Reply #69: So Matt Shepard should have just taken it? [View All]

[Liberal Classic]

Or the Lone Ranger might have rode in on Silver...

Or the Lone Ranger and Tonto might have come out of the closet...

What if, what if, what if.

Maybe had Shepard been had been armed nothing would have been different. Even so, does he not have the right to try to fight back against a group of people who are going to beat him senseless and leave him for dead? There's no way to say if things would have turned out for the best, but why deprive him of a fighting chance? This is what I disagree with the most. Putting aside your mantra of 'right wing loonies' and 'gun nuts full of shit' for a moment, what moral reason do we have to deprive someone like Shepard the chance to defend himself? Shepard was certianly not the first and he will not be the last gay man so bashed. Is it worse for gay men to have the right to arm themselves? Is it better for a gay man to be committing a crime to own a gun? Even the victim doesn't escape, better that one of the bashers be shot to death by his victim. Likely that is sterner punishment than what the assailants received from the courts. Life in prison, in Shepard's case.

However, let me venture to guess what your reply will be. Instead of explaining why any man, not just a gay man in particular, should not own a gun you are going to say I am echoing right wing propagana, perhaps you'll post that link from the Ku Kluck Klan. Cluck cluck. What a bunch of chickens they are, however, that doesn't dissuade you from using them as a reason Matt Shepard shouldn't own a gun. Ironically, the Kluckers are the kind of people who lionize Shepard's killers not the kind of people who would allow Shepard to arm himself. The Ku Kluck Klan is glad another fag is dead. bluntly put. They do not care for Shepard's rights. Unless you can find it in your heart to agree Shephard has a right to defend himself, you don't either. No person, gay or not, deserves to be beaten within an inch of life and tied to a fencepost. People have the right to self-defense, but as Dr. King said a right delayed is a right denied. What good is the right to self defense without the means to self defense?