At 6:42 AM 7/19/96, snow wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jul 1996, Doug Hughes wrote:
If people break into my house with the element of surprise wearing all black in the middle of the night, they have the element of surprise FIRMLY on their side.. I'd have to believe that reaching for a gun was the most stupid thing I could do in the entire world in this sort of circumstance. "You'd be right, but you'd be dead" - Dr. SNMP If you don't reach for a gun, at least you have the 'chance' for restitution on your side. If you're dead, you have no options.
If you are trained a certain way, you _are_ going to reach for a weapon, and hell, at least then my kid will have enough money to go to whatever college she wants.
Snow is absolutely right! Surprised in the night, with no clear identification of the entrants (and yelled "Police!!" claims are used by home invaders, so I would not trust this anyway), a trained person will instinctively reach for his weapon. I again ask what was so wrong with the "You are surrounded. Come out with your hands up." routine of years past. Instead of anonymous ninjas in paramilitary black raiding a house and shooting anything that moves, use some "due process." And "due process" is what it's about. Presentation of a warrant, or at least pretty careful announcement of identity. Blasting down doors without presentation of an arrest or search warrant is just not the American way. Are there circumstances that can ever justify no-warning attacks? I suppose so, such as when clear evidence of, say, a bomb-making or terrorist cell is invovled. Neither condition was met at at either Ruby Ridge or Waco, nor in the vast number of midnight drug raids. If a black-clad ninja enters my house without warning, I'll have to react the only way I know how, by reaching for my gun. I don't have the luxury of freezing, exposing my neck (wolf-style), and hoping that the ninjas are "just" the police. And very interestingly, many cops are saying the same thing. They realize that the dangers of being killed in a firefight in the confusion of a pre-dawn raid are not worth the meager gains. And SWAT-raiding the wrong house has resulted in many a million-dollar judgements agasint police departments. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."