breaking and entering

[threeplusfire]

Alan woke me up at 1am Saturday, convinced that he heard someone trying to get into the house. I thought he must have heard a cat, and was over-reacting because he hadn't been sleeping well and wasn't feeling so good.

Today, I'm doing some laundry here at the apartment laundromat because my mother has the flu. I stood in the grass and looked at our windows. There are some footprints in the mud under our bedroom window, and part of the weather stripping has been pried up as if someone was trying to find a way to the latch. The weather stripping for one of the living room windows was laying in the mud, and had been pulled right off. I checked the second window, and part of the weather stripping had been pried off there as well.

Someone did try to break into the house.

I am completely freaked out, after the fact. I'm a bit mortified that I didn't take Alan more seriously the other night but I really did think he was just startled by a cat outside or something.

I wonder if I should talk to the office about having the weather stripping repaired. I haven't the faintest idea how to make the windows more safe. We keep the curtains and blinds down almost all the time.

Comments

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'll mea culpa to the presumptious, but what's a human to do when emotions run amuck while friends are threatened?

You have about as much way of knowing the intentions of a person breaking in as you do predicting what a cat will do when you leave the house. I don't think that A. has to rethink anything. If I did I would have said so.

I think that anyone who breaks into a house to steal deserves what they get. If that's jail, shot, wounded, or any of the above. When you break into a house you know that you are breakign the law. If you intend to kill the people inside, or if it happens accidently or if you just want to scam their nintendo. How can you possibly expect to break into a house at night, and expect to cry wahhh if you get shot or hurt in the process?

I think your answer needs rethinking because you are giving a pollyannaish gloss to someone breaking in to a house. What if they only watned to steal, that's ok isin't it?

I'm not an advocate of needlessly taking human life. I agree that it's wrong. However if I am attacked, if a threat is made on me or mine, I reserve the right to defend and protect - if that means running away, taking a stand or killing in the process - that's what a criminal faces when going forward to commit a crime.

I would rather spend my rent money to bail out a friend who acted in legitimate self defense than to spend it on funeral expences because they were killed in their sleep.

I've heard your ideas brought forward before from people I know. After they have been stalked, beaten, robbed, or otherwise harmed - they change. They don't advocate needless killing, but they do advocate self defense.

Morally wrong, takes a slight turn when someone wants to take your life, or the life of someone you love. If you have the courage of your convictions to stand by and watch that happen, or to just lay in bed and mutter " I hope they just want to steal " ... I hope you live in a good neighborhood.

Mindless, needless killing is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a human, a cat, a dog, etc.. but when threatened, when laws are broken things are different. You don't know if that person climbing in the wondow has a baseball bat or a sawed off shotgun, any more than you know their intentions.

Yes, put up alarms, yes put new locks and take extra precautions. Yes notify the police. Then what if all of that does not deter a thing?

There can be days of arguments made about accidental shootings, wrongful slayings, and other things. There is good and bad to every equation. You can have the greatest ADT alarm system in your house, and trip it off when you lock your keys inside, and try to get in through a window. That does nt mean that it's wrong to do so. You could do just as much damage with a baseball bat, a kitchen knife, or a fireplace poker.

Again, I agree with you that it is morally wrong to take the life of another human being, however I think it's equally wrong to allow it to happen. I was not born thinking that way, but I came to that conclusion after years of watching people robbed, stalked, beaten, and worse.

I won't assume, but it's quite possible that you have never had to face this sort of thing. There is real horror out there, and there are people who could give a damn about any morals, ethics or objections that society has brought forward. I have liven on places where you can be killed for your shoes. They will break into your house and kill you first then rob the place. There are people who will walk up to you on the street and punch you in the face becasue someone 'dared ' them to. This is not an excuse to run willy nilly old west style waving a pistol, but it's also a damn fine reason to protect yourself and those you love. Intelligently, sanely, and within the laws of the land.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Is there a patron saint of typos? liven on... Gah! Who gave me a license to type - why can you not edit LJ comments after the fact!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but I've certainly made a fair number of typos.

[alainn-sorcha.livejournal.com]

I like you. And I thank you for being a voice of reason. :)

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's 2 things I don't hear every day :)

Hi!