She meant well but her actions were unwise

[JoeS3]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

[74novaman]

Ah yes, it is much more morally reasonable for the girl to just be raped.

[Oldgringo]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

Here we go...

[speedsix]

...maybe we need a pre-teen forum for those who don't want to play nice...the ability to carry on a heated, passionate discussion with civility and continue to actually contribute to all present does require some level of maturity...once again, we need to be able to disagree without becoming downright disagreeable...now the dip tastes funny...and we were having such a good time...

[SQLGeek]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

I agree, the boys just wanted sex, she should give it to them and say thank you.

[Oldgringo]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

Just out of curiosity, who is "we"? I think I know who "some of you guys" may be.

[WickedOwl]

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House.

What does campus carry have to do with this?

It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

[citation needed]

[Excaliber]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

The current situation is demonstrably not safer for everyone since it leads to high victim counts whenever one of those safer thugs decides to go on a murder spree.

It's also clearly not safer for individual crime victims like the young lady cited in your example.

Maintaining a safe environment for violent thugs and a dangerous one for law abiding citizens is not what I expect from my elected representatives, and I back my opinions with my votes.

[M2K]

The current situation is demonstrably not safer for everyone since it leads to high victim counts whenever one of those safer thugs decides to go on a murder spree.

It's also clearly not safer for individual crime victims like the young lady cited in your example.

Maintaining a safe environment for violent thugs and a dangerous one for law abiding citizens is not what I expect from my elected representatives, and I back my opinions with my votes.

Well said!

[Tamie]

Maintaining a safe environment for violent thugs and a dangerous one for law abiding citizens is not what I expect from my elected representatives, and I back my opinions with my votes.

I hope that means you will vote against everyone who supported Straus for Speaker. He killed campus carry last session, and the politicians who supported him this time knew (or should have known) he would kill campus carry again, to limit the choices women have to fight back against rapists.

Even worse, Straus did it twice this session. First by not letting the house version come out of calendars, and second by removing the self-defense-against-campus-rape provisions from a senate bill.

[chasfm11]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

The current situation is demonstrably not safer for everyone since it leads to high victim counts whenever one of those safer thugs decides to go on a murder spree.

It's also clearly not safer for individual crime victims like the young lady cited in your example.

Maintaining a safe environment for violent thugs and a dangerous one for law abiding citizens is not what I expect from my elected representatives, and I back my opinions with my votes.

Despite my advanced years, I am one of those whose personal protection is restricted because of the lack of campus carry. For all of the rhetoric about college dorms and drinking, a couple of "minor" facts seem to keep getting over looked.

- my inability to take my gun with me when I attend late night classes at UT Arlington means that I must get back to my care before I'm able to be responsible for my own safety again. That is NOT safer for me. This is about my ability to carry my concealed gun into the classroom, not a dorm.
- in many dorms, alcohol is prohibited. As a result, college drinking of alcohol takes place in bars and fraternity houses. While I agree that some underage drinking occurs, that should have no bearing on CHLs which are the only ones who would have been affected by passing campus carry.
- while there are some fraternity house on campus, the majority of them are off campus and existing laws apply to them, not campus carry. I admit the some colleges and universities tie student behavior in frat houses into campus policies, that is not the legal view (IMHO, IANAL). I view some like the employer parking lot situation before that bill passed. Action could be taken against the student in a frat house but if no TX laws were broken, it would not be legal action.
- if illegal behavior is going to take place like using a hand gun to coerce a female student, that can and has happened today. There is no current safety for that.

Back to the OP. Because one well intentioned woman made a questionable choice on actions with the best of motives does not condemn the potential actions of every other younger person.

[texanron]

Would she have started shooting at them if she had been armed?

That's why we stopped the campus carry bills in the Texas House. I know it's unpopular with some of you guys but think about what might happen if these boys got drunk on that beer and decided they wanted to have sex. If they picked a girl who was armed, they could take her gun and kill her. Or she could wind up shooting them instead during the struggle. Either way we have dead kids because she was packing heat at school. It's safer for everyone to keep guns off college campuses, especially dorm rooms and other places college students drink.

That is just a bad take Joe.
Back to the topic. This woman has a few screws that need to be tightend up. While I share in her frustration at criminals getting away with committing crimes this was not a good decision on her part. It stinks that three able bodied young men took this route instead of getting a job and earning a honest days pay to buy their beer.

[drjoker]

Her heart was in the right place, but the risk to reward ratio is very poor.

It is precisely because most people nowadays think like this that crime is so bad.

She has a point.

