Saturday, June 11, 2011

PA Cop Shoots and Kills his Son

 Philly.com reports on another perfect family which everyone agrees

Around 3 p.m., authorities say, Eric Schmitz shot and killed his youngest child in the two-story Towamencin house where Stephen had lived all his life.
 
Stephen, who struggled with mental-health issues, apparently had attacked his father with a fixed-blade hunting knife soon after getting home from school, authorities said.
I find it hard to believe there was no other way than to shoot the kid to death. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

15 comments:

  1. There is no grief greater than losing a parent or a child at such an early age. The inutterable pain of the mother. The inescapable guilt of the father. Tears must be shed. Gut-wrenching agony and self-accusation. Plaguing doubt and second-guessing. I am not capable of feeling sympathy for this poor man, so outside of the normal bailiwick of tragedy and misfortune is this horrific event.

    It is a sobering argument that people should not treat gun ownership lightly, or the firing of a gun as an everyday occurence.

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  2. You were not there to judge the situation. To put yourself in a position to judge another man's actions is questionable at best.

    You should put yourself in this man's shoes: first, discover what this man's physical and mental characteristics were, what his training (if any) to handle forcible attacks from younger, stronger men; then whether you could or could not kill another human to save your own life.

    So, what's the answer to that question?

    (Me, I'd've tried to disarm him, or died trying, before shooting him.)

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  3. ..l.because killing another man takes away one's very soul. Only the Left does that (see the French Revolution).

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  4. "Me, I'd've tried to disarm him, or died trying, before shooting him."

    I would say exactly the same thing.

    "Louis (Serr8d), I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

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  5. Ingram Entertainment says, "Only the Left does that (see the French Revolution)."

    Tom Jefferson was a big fan of the French Revolution.

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  6. The American Revolution was carried out by thinking men who acted against the English monarchy with the least possible bloodshed and violence; after all, they were Tea Partiers.

    The French Revolution was carried out by liberals. They were a mob, 'democrats', who killed indiscriminately, and each other. Bloody and vicious, but they were the majority, and attacked the evil RICH! and CORPORATIONS! (sorry, getting just a bit ahead of myself there... )

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  7. Serr8 wrote: The American Revolution was carried out by thinking men who acted against the English monarchy with the least possible bloodshed and violence; after all, they were Tea Partiers.

    Demonstrating your usual revisionist and inaccurate view of history Ser8.

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  8. I find myself in agreement that we cannot fairly assume anything about what happened. This young man, per the article, had considered harming himself, and had tried to harm another person. This suggests that his violence might have been escalating.

    Second guessing does nothing to advance this discussion. This may very well be exactly one of those occurrences where a shooting was unavoidable, no matter how horrifyingly tragic the circumstances.

    We can only be saddened by this. Judgemental, not so much.

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  9. Ingram Enntertainment sez: "The French Revolution was carried out by liberals. They were a mob, 'democrats', who killed indiscriminately, and each other. Bloody and vicious, but they were the majority, and attacked the evil RICH! and CORPORATIONS! (sorry, getting just a bit ahead of myself there... ) "

    Actually, no.

    The French revolution overthrew a monarchy. It was celebrated by our Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette.

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  10. Compare and contrast the two revolutions. The French Revolution featured guillotines and infighting amongst the 'mob' (but it was a DEMOCRACY!) who ransacked and pillaged the homes and offices of the EVIL 'rich', creating a veritable 'reign of terror' as the mobs dragged 'rich' people from their homes to kill them; the American Revolution featured no guillotines whatsoever, and no 'liberals' who demanded satisfaction from the rich. We ran the weak, liberal sorts off into Canada.

    Much of the that same 'evil rich!" rhetoric is used today by the LeftLibProggs and their union supporters (just see as example the Wisconsin protests against Governor Walker's excellent proposal to shut down the public-sector unions from demanding monies from taxpayers; that rhetoric is similar to what the French revolutionary mob demanded that heads roll in their streets).

    Today's left-liberals are much closer to the French revolutionaries than to the Tea Partiers who conducted the American Revolution. Take off your blinders and look, fer chrissake, you know you'd like to roll a Koch head. Admit it.

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  11. Serr8d, Yes, those are interesting points you're making, but SO WHAT?

    My point was that, unlike what you would have done, this cop (gun owner) shot and killed his own disturbed teenage son. To me this is an example of how too many gun owners use their gun as an answer to problems that should be dealt with differently.

    How the hell did that lead you to the French Revolution? Did you have to make such a wild leap in order to slam "the left?"

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  12. Yes I do! Because I'm looking at the overarching theme that direct people like to to attack gun ownership; you're just a minor tool in the hands of much bigger players.

    It matters enough to you in your 'game of anti-guns' to push, day after day, breathlessly posting about horrific, heartbreaking instances that you hope will finally push people to ban guns completely. That's a grand concept that the Left has embraced; you keep those fires burning. My desire is a bit bigger: to stop this fatal attraction Americans have with LeftLibProgg theory and thoughts, so as to prevent the 2nd French Revolution from occurring on this soil.

    For your edification, RE: the American vs. the French Revolutions:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpLvxrNlwPA

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  13. Serr8, the difference between you and I is that while you get your French revolutionary history from Youtube, I get mine from more historical sources - sources which I can actually read in the original French. I'm guessing you....not.

    There is no 2nd French Revolution in danger of occurring in the U.S.; that's as nuts as the idea that there is some tyrranical one-world government about to take over. Yeah, with armies of Yetis, using their secret weapons of fairy dust, bought and paid for with Leprechaun gold from the ends of global change faked rainbows? It's up there with glitter-farting unicorns for plausibility / possibility.

    My concern is not for banning all guns; I'be been a gun owner for going on 2 decades; the person with whom I am romantically involved is a gun owner with a concealed carry permit. This notion that I wish to ban all guns is ludicrous.

    Mys sole focus is to keep guns out of the hands of those who are criminals, those who are dangerously ill, and others who are debarred from gun ownership or posession.

    My thought on the tragedy of this PA cop differs slightly from MikeB's. I don't believe this poor man willingly killed his son. We don't know from this who else was in the house besides himself that the cop may have been protecting, as well as acting in his own self-defense.

    Rather my thought on reading this was to be relieved that it was the sane father who had the gun, and the disturbed son who had the hunting knife, rather than the other way around. That probably reduced the number of people who ended up dead to the son, rather than possibly many, many others.

    We can only hope that recognizing the violent tendencies his son was exhibiting, that the father had kept his police service weapon and any other firearms he might have owned far better secured than many gun owners do.

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  14. I've been accused of worse things, but this one is false.

    "you hope [the left] will finally push people to ban guns completely."

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  15. Mikey the Irony deficientJune 13, 2011 at 10:17 PM

    How the hell did that lead you to the French Revolution? Did you have to make such a wild leap in order to slam "the left?"

    You mean like:

    http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/06/obviously-nra-certified-trainer.html#links

    http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/06/fargo-gun-paradise.html#links

    http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/06/floridas-new-crawfish-doctrine.html#links

    The Crawfish Doctrine dictates that white NRA gunloons are free to shoot up fishmarkets owned by minorities if said fish purveyor doesn't have crawfish.

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