Reply #140: I think it would be tragic shooting someone for breaking a window. [View All]

[Starboard Tack]

Now, if you want to create Hollywood scenarios I can think of lots of times when it may be justified. But you said "Yes - you break my window while I'm home, and you're getting some lead your way at high speed" - very macho.

You remind me of a guy I once knew. The father of an old girlfriend. We were visiting her parents at their country house in upstate NY. The mother asked me if I could do her a favor and replace a medicine cabinet in her bathroom, because there had been an accident. On inspecting it, I found a bullet hole in the center of the mirror. I asked her how it had happened and she said to ask her husband, which I did. Apparently, he was in his bedroom, adjacent to the bathroom, when he heard a suspicious noise inside the house. It seemed to be coming from the bathroom. So he pulled out his AR-15 and fired one shot. It passed through his bedroom wall, the medicine cabinet, the shower, tiled wall on the opposite side of the bathroom, the living room and finally came to rest in the far outside wall of the house. I asked him "What if the noise had been your wife?" (Needless to say, she would have been history, had she been standing in front of the mirror or taking a shower.)
He replied quite calmly "Oh, I knew it couldn't have been her. She doesn't have a key."

That was the last time I visited them, but I did replace the cabinet for the poor woman.