, but what about the other case where a family member goes crazy and shoots all the family members and then herself?

Like this.

Or this.

I would personally never deny someone the right to self defense with whatever means necessary and a gun makes this easy.
But given what others have said about this case it may not have been necessary for her to defend herself if the police had done their job properly.

Then again police seem to be so nervous with so many guns around in the whole country that they may just make horrible mistakes.

I also happened over this guy who found out that more people seem to die to gun-related homicides than people use guns to kill an intruder etc.

So yeah, guns are a great tool for self-defense but they're at least equally a great and handy tool for murder.
The real question is not what they're good for but whether the benefits outweigh the downsides.

On that note, Germany is far from devoid of guns, but far less gun crime happens here.(Link) So yeah, it's also the culture that is to blame, but in the end it's the same culture that embraces gun ownership after all.

I'll agree that just banning guns in the US is not an answer, but neither is embracing their use every chance you get and cheering teenage mothers for killing a man. It's not unlikely that she will have a lot of mental trouble over it anyway. Better than being dead, yes, but even better if the chance of such an incident is a lot lower in the first place.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I wish I had a gun to protect myself. I live in the bad part of town.

Or a tazer. That would work too.

[Major Robert Dump]

A recent example of what I was talking about earlier in the thread. This woman waited in sheer terror for 21 long minutes on 911 for police while a man went from door to window to door trying to get into her home. The police cannot protect you. They can try really hard to find a criminal, but they will not be present during the crime.

I cannot believe she shot that guy. H probably just wanted to ask for some pills. The knif was obviously to cut the seal on the narcotics bottle. If Blanchard, Oklahoma had a free pill program for pillheads this would not have happened.

All kidding aside, the story fails to mention a couple fo things that the local media digs into a little more.

First, Blanchard is a town of seriously like 2000 people, with an oversize police force due to the town being a speed trap because it is on a spur that connects two major interstates. I cannot imagine what took the cops so long....

And second, these guys cased her house for weeks. They poisoned all of her dogs over the course of the week and the cops did nothing about it. Some of her property was "vandalized" in a manner consistent with a breaking and entering abandoned mid-crime. The cops should have been watching this girls house. Nevermind that she is a recent widow and young mother, these dudes doing the break in were simply the scum of the scum, they knew she was vulnerable... what dirtbags