Friday, April 08, 2005

Compare and Contrast - Int'l Edition

Let's go international for a while with these two not-so-similar stories. First, via Clayton Cramer:

Violent Pirate Attack On Two Yachts Off Yemen

There were 4 men in each boat. The boats separated at about 200 yards, one boat ahead of the other, coming down Mahdi's port side and firing into the cockpit. The other boat was firing an automatic weapon at both Gandalf and Mahdi from ahead, more at Gandalf. These guys were shooting directly at the cockpits, and obviously intended to kill us.

[snip]

At that point I, Rod Nowlin aboard Mahdi and armed with a 12 gage shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot, started shooting into their boat. I forced them to keep their heads down so that they could not shoot at us. I am not sure I hit anyone at that point although I could see the driver of the boat crouched down behind a steering console. After firing 3 shots at them their engine started to smoke and I swung around to shoot at the boat ahead.

[snip]

The bow of the pirate's boat came right up against Gandalf's stern and two men stood up on the bow to board Gandalf. That was a serious and probably fateful error on their part. I shot both of them. That boat then veered away and I shot the driver, although I am not sure of the outcome because they were farther away and I did not knock him down like the other two.


Next up, this story out of the "common sense" gun control haven of Brazil:

Massacre in Rio Getting Little Attention

NOVA IGUACU, Brazil - Violence is a part of life in this slum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Shootings are common and death squads of former and off-duty police officers, funded by local businessmen, are known to knock off undesirables.

But even by the brutal standards of Nova Iguacu, last week's massacre of 30 people apparently by a band of rogue policemen was shocking, starting with the severed head thrown over the gate of a police station.

[snip]

The first shots were fired at a sidewalk bar, killing nine people, including several shirtless teens left lying in a pool of blood around a video game machine. [more dead babies for the Sarah Brady bodycount - ed.] Most of the victims were shot in the head and chest at relatively close range, medical examiners said.

The killers next chased two men who ran across the street down a dead end alley and finished them off there.

Then they picked off two men riding bicycles on their way to the neighboring town of Queimados, where they killed 12 more people in two different spots, apparently at random.


In the first story, we see an individual who is alive today because he possessed the means, the ability, and the will to defend his life with the use of a firearm. The innocent people being slaughtered in the slums of Nova Iguacu may, indeed, possess the will to stand up and defend their lives, but with out the proper tools and knowledge of how to use them, the concept of personal self-defense is reduced to begging for one's life and depending on the mercy of cold-hearted killers.

Which scenario would you rather find yourself in?

I also loved this quote:

"It's beyond shocking really," said Tim Cahill, a researcher from the London office of the human rights group Amnesty International who arrived to investigate the slayings. "It just shows how cheap human life has become."


Yet, his fuckwit, leftist organization is one of the driving forces calling for a worldwide ban on the private ownership of firearms - you know, "for the children" and all. From their website:

Unless governments act to stop the spread of arms, more lives will be lost, more human rights violations will take place, and more people will be denied the chance to escape poverty.


Tell that to the folks of Nova Iguacu, where the government has already taken drastic steps "to stop the spread of arms", you ignorant socialist fuck. You claim to value human life, but in the same breath you're calling for more action to actively prevent these innocent people from defending themselves from certain death at the hands of corrupt government officials, who seem to have no problem acquiring all the guns they need to massacre their own people.

Fucking moron.