A Gun Question

[Loren Pechtel]

Point about bars in your windows: talk to your insurer first.
I helped a friend remove some from a home he recently purchased as his insurer said no insurance for you until those bars come off.
With those tighten only security screws used to screw them through the stucco and into the framing, they were a bitch to remove. We were turning them out with an air chisel.

Due to locking people in during a fire, I assume.

Code here is that bars require an escape mechanism for any bedroom and I think for any commonly-occupied room without two exits. There's a handle on the wall of the one bedroom that has bars--turn it and the bars can be pushed away, you're not trapped. The bathroom wasn't required to have an escape, all other rooms have at least two means of egress.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Point about bars in your windows: talk to your insurer first.
I helped a friend remove some from a home he recently purchased as his insurer said no insurance for you until those bars come off.
With those tighten only security screws used to screw them through the stucco and into the framing, they were a bitch to remove. We were turning them out with an air chisel.

We have burglar bars. In the rear of this building, we have one window. It has burglar bars. But the bars are on a hinge that swings out to allow an emergency escape. The latch has a metal shield. From inside it is easy to open but from outside anatomically impossible to reach aroung the shield to open the bars. This was added to pass code, and ake insurance companies happy.

Part of the original installation for us.

 

[Politesse]

If you do not own guns and are maybe oppose gun ownership, at what point would you consider arming yourself?

Here in Seattle the police department has effectively been destroyed by city councll policy, along with state policy.

SPD continues to lose more officers than it hires. Property crime, home invasions, armed robbery, armed assault on the streets are on the rise. The police and the justice system no longer appear to be a deterrent. Police response time sare up.

A few days ago at a bus stop there was an angry man walking around with a stick. An old woman with a walker started talking to me. She was shaking and terrified.

Old people are being targeted. A few weeks ago a man attacked an old couple with a hammer at a light rail station.

At what point would you consider keeping a gun at home and carrying one?

There is a recent video from a home surveillance camera of an attempted armed home invasion. Men were trying to kick in the front door, and the owner shot through thedoor scaring them off.

I wouldn't. I've lived in some rough neighborhoods myself, but even in those climes, carrying a piece just makes you a target, so what's the point?

 

[steve_bank]

If you do not own guns and are maybe oppose gun ownership, at what point would you consider arming yourself?

Here in Seattle the police department has effectively been destroyed by city councll policy, along with state policy.

SPD continues to lose more officers than it hires. Property crime, home invasions, armed robbery, armed assault on the streets are on the rise. The police and the justice system no longer appear to be a deterrent. Police response time sare up.

A few days ago at a bus stop there was an angry man walking around with a stick. An old woman with a walker started talking to me. She was shaking and terrified.

Old people are being targeted. A few weeks ago a man attacked an old couple with a hammer at a light rail station.

At what point would you consider keeping a gun at home and carrying one?

There is a recent video from a home surveillance camera of an attempted armed home invasion. Men were trying to kick in the front door, and the owner shot through thedoor scaring them off.

I wouldn't. I've lived in some rough neighborhoods myself, but even in those climes, carrying a piece just makes you a target, so what's the point?

I is not just 'those climes' around here. That is the point. Police are seriously understaffed.

Hone breaking and armed assaults in neighborhoods that have never seen crime before.

Carrying a gun does not make you a target. In western Washington just being in a car or walking on the street makes you a target.


Are there any conditions under which you would exercise your 2nd Amen dent rights? I used to have a carry permit. If my eyes were in better shape I would carry a gun. Some seniors in my building do.

 

[Politesse]

Carrying a gun does not make you a target.

I do not agree. People with guns often end up in some damn shoot-out with someone else who has a gun. if their sidearm doesn't just get stolen. That is very likely what would happen to your gun if you started trying to carry one around with you everywhere and braggging about it.

Are there any conditions under which you would exercise your 2nd Amen dent rights?

I might consider keeping a rifle handy if I lived out on the wilderness, but I do not. I don't really have a desire to get into a gunfight, whether or not I "won" it. If I shot every crazy person with a pipe I've run into since moving back into the city, I'd be in therapy if I wasn't in jail, because that is a pretty common occurrence around here. Shooting people doesn't actually solve anything, and indeed I am pretty unhappy whenever I hear about a shooting in the neighborhood, regardless of who "won" and whether they were "good". A bullet shot by a "good guy" can ricochet through just as many walls and windows as a bullet shot by a "bad guy".

Indeed, there was a murder just two days ago, here in Fremont. No has any goddamned idea what happened, despite the whole thing going down at a busy intersection less than a block from a county courthouse and a busy strip mall. Some people heard a shot, came to investigate, found a body. Unidentified. Was he a good guy who was robbed and shot by a bad guy? Was he a bad guy who died trying to rob a good guy with a gun? Were they both bad guys, fighting over drug money? Maybe they were both good guys until one day they had a fight over good girl and things suddenly went bad. At the end of the day, the result is a fucking corpse in front of my favorite burger joint, and I am very unhappy about that no matter the moral character of the murderer or the victim. Our fourth murder this year, in what used to be a quiet little suburb. Adding more bullets to the situation would just... add more bullets, more corpses rotting away in the park. Who really comes out ahead?