Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Handgun control--one more time. Message-ID: <1645@dciem.UUCP> Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 16:06:50 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1645 Posted: Sun Jul 28 16:06:50 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 18:09:41 EDT References: <3207@decwrl.UUCP> <239@SCIRTP.UUCP> Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 48 Summary: >(quoting Don Black I believe) >>> By the way, Charles....Do you recall the incident in Boston a week or so >>>ago, where a person called 911 to report a rape in progress? The person was >>>put on hold twice, and hung up on. ... > >> >>Unfortunately, another crime would have occurred, the shooting of the >>alleged rapist. Depending on the locale, the charge could range from >>manslaughter to murder. >> >>It really seems like the vigilantes of America are on this net. Does >>anyone know about due process, etc.? >>... >>Jim Ingram > >You don"t seem to understand due process yourself. One of the major >points of due process is to make sure that the person to be punished >is in fact the guilty one, and that a crime has actually been committed, >when in a courtroom situation weeks or months after the event. Usually >the accused was arrested far in time and space from the actual event, >on the basis of descriptions and other second-hand evidence. >None of these considerations apply in the case of a victim defending herself >*during the progress of the assault*, now do they? There is a considerable >difference between self-defense and vigilantism, and your labelling >of one as the other is an ingenuous distortion. > >--JoSH Not for the first time, JoSH is guilty of a DISingenuous distortion. It was quite clear in the part of the posting that he omitted to quote, that the shooting would have been done by a WITNESS to the rape, not by the victim. By no stretch of the imagination could it have been called self-defence, but it could easily have been vigilantism. On-the-spot "justice" has a certain appeal of simplicity, but circumstances occasionally are not what they seem at first. I remember once running with my wife on a very cold day from a movie to where we parked our car. My hands were over her ears and she was sort-of screaming from the cold. Someone across the street thought I was attacking her and shouted out, and started across to help. If he had a gun, I might not be here now, given the situation described in the original posting. (Perhaps JoSH would prefer it that way?) -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt