"J. van Baardwijk" wrote:
>
> If I would show up at your doorstep, banging on the door, with a very angry
> look in my eyes and a shotgun in my hand, would you really blindly believe
> that I have no intention whatsoever of shooting you?
I tried to come up with an example of that, and I did.
If you're my next door neighbor, Mark, and you show up banging on my
door with a shotgun in your hand, I'm going to assume some sort of
scenario such as, someone cut the phone line to your house and started
to commit an evil on your wife and children, you dealt with the invader
with a shotgun, and you really need to make a call to 911. I would not
assume that Mark would seriously threaten me with a shotgun, and would
assume that his being on my doorstep with one had a good,
not-threatening-to-me explanation.
Now, if you're one of the neighbors on the other side (and interestingly
enough, Mark is south of us and the other next-door neighbor is north of
us), I'm going to assume that someone has *completely* flipped their lid
and that you may be extremely dangerous. (You might not be the one
who's totally flipped out, but I can't make that assumption.) In which
case, I'm calling 911 before I unlock the door, and if you really want
to come in, you're going to have to shoot out the lock with the shotgun,
and defensive measures will be taken. And any civil lawsuit filed
against us by your family will be met with a countersuit to deal with
the cost of the cleanup.
Julia
who WILL use weapons against intruders if necessary, and who lives
someplace where the law is on her side in that matter
