The only reason to fire is I was afeared for my life, or the lives of other innocents.
Afraid = paranoid, mentally ill. Guns are banned.
"My life," lives of others? Oh, you're a danger to your self or others due to your grave mental disability, and you'll have to be committed to a mental institution for your own safety and the safety of others who might be harmed as a result of your delusional thinking disorder.
A lawyer would help you with that.
Sure. A good lawyer always asks for a mental health evaluation by order of the court before representing a client in a gun case.
The Police are not your friend.
No, they're not. Got fingerprints? DNA?Concealed carry permit? They're already working up a cold-case frame-up job and getting a jury picked out to lynch you on a cocked-up murder charge in a capital punishment state.
You may not have ever even been in that state in your life, let alone at the time of the alleged murder, but
they have a cloud of witnesses who "come forward" on cue.
It just happens to be a little bit more work to frame you on a murder charge than it it is to have you committed to a mental institution for life and revoke your gun rights.
Remember, there is no possible defense in court against a mental health civil commitment as there is for a criminal accusation, even though the consequences are the same: you serve hard time and lose gun rights for life.
Odd. Reasonable fear is something that anyone would feel. If someone admits to a fear of falling from the top of a skyscraper are they mentally ill? Or is it only gun owners?
Paranoid gun owners fear is more akin to fear that someone is going to push them off of a sky scraper. One might be reasonable. The other is usually nuts.
I have a Fire Extinguisher sitting next to my stove. I also have one next to my outdoor grill. Both of course, are the right ones for the types of fires likely to happen in a Kitchen. Is it a Reasonable Fear of fire or an unreasonable fear of fire that I have succumbed to?
I live in an area with likely hurricane activity. Every year I have my Generator serviced, and I check my food supplies to insure the dehydrated food is ready and still good for the upcoming year. I inspect the jugs I intend to store water in, and my solar power system that is designed to power a thermoelectric cooler in case the Generator fails. Is that a reasonable precaution against a likely event, a Hurricane, or a paranoid response?
In my car I have jumper cables, a battery jump starter, first aide kit, and flashlight. Are those reasonable precautions as recommended by the Automobile Association of America? Or a paranoid reaction to an unlikely event.
I am allergic to Wasp Stings. Next to my home First Aide Kit I keep a set of Epipens. Proscribed by my Doctor, and advised to keep them handy. I have not been stung in many years. And the last time I was able to manage the event with Benadryl without resorting to the EpiPen. I did not have difficulty breathing that time. Is it Paranoid to keep the Epipens? Or a wise precaution that might save my life?
Rural Georgia is a lot of wetlands, with associated wildlife. In the area around me I have seen sign of Wild Boar, heard Coyote’s, had reports of foxes, and of course seen snakes and other things. Snakes including Copperheads which are very dangerous to me, and my pets. When I go out into the woods on and adjacent to my property, I carry a revolver loaded with Snakeshot. I do not kill any snakes that are harmless to people and pets. I do not go looking for snakes, but if I come across a copperhead and feel it is a danger to myself or our animals I will shoot it. If it is more than a hundred feet away from the “developed” land, I leave it alone. Is that paranoid, or a reasonable precaution to save the lives of my Cats and Dog?
The line between paranoid and reasonable is not set in stone. The difference is the result if God Forbid the event happens. A couple killed in their home by an invader seems like a good proof of the need for protection. If no one attacks the home, it seems like the precaution is ridiculous.
We require people to wear seatbelts. We require new manufacture cars to have Airbags, and many other safety systems. Despite the fact that most of those cars will never be in a severe accident. An ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of Gold.
Women carry various hygiene products in their purses, or keep them in desks at work. Why? They have a good idea when the event they are preparing for will happen. Why keep things like Tampons and Pads if you know you have at least two weeks before the next event? Yet women still keep things handy despite the fact that the event is reasonably regular, and predictable. I have heard women speak badly of another who had to borrow something like that, because they were not prepared.
I have always believed that one line from the Wiccan Rede was brilliant. Ever since I first read it. As long as you harm none, do what you will. You can buy hundreds of guns and I wouldn’t care. If you use that to harm another, you need a really good reason. A reason that others, not just me, would consider to be reasonable. An intruder coming into your home to threaten you and your family is a pretty good reason in my book.
I hope I do not need the Generator this year. I hope that the Dehydrated food will stay in the bin for another year unused. I hope that I never find myself needing to jump off a car of a stranded soul, or jumping my car off to run it home. I hope I never find myself in a situation where I have to fight for my life, or the lives of my family. But wishes are not fishes. And hope does not prevent accidents, or events that are undesired. I hope never to be afflicted by a stomach virus which causes severe distress. But we all know most of those things will happen, and it is possible, that the defense situation will happen. Possible but not probable.
When the Apollo 11 and 12 crews returned to earth, they were put in biohazard suits designed to keep any space borne organisms from escaping. The experts and the astronauts knew that the odds were one in a billion that something might exist like that, and even if it did there was little chance it would affect life on Earth. However, the dangers of that one in a billion chance were catastrophic. That organism could literally wipe out all life on the planet. Granted, it was so unlikely that the odds of winning the Lottery seem good in comparison. But they took the precautions anyway. Was that paranoia, or reasonable precautions?
