Confiscate? Assuming a utopian state which exists purely to protect people’s rights? Sure, if they are committing a crime. Aggression or the threat of it. Just as in a free market one would be justified in disarming someone personally or on behalf of another which harmed or threaten harm. However, confiscation and then further denial of ownership are different things.

Clinically insane is a pretty loose thing. The Soviets and Chinese used to/still  call dissidents insane and put them away. In a free society you’d not have an ‘authoritative’ source for that judgment nor would you have the aura of legitimacy which the government has in acting on that judgment. Such an accusation and aggression would have to be undeniable by all participants.

firebeetle, I don’t think bile’s commentary on this unfortunate event was inappropriate.  While I didn’t feel that this example best fit his argument,  the original post and each comment has the victim’s best interest at heart.

2. Get current? I am. I recognize that because of the governments interference in our freedoms crime has greatly increased in the past hundred years. From the drug war to gun control. I’m trying to reverse that. As for the old west, you should stop watching so many movies and start reading some history. Do some research on the time period and guns in general. Statistics show that gun ownership at best decrease robbery and violent crime by quite a bit or at worst are neutral. I in no way blamed her for not having a gun. I said that if she had one she may have been able to survive. Look at the evidence. Every time there has been attacks where the victims have had the ability to defend themselves the attacker does much less harm. Criminals will get guns and other tools of death regardless of the law. Criminalizing ownership only keeps guns out of the hands of those who need them to protect themselves.

3. The system failed this woman… and if you had read the links I provided… they have NO obligation to protect you. The government misleads millions of people in believing they exist to protect you. They don’t. They admit they don’t just not very loudly. If she understood that and was able to protect herself she may have been alive today. I didn’t say having a gun was an answer. There is no way to prevent murder in the absolute. Having a gun and knowing how to use it is a means of self defense. Something this woman did not have.

4. If this woman knew this guy was bad news what made her think it was OK to out in public? I’d be moving out of state and asking the police to pick the guy up or hire someone to do so. A person with a recent gun purchase and making threats seems like enough evidence to arrest them. Looks to me someone fucked up and as I said… at least with a gun she could have been on equal grounds. What you advocate by dismissing gun ownership is more victims raped, robbed and murdered.

Double-shame on you for blaming this woman for not having an old-west style “quick-draw” with her husband. She is dead because her husband killed her, not some personal failing to go around with a gun in her hand.

If you want to point blame, how about the liberal gun law that allows someone who has threatened suicide to buy or possess a gun. Suicidal people have no serotonin in their system, they are literally insane and capable of anything. Your response is that we should all have guns to kill someone. That’s ridiculous, you’ve watched too many westerns. The Old West was over a hundred years ago, get current.

The man in question threatened his own life a full month prior. A system that would have dealt with that would be far more effective than suggesting that this poor woman needed to holster a gun and practice her quick draw. She was ambushed at her friend’s house in the parking lot, even if she had a gun she didn’t stand much of a chance. “Having a gun” is not the answer to murder-suicides, it is the problem.

I watched an old dude in an army navy store wig out today when they would not let him touch a competition rifle.  He wanted to buy it, but he did not have an FID.  He kept saying he was from Massachusetts and the guy behind the counter kept saying, “Welcome to NJ, you can’t even touch a gun here.”

It’s not a deterrent. It’s an active defense tool.