05-31-2019, 12:23 PM
(05-31-2019, 02:20 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:(05-31-2019, 02:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I can tell you something that criminals fear even more than guns: dogs. Your docile pet can become an aggressive predator on par with "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) in a split second. Dogs are much better behaved under most circumstances than any wild predator, but when protecting loved ones they can create the primal fear of being prey. A dog half your mass is just above you in the food chain. Multiple dogs?
Two eighty-pound dogs = one 160-pound cougar, leopard, or jaguar
Three eighty-pound dogs = one 240-pound pig, lioness or black bear
Four eighty-pound dogs = one 320-pound tiger or alligator
Even pigs are documented man-eaters.
It is telling that one of the rights that Nazis took away quickly from Jews was the right to keep a pet dog. Even a little ankle-biter like a Yorkshire tiger... terror... terrier can do great damage to someone who ends up where he does not belong. Such a dog can snap an Achilles' tendon and force a fall.
Dogs are the strongest and most powerful mammals for their size. How strong? One dog is bred for rescuing struggling swimmers, which means that the dog must be strong enough to overpower someone. They have never been bred for weakness. Sure, you can get along with them if you behave in their presence. Most people get the message, behaving themselves or staying away.
This is true but you can control a gun more than you can control a Pitbull or Rottweiler that can turn on you later on and may not attack on command.
Any dog is extremely dangerous to an intruder or attacker. The threat of a severe mauling is enough to scare off all but the most dedicated criminals, most of whom are cowards whose fear any dog picks up easily. You need a firearm in your hand for the firearm to be effective. If a crook gets your firearm before you, then the crook turns your defense into offense against you. Crooks cannot turn dogs against their owners.
A dog's bark might be reassuring to its loved ones, but not to someone who obviously does not belong where he is. So imagine this scenario: a burglar enters your house through the window to your eleven-year-old daughter's bedroom -- where your daughter is. He has a rape kit with him; many burglars are rapists. I am sure that if you have a gun you would plug the rapist and concern yourself only with hitting the burglar/rapist instead of your daughter with gunfire.
So your daughter keeps the door ajar for the family dog, "Mr. D.O. Berman". "Mr. D.O. Berman" gets to the scene quickly because the burglar/rapist wakes him up quickly. At a speed of 35 miles per hour he attacks the burglar and inflicts severe bites and scratches. The burglar/rapist gets an unwelcome lesson in ecology -- that some other critter is above him in the food chain. Your daughter is unhurt, but the burglar/rapist is lucky to get a trip to the hospital -- the jail ward in the hospital.
Or -- your wife takes the dog with her while jogging. Some sexual predator is hiding behind some shrubbery. The dog smells him and decides to confront. Your wife feels a sharp pull on her, and the crooks gets to hear some angry barking. Time to leave.
If you are a criminal you have no cause to trust even the gentlest of dogs. The difference between the most docile of large carnivores and the most aggressive is a situation.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.