Xbox Developer Dead in Murder-Suicide
Posted on August 3rd, 2008 by bile Tags: Charlotte, guns, Harvard, Joseph Batten, Mecklenburg County, Melissa Batten, Microsoft, murder, North Carolina, protection, Public Defender's Office, suicide, Supreme Court, WashingtonMelissa Batten, 36, a software development engineer in Microsoft’s Xbox division, was murdered by her estranged husband, who then shot himself to death, earlier this week.
Batten, a Harvard-educated lawyer, was a Software Development Engineer in Test for Microsoft, supporting Rare on its 360 titles work. She had worked for Microsoft since 2002, earning credits in Halo 3 and Gears of War as an SDET. Earlier, as a lawyer, she had been a public defender for the Mecklenburg County (Charlotte, N.C.) Public Defender’s Office.
Her husband, Joseph Batten, was also 36. He had also worked for Microsoft but most recently worked for Wizards of the Coast, publisher of hobby games such as Magic: the Gathering. Melissa had obtained a restraining order against her husband on July 21. Another news story describes Joseph Batten as obsessive and verbally abusive, and when she learned he had obtained a handgun, she sought the protection order.
If our society put greater emphasis on self defense and personal responsibility likely these happenings would occur less often. It looks like Washington state has fairly liberal gun laws, if that is in fact where it happened, she could have armed herself in addition to requesting protection. Instead she went with begging the government to protect her… something which the SCOTUS has said the government has no obligation to do.
9 Responses to “Xbox Developer Dead in Murder-Suicide”
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August 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
How do you defend against that which is crazy? I’m not arguing for gun control, but how does the threat of a gun sufficiently deter someone who is unstable to begin with? She isn’t some random target that only needs to defend herself to the point that an attacker moves on.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Likely he showed up to her home with his gun. She was without any real means to defend herself. A knife or blunt object would have been useless to someone unskilled in their use against an attacker with a gun. I don’t know if he just busted down the door and shot her but usually that’s not the case. Had she owned a weapon and because of his threats paranoid and carrying… she would have had the increased capacity to defend herself. I don’t care if it’s only a 1% increase in likelihood of survival. It’s better then the position of no defense and the expectation that the government will protect you.
It’s not a deterrent. It’s an active defense tool.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Active defense tool? In the event that someone is really interested in killing you, you have no option assuming you’d like to live anything resembling a normal life. I agree with you about increasing her odds, but I felt the argument about ‘less stories like this’ was a stretch.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
If someone is interested in killing you, you won’t have an option to live a normal life. You can either give her a tool to defend herself or she can sit in a home, completely unprotected, and be a sitting duck. Those are your options. It seems pretty obvious to me that the person who is prepared for such an attack is in a far better position to survive then not. Spend some time reading up on people who have protected themselves with handguns against others and I don’t see how one could say it’s a stretch. Better defense will lead to less victims.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Guns, guns, guns. It’s always about guns.
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.”
August 8th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Shame on you for belittling a tragedy with political rhetoric and personal agenda.
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.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:54 am
1. I did no belittling. I will damn sure use this for my personal agenda to make the world a better place by advocating people take responsibility for themselves and to have the government stop preventing people from being able to defend themselves.
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.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Just curious bile, do you ever feel the state should deny or even confiscate someone’s guns? (Ie, if they are convicted of a violent crime or clinically labeled insane, etc.)
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.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Deny? No. To deny one person from possessing something means almost absolutely that they would have to infringe on another’s rights. To deny a criminal a gun means you deny the seller from selling to whom they wish. The act alone is no crime. No harm is performed. In addition, in practice you see that these types of laws can only be applied very broadly so individuals who do not pose harm or no longer do are kept from being able to obtain things. I think if you look at the evidence you can quantitatively show more harm is done.
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.