I don't know if the following old wives tale is true, but it sounds reasonable. As a young child, I remember shopping in New York City with my Dad and seeing all sorts of merchandise displayed in front of storefronts on little tables & display racks. I saw gold chains sold by the inch, electronics, and postcards, etc. I asked my Dad why they're not afraid of people stealing the stuff because the merchandise is outside the store, it would be easier to shoplift. My Dad replied that nobody messes with Jews and Muslims because they have a great sense of solidarity. If you mess with one of them, you mess with all of them. If someone were to shoplift and run from one of the stores, the shop owner would cry out and all the shop owners would run to tackle the thief to retrieve the merchandise.

I think the biggest problem in modern life is anonymity with a resultant lack of solidarity and a lack of sense of obligation to help your fellow man. How many of you know your neighbors' names? What about your neighbor's neighbors? How long have you lived at your present address? I want to capture that sense of community that NYC Jews and Muslims have, so I recently knocked on all my neighbors' doors and introduced myself. It's only been 2 weeks and it already has paid off. I saw a dog running loose and I recognized it as my neighbor's dog so I grab it and kept it in my house until the neighbor lady returned home. Another neighbor said that if he ever saw my house being robbed, he'd shoot the perps for me. I went away on a short trip and the lady across the street from me checked my mail for me (stacks of unchecked mail is a tip off to robbers that you aren't home). I suggest that you introduce yourself to your neighbors, too.

[chasfm11]

I think the biggest problem in modern life is anonymity with a resultant lack of solidarity and a lack of sense of obligation to help your fellow man. How many of you know your neighbors' names? What about your neighbor's neighbors? How long have you lived at your present address? I want to capture that sense of community that NYC Jews and Muslims have, so I recently knocked on all my neighbors' doors and introduced myself. It's only been 2 weeks and it already has paid off. I saw a dog running loose and I recognized it as my neighbor's dog so I grab it and kept it in my house until the neighbor lady returned home. Another neighbor said that if he ever saw my house being robbed, he'd shoot the perps for me. I went away on a short trip and the lady across the street from me checked my mail for me (stacks of unchecked mail is a tip off to robbers that you aren't home). I suggest that you introduce yourself to your neighbors, too.

I agree that all too often, people turn their heads on situations. A very moving video for me was the dog who dragged another injured dog to safety through heavy traffic. That an animal would put itself at that much risk for a fellow dog was moving. That said, I still cannot agree that the woman in the OP in this thread did the right thing.

I don't believe, however, that feelings of community are dead. I agree with you that they are what we as individuals make of them. Let's think about some headline stories where there was a sense of community.
1. Todd Beamer and the other passengers on Flight 93, upon learning what had happened to the other hijacked airliners acted
2. The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were both stopped by activists among the passengers. To a large measure, I think that Flight 93 was a wakeup call to everyone to ignore the submissive direction from government policy and many heard it.

We are very fortunate in having a neighborhood where neighbors look out for neighbors. The most anti-social one of them got his lawn mowed by neighbors when we found out that he was in the hospital with back problems. We constantly watch out for one another and a strange vehicle cannot come into our area without someone being aware of it. This is in sharp contrast to the last place we lived which was covered by an HOA. The feelings of distrust and the lack of community there was difficult to break down. We had great relations at that house with our immediate neighbors but it was no where near the sense of community that we have here. Another interesting paradox was that the property values in our old neighborhood were reasonably close while in our new one, they range from our 1,600 sq ft older home to a $1.6M estate on 10 acres just down the street. With some older homes like ours contrasting very large newer ones at twice to three times our appraised value, you would expect the neighbors not to socialize much. The opposite is true.

We have a long way to go to have a lot of people who would be willing to stand up as the young woman did in this thread. But the intention is there to be responsibly cultivated.

[philip964]

This lady did what Walmart employees are not permitted (yes not permitted) to do, chase shop lifters outside the store.

While back in the "old days" a couple of Walmart employees chased a shoplifter outside the store and he ran into traffic and was hit by a car. A jury awarded him two million dollars.

Walmart's policy is to not chase shoplifters once they reach the out side of the store. Walmart uses the police to pursue shoplifters outside the store, usually by providing video tape of the incident to the police, nothing more.

Some thieves have figured this out and simply take their basket of goods and by pass the check out counters and exit the store. The fancy magnetic warning devices that ring bells as you exit and the like are just to present a firm resolve to prevent theft to the public, nothing more.

So if this woman had been seriously injured by her bravery, what would have been the outcome? Yes, her attorney probably would have sued Walmart. And yes Walmart would have settled or a jury would have awarded her a lot of money.