I was watching a national morning news show on TV in my hotel in Australia this morning and they had a little roundtable segment with the various personalities on the set. Apparently there was a home invasion here recently where the invaders broke into a guys house bearing swords. The home owner disarmed one of the intruders and ended up killing one of them with the sword.
Let me stop here and say that, yes, I know this is an old topic and we all scratch our heads in disbelief at the Aussie mindset. But when you actually see a conversation like this take place it really drives home the point. That's what happened to me this morning, and I thought I might share it with you all.
Anyway, the conversation in the studio involved one guy who was most definitely on the side of the homeowner. He seemed a bit disgusted by the suggestions that the homeowner might have been in the wrong for having defended himself. And then there was a woman on the other side of the issue. She seemed to have genuine compassion for the homeowner's situation, but she had an amazing capacity to temper her compassion with absurd statements. At one point she said that she didn't have a big problem with the homeowner disarming the invader but that the authorities needed to examine very closely the circumstances surrounding the killing of the invader. She said that they needed to determine whether he killed the invader out of a sense of defense of his own life or if it was just an "execution" of someone "who was just there to cart off his plasma TV".
Naturally, I was as stunned watching it as you are now reading it.
She went on in the discussion to ask the group how much worse it would have been if the homeowner had "grabbed a gun that he had hidden in the sofa cushions in case something like this ever happened". She said, "I certainly don't want *my* neighbors keeping guns in their houses for personal defense". Yes, that's almost word for word. She specifically said that she didn't want them to have guns in their houses to defend themselves. She was visibly scared by the notion.
The relatively "pro" guy said that he didn't think it would have mattered. That public sympathy would still be with the homeowner even if he'd wielded his own weapon instead of disarming the intruder.
And then they went on to discuss how they certainly didn't want Australia to "go the direction of the US" with respect to guns.
I'm here for a few more weeks, but I can't wait to get back to Texas where things are "normal". Although I will say that it's fun to engage a local in conversation that gets around to gun rights and gun ownership. It melts their brains when I show them my CHL.
- Acme
Let me stop here and say that, yes, I know this is an old topic and we all scratch our heads in disbelief at the Aussie mindset. But when you actually see a conversation like this take place it really drives home the point. That's what happened to me this morning, and I thought I might share it with you all.
Anyway, the conversation in the studio involved one guy who was most definitely on the side of the homeowner. He seemed a bit disgusted by the suggestions that the homeowner might have been in the wrong for having defended himself. And then there was a woman on the other side of the issue. She seemed to have genuine compassion for the homeowner's situation, but she had an amazing capacity to temper her compassion with absurd statements. At one point she said that she didn't have a big problem with the homeowner disarming the invader but that the authorities needed to examine very closely the circumstances surrounding the killing of the invader. She said that they needed to determine whether he killed the invader out of a sense of defense of his own life or if it was just an "execution" of someone "who was just there to cart off his plasma TV".
Naturally, I was as stunned watching it as you are now reading it.
She went on in the discussion to ask the group how much worse it would have been if the homeowner had "grabbed a gun that he had hidden in the sofa cushions in case something like this ever happened". She said, "I certainly don't want *my* neighbors keeping guns in their houses for personal defense". Yes, that's almost word for word. She specifically said that she didn't want them to have guns in their houses to defend themselves. She was visibly scared by the notion.
The relatively "pro" guy said that he didn't think it would have mattered. That public sympathy would still be with the homeowner even if he'd wielded his own weapon instead of disarming the intruder.
And then they went on to discuss how they certainly didn't want Australia to "go the direction of the US" with respect to guns.
I'm here for a few more weeks, but I can't wait to get back to Texas where things are "normal". Although I will say that it's fun to engage a local in conversation that gets around to gun rights and gun ownership. It melts their brains when I show them my CHL.
- Acme