This frontier justice stuff, with depictions of violent death, can rapidly get out of hand. But again— remember.

Too bad he didn't get the other guy, too. And too bad you can't have the heads stuffed at a taxidermist's and mounted on the shop wall as a warning to others.

See?

I've been robbed twice in my career as a hotel night clerk, Crid. Yourself?

He shot the wrong man, too.

Shot the wrong man?

You mean the accomplice who is laying on the ground with his gun under his chest? that man?

The store owner was lucky to get out of that alive. The only reason he wasn’t killed was because the robber didn't want to actually pull the trigger. The shopkeeper had a handgun pointed at his chest almost the whole time. Relying on an armed robber’s hesitancy to shoot you while you run across the room to get a firearm is a bad strategy. I’m very pro-gun btw. I just think what the guy in the video did was foolhardy given the situation that he was in.

"lucky," "hesitant enemy," "foolhardy." Oh, I'm sorry, wasn't the clip entitled: "MARINE does something or other?" Advice duly noted, Darth. We'll be fine.

> I've been robbed twice in my career as a hotel
> night clerk, Crid. Yourself?

Not once, Buttercup.

But there it is in a nutshell, the reason these vengeance-y stories can get out of hand: You're hurt and you're pissed off and so you say want to stuff the heads of human beings on plinths.

The rest of us are supposed to agree?

Are we just supposed to be quiet about it because we-haven't-BEEN-there-,-Man?

Or are we supposed to know that you aren't speaking literally, and that this is just backhanded cry for help from a troubled soul in an emotional maelstrom? Is this the part where we take you out for a beer and you get all weepy and we have a bonding experience?

Or are we supposed to let the weakest and most foolish people around us (young men and others) ENJOY these stuff heads of yours, and build their culture around these displays? There's no reason that wouldn't happen... See the Middle East.

So what exactly do you want?

Don't answer; the question was rhetorical.


> And too bad you can't have the heads stuffed
> at a taxidermist's and mounted on the shop
> wall as a warning to others.


Thanks for stoppin' by, Robert.

Are we just supposed to be quiet about it because we-haven't-BEEN-there-,-Man?

Isnt that just a variant of the argument YOU use against Amy every time she links to an idea backed by STUDIES!!! and SCIENCE!!! that you dont like?

geez people, your are all basically talking about the same thing...

but perhaps Crid is just wondering when this "an armed society is a polite society" turns into a dystopian nightmare, where you off someone for keying your car, and the jewel thieves don't bother asking you to pull a ring from the case, they just shot when they walk in...

Pretty fine line there, and when do we tip past it?

OTOH These 2 guys went in at opening, and didn't care that they were on camera, didn't try to hide. The accomplice would have made me nervous in any case.
He didn't have to pull the gun, he coulda just run with the merch. When he pulled the gun, he escalated the situation.

There's no hard/fast rule about how to handle such things... other than to know that such things are possible, and try to avoid them when you can.

That's what keeps us from tipping into the abyss.

But it's not comfortable sitting at the edge.

> but perhaps Crid is just wondering when this
> "an armed society is a polite society" turns
> into a dystopian nightmare

Nope. I'm just wondering when the pornography of violence (however righteous) –with its allure to the nature of both violent souls and timid ones– tips the enthusiasms of a society from decently independent responsibility to rapidly inflammatory bloodlust.

My concern isn't with this store owner, or the last one, or even the (50? 100?) other store owners who protected their own lives and livelihoods with gunfire last week.

The concern is for this blog. The sugary jolt of comfort we receive from seeing a few people in a poorly-integrated society defend themselves doesn't lead to safer, stronger community; it can nourish simmering & wretched resentments. Like this:

> And too bad you can't have the heads stuffed
> at a taxidermist's and mounted on the shop
> wall as a warning to others.

There are countries on this planet that still work that way, and they think we should work that way, too. Much of the planet is run by pissed-off twelve-year-old boys.