Death for Thieves?

[iNow]

In response to the two posts above, I need to ask... How does the ability and willingness to shoot or maim help you in this case? You weren't home. What good does a concealed gun do for you?

 

 

Please note, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination anti-gun. I am asking the question due to the circumstances.

 

Much like my sister... She could have had a full arsenal and decades of training with weaponry. It wouldn't have helped her, as they struck in her absence. Does this not also apply in your scenario?

[ParanoiA]

In response to the two posts above, I need to ask... How does the ability and willingness to shoot or maim help you in this case? You weren't home. What good does a concealed gun do for you?

 

 

Please note, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination anti-gun. I am asking the question due to the circumstances.

 

Much like my sister... She could have had a full arsenal and decades of training with weaponry. It wouldn't have helped her, as they struck in her absence. Does this not also apply in your scenario?

 

It would not have helped one bit.

 

What this incident did was bring home the reality of just how vulnerable we are. You feel dirty, violated and invaded. You can't sit down and feel comfortable at all. It doesn't feel like your home anymore. I can't describe it to you unless you've experienced it yourself. I've heard this from people all of my life, but never really *got* it. Now I get it. The pit in my stomach hasn't left yet. My wife is scared to go to the basement at night. My oldest son doesn't want to be in the house at all.

 

Everywhere you look it's a reminder that strangers were in your house, tore it up, dug through your most personal and intimate effects. I have a demolished shell of a gun safe still sitting next to my bed because I have nowhere to put it - I have no money to haul anything away. I don't get paid for another week. I go to my studio and my stomach just aches. All that empty space. People were in here. Bad people that didn't give a crap about me or my family - happy to take advantage of us, without an even remote regard for our lives in any way.

 

And you have no idea who it is. None.

 

It's psychological torture right now. And while I didn't connect the dots well enough, the intent is to regain confidence in our security. We weren't home this time. But what about next time?

 

I've dodged the odds my whole life. This proves I can't defy statistics. So what's next? A mugging? Home invasion? Car jacking? Some violent attack on my wife? I can't pretend this happens just to everyone else anymore.

 

That's the reasoning behind a renewed interest in personal defense. That's also part of the reasoning behind a renewed disregard for anyone that initiates malicious force against my family or my property.

[Mr Skeptic]

I still don't buy into the dismissive notion that it's all just "stuff". That would fly if everyone was allocated stuff, regardless of personal investment in that stuff. But it doesn't work that way. We work and expend parts of our lives - time we can never retrieve or get back - to acquire property. When you steal my computer, you're not just stealing some arbitrary "stuff" - you're stealing the work and time I spent to earn the money to buy it. You're stealing the hours I spent building it and fixing the little issues. You're stealing every moment I spent augmenting its power and utility. You're stealing, literally, years of subtending creative work that uses the tool.

 

It's still just stuff, it just means more to you. Which overall I think is a good thing. Of course, some stuff is irreplaceable and some stuff would require significant time investment to get back. But the significance of stuff is not an intrinsic property of it, but rather whatever significance you give it.

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Consecutive posts merged

What this incident did was bring home the reality of just how vulnerable we are. You feel dirty, violated and invaded. You can't sit down and feel comfortable at all. It doesn't feel like your home anymore. I can't describe it to you unless you've experienced it yourself. I've heard this from people all of my life, but never really *got* it. Now I get it. The pit in my stomach hasn't left yet. My wife is scared to go to the basement at night. My oldest son doesn't want to be in the house at all.

 

Looks like they stole your sense of security too. (A false sense of security, to be honest, but its still rather a necessity.)

 

I have a demolished shell of a gun safe still sitting next to my bed because I have nowhere to put it - I have no money to haul anything away.

 

I'm sure a scrap yard will give you a few bucks for it, assuming it has lots of metal.