Well then...
Oct. 4th, 2019 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqThere was a news article today about a man in Florida who killed his son-in-law who flew in from Norway to surprise him on his birthday. The police and media in the US are reporting it as a "horrible accident". I have some opinions on that assessment that I'll get into below.
The son-in-law had knocked on the door, then hid in the bushes and jumped out making growling noises to surprise his father-in-law after the latter had turned on the porch light and opened the door. The latter responded with a single, killing shot to the other man.
To me, the obvious question would be why anybody would feel the need to answer the door with a loaded gun in his hand with the safety off.
It seems that one of the killer's relatives had stopped by a couple of hours earlier, banging on the door in a similar fashion, and the two of them had gotten into a verbal confrontation. When he heard the banging again later, he presumably thought it was the same relative returning, so he brought his gun with him.
This is why I contend that the killing was not an accident. He had brought a gun along with the intention of killing somebody if he had to, he just happened to kill the wrong person.
That the whole thing is being written off as "no charges warranted because shit happens" says a lot about the weird gun culture of our neighbours.
In the discussion thread of the article, somebody mentioned a case that happened not too much earlier, where an Ohio woman shot her daughter who had returned home from college. Her daughter let herself into the house, and when mom heard somebody, she did the only logical thing - she grabbed her gun and started shooting. Fortunately, mom is a bad shot and her daughter was only wounded.
Once again, the whole thing was brushed off under the heading of shit happens. What I found a little depressing though were the comments of the police chief:
"If you realize someone has a gun for protection, and they're not expecting you—announce yourself when you enter the home, or even if you're getting up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night, just announce yourself," he (police chief Normal) told WFMJ.
So if you don't want to risk getting killed in your own house, you need to actively announce your every move?
"HELLO EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE, I KNOW IT'S 2:00 IN THE MORNING, BUT I HAD TO GET UP TO PEE. PLEASE DON'T KILL ME."
I'm not posting this to advocate for gun control or anything like that - it's your country (if you're reading this from south of the border) so do what you choose. Just know that many your neighbours to the north find this whole gun thing a bit creepy, disturbing, and a little sad at times. It's not the fact that people have guns that's creepy - lots of people up here have them too - it's more the fetishisation of them, and a culture that fosters the desire to unload them into other people.
The son-in-law had knocked on the door, then hid in the bushes and jumped out making growling noises to surprise his father-in-law after the latter had turned on the porch light and opened the door. The latter responded with a single, killing shot to the other man.
To me, the obvious question would be why anybody would feel the need to answer the door with a loaded gun in his hand with the safety off.
It seems that one of the killer's relatives had stopped by a couple of hours earlier, banging on the door in a similar fashion, and the two of them had gotten into a verbal confrontation. When he heard the banging again later, he presumably thought it was the same relative returning, so he brought his gun with him.
This is why I contend that the killing was not an accident. He had brought a gun along with the intention of killing somebody if he had to, he just happened to kill the wrong person.
That the whole thing is being written off as "no charges warranted because shit happens" says a lot about the weird gun culture of our neighbours.
In the discussion thread of the article, somebody mentioned a case that happened not too much earlier, where an Ohio woman shot her daughter who had returned home from college. Her daughter let herself into the house, and when mom heard somebody, she did the only logical thing - she grabbed her gun and started shooting. Fortunately, mom is a bad shot and her daughter was only wounded.
Once again, the whole thing was brushed off under the heading of shit happens. What I found a little depressing though were the comments of the police chief:
"If you realize someone has a gun for protection, and they're not expecting you—announce yourself when you enter the home, or even if you're getting up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night, just announce yourself," he (police chief Normal) told WFMJ.
So if you don't want to risk getting killed in your own house, you need to actively announce your every move?
"HELLO EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE, I KNOW IT'S 2:00 IN THE MORNING, BUT I HAD TO GET UP TO PEE. PLEASE DON'T KILL ME."
I'm not posting this to advocate for gun control or anything like that - it's your country (if you're reading this from south of the border) so do what you choose. Just know that many your neighbours to the north find this whole gun thing a bit creepy, disturbing, and a little sad at times. It's not the fact that people have guns that's creepy - lots of people up here have them too - it's more the fetishisation of them, and a culture that fosters the desire to unload them into other people.
