I voiced my opinion in the last post, not much of an opinion I admit, on an article I read recently concerning a teenager that was shot by police after he was waving a pellet gun around in school terrorizing people. Of course the parents were upset, who wouldn't be. I'm sure they will get into the American spirit and try to sue somebody.

I also posted a comment made by someone else, a comment made by an armchair cop thinking they know what's best, saying they should have used tasers instead. It was your typical off the cuff asinine remark made by a dumbass that doesn't know the first thing about dealing with the open end of a pistol every day. A comment was left by someone that followed a link to this blog from the Atheist Network forum, which I have been visiting recently. The comment was left by one Crazdgunman.

Anyway, Crazdgunman should have read it closer, because I clearly stated it was 'one of the comments' left, not 'my comment'. I put it on display to demonstrate just how stupid people really can be. He tells me I am 'woefully ignorant' about the whole thing, and proceeds to school me on tasers. Thanks for the lesson anyway, I'll be sure to read it carefully.

All this brought to mind a similar incident that happened here in town not too long ago. A teenager, 14 or 15, decided to take a spin on some heavy equipment he found just sitting idle at a construction site. He drove it down one of the busiest streets in town, back and forth, while cops tried dealing with the situation in their patrol cars. It went on for a while, but after hitting several parked cars, and showing no signs of stopping, the police decided to end the matter, and shot him.

Of course there was the expected uproar, parents threatening to sue in the American tradition, debates on whether they should have used deadly force and such. I think the boy is permanently paraliyzed. They let him go on for over 45 minutes before they decided to end the matter. I wondered why they waited so long. How much property damage would have been enough to convince everyone enough was enough.

I can hear the criticism already, 'No amount of property damage is worth a human life."

My answer? Not that you care at this point, but it would go something like this. Here we have a person brandishing a huge weapon, and we are supposed to let him just run amok? What about the risk to other lives? The boy was on one of the busiest streets in the city. Besides that (this will ruffle some feathers, I'm sure), if there is a person capable of carrying out such an act, the life isn't worth much anyway.

Then there's the dude with the gun on the walkway to that plane a few months back. People were bitching about that one even. This guy deserved to be shot as well, he shouldn't be talking about carrying in an airport.

My stance on the whole concept wasn't clear in my last post, obviously, so I am clearing it up here. I also cleared it up on the forum, but I doubt the person that commented will get the gist of my post, that it was for his benefit, pointing out how the post on this blog was misread.