“I’m a gun owner; Tim Walz is a gun owner,” Harris said.

“I did not know that,” Winfrey replied.

“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris added. “Probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.”

The article has a video clip. I love the bullshit "probably..." It's a 100% certainty she spoke with her staff and workshopped the phrasing and presentation of gun stuff. Plus I bet she practiced her lines. No American politician is going to wing it when talking about guns.

  • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]M
    ·
    2 months ago

    Definitely a weird way to pander to the right, but whatever.

    The thing is, I can sort of agree? If someone breaks into my home at night while I am asleep, I'm not going to stop and ask questions about their intentions. I will assume they are here to do me and mine harm, and I will react accordingly, which very likely means shooting them. Breaking into someone's home at 3am is very different from trying to rifle through the shit in their car. But fantasizing about it on Oprah is fucking crazy, even for a politician.

      • AmericaDeserved711 [any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Very few burglaries are done in the middle of the night while the residents are home. Unless the burglar is very stupid they're gonna burgle when everyone's at work or on vacation etc. So in the extremely rare case that someone does break in at 3AM while you're sleeping, I wouldn't necessarily assume it's definitely a robbery.

        This isn't to defend Kamala, I hate people who fantasize about implausible scenarios where they get to lawfully shoot somebody. A security system would likely deter any home invader regardless of their intentions.

        • Lenins_Cat_Reincarnated
          ·
          2 months ago

          Burglaries during night are less common but not that rare. Night burglars are more often under influence of drugs and in general less experienced. Which means that a confrontation is more risky and should be avoided if possible.

      • Roonerino
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        deleted by creator

      • Sulvor [he/him, undecided]
        ·
        2 months ago

        I dont know the right way to handle this, but announcing your position is a good way to end up shot yourself.

          • Lurker123 [he/him]
            ·
            2 months ago

            I think you are confusing yourself by thinking of a typical burglary - I.e. a burglary where the burglar has done what they can to make sure people aren’t home (e.g. struck during work hours, saw the mail piling up and came when the person was on vacation, etc.)

            But that’s not the situation being contemplated here. The OP specified a nighttime break in. This is the opposite of your standard burglar - they’ve struck when people are the MOST likely to be home.

            Of this subset, what percentage have doing something bad to you in mind? Or more to the point, at what % are you morally obligated to not take actions against them? Let’s say 49% of the time does the nighttime breakin burglar actually intend you physical harm. Do you have to eat it at those numbers? (I’m asking genuinely, since you seem to have a strong moral intuition here. From your other post, you said you couldn’t put a value on human life, so the only other value I have here is the resident’s life. In the 49/51 example, since it’s more likely than not that there’s no harm intended, this maximizes the amount of lives).

              • Lurker123 [he/him]
                ·
                2 months ago

                Me personally? No, I would lock my door and call the police. I would not go out and try to confront the burglar, but I wouldn’t also call out to them and say “oh btw I’m here and armed.”

            • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
              ·
              2 months ago

              But we're not arguing about homicide by magic spell here, this is a pretty specific and extremely spotlighted type of crime, the only reason to conjure coinflip percentages out of thin air is to entice specific sentiment, fascist sentiment in this case.

              • Lurker123 [he/him]
                ·
                2 months ago

                What? The reason I ask is to try to get a better understanding of the principal backing up the stance you took. I was trying to understand if it was life-maximizing with no qualifiers (i.e. irrespective of whose life was risked), which is how it read to me in your other responses in the thread. But I wasn’t sure, since you also said like 99.99% of the time, the burglar wouldn’t attack you if you announced, which could mean there was a heavily qualified principal.

                So, I asked the hypothetical to try to figure out what your underlying motivating principal is here, as it filters out the noise of the 99.99% example. It was in no way meant to “entice fascist sentiment.”

      • LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA [he/him]M
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Used to break into homes. I was prepared for violence. You're just wrong.

        Anyone coming into your house on purpose at night is willing to hurt you. Giving them the chance and trying to be the nice guy by telling them your armed just announces where you are.

      • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        "take what you want and leave" just generously assumes that what they want isn't to hurt you

        Why should that change when the TV gets moved to your house

        Stores have insurance for shit, how many people have "burglar coverage"? Most people don't have infinite wealth to just let walk out their front door

          • Abracadaniel [he/him]
            ·
            2 months ago

            burglars typically get the fuck out if they learn someone is home, if they stick around after a warning they're far more likely to be dangerous.

          • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            idk if someone is going to do harm to me, I don't care about the sanctity of their life

            The only difference between the bourgeois exploiting me and some shithead stealing from me is one is a class traitor

            • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
              ·
              2 months ago

              The massive assumption here being that by default they will do harm to you, this is true crime brain.

              • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
                ·
                2 months ago

                "Stealing my shit" is doing me harm because I am a poor person who can't just magic a new life out of nothing. I have no fucking sympathy for anyone who tries to steal from me, sorry. And idk but i'm not going to trust renters insurance to just go "oh, someone stole all your shit? here's the full value of it" 🤷‍♂️

                    • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
                      ·
                      2 months ago

                      If you are one of the 376/100000 (0.37%) to even be burglarized in the first place:

                      https://www.statista.com/statistics/1238258/burglary-rate-country/

                      • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
                        ·
                        2 months ago

                        if y'all gonna be all "this is reactionary" i'm gonna say this is some Ultra shit, "the only acceptable response to burglary is to hide in your room, otherwise you're a chud" and going all morshupls about it

                        • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
                          ·
                          2 months ago

                          I didn't say that. It's just funny to me how there's an internet culture of blowing a very specific, rare, type of crime out of proportion so they can fantizise over shooting someone.

                          If you actually want to make your family safer stop worrying so much about the .3% thing and focus more on getting less cars on the road? More public transit, more walkable cities, less cars means a way safer place for everyone.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
              ·
              2 months ago

              Comrade Beanis here made it explicitly clear that shooting someone in defense of your and your family's actual safety is legitimate. That's the whole point of the "point the gun at the door" thing.

              • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]
                ·
                2 months ago

                the thing is yall don't consider taking my shit to be doing harm to me, someone living paycheck to paycheck who would never be able to replace any of it in a reasonable time frame, and you're fucking wrong shrug-outta-hecks like are you really so incapable of conceiving "harm" to a person beyond just bodily harm? Like if I come steal all your fucking food and you starve to death, it's fine because I didn't assault you? Literally fucking social murder, but it's fine because uhhhh burglary is cool and good? Christ in fucking heaven, stop arguing with me about this

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  If you have a house, you should have insurance. If you have an apartment and lock your door, it's extremely unlikely someone is going to loot it because apartments are just bad targets (and low-rent ones are typically going to have much less in them worth stealing).

                  No one is going to break into your domicile to steal loaves of bread, and even if they did, they'd need to come back on a regular basis and also rob the local soup kitchen(s) for it to be remotely viable that you starve even in this Twilight Zone scenario.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
            ·
            2 months ago

            Even if theynare putting a price tag on it, they are only making an "offer" on a home invader's life. It is entirely up to the home invader as to whether they want to "accept" that offer.

        • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
          ·
          2 months ago

          Literally every homeowner in the US that hasn’t paid off their home (read: most of them) have homeowners insurance, which has theft and burglary provisions. A good many have renters insurance, too.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          "take what you want and leave" just generously assumes that what they want isn't to hurt you

          It's not generous to assume what is easily the most plausible interpretation. Unless it's like a gang hit or something (including by cops), who the fuck wants to brutalize an entire family? That happened one time in Cheshire, CT and conservatives the whole country over have been milking it for a decade and a half.

          how many people have "burglar coverage"?

          lol

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            What kind of moron charges a door when they know there's people with a guns behind it?

            Exactly. Why are they assuming there are no guns behind the heavy front door, and the only guns are behind the thin bedroom doors? What kind of moron do they have to be?

            You're just trying to create scenarios where you get to shoot someone lmao

            The scenario I "created" is functionally identical to the scenario the parent comment created. I simply clarified that relying on a weak interior door is monumentally stupid when a tough exterior door is available. You know it, I know it, everyone reading along knows it.

            • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              2 months ago

              Why do you believe people break into homes in the first place? What could possibly cause people to be so desperate 🤔

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
                ·
                2 months ago

                If they find out after entering people are awake and armed, they're bailing out.

                Better for them to "bail out" before coming through the front door. They won't even catch a charge if they do that.

                Clearly, we aren't talking about the kind of people who "bail out", so I'll invite you to think on that a moment.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Is this a potential eventuality you should be preparing for, though?

      Is it a rational thing to fear based on evidence, or is it driven by reactionary fearmongering?

      • Roonerino
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        deleted by creator

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Or you can be like Breonna Taylor and end up riddled with bullets because it turns out it's not a burglar, it's the police doing a no-knock raid.

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, preparing to react with violence if some stranger comes into your home unannounced is not the crazy thing a lot of leftists like to claim it is. Desiring safety and security in you living space is a basic animal instinct. But I'd rather just the person get scared and run, since I'm not exactly willing to kill someone over my pc.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Killing in self-defense isn't a bizarre reaction, but hanging on discussing such scenarios, bringing them up unnecessarily, fantasizing about them, these are pathological behaviors that suggest using the extremity of the situation as a moral pretext for getting off on murdering someone (especially a dirty poor)

        • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          Oh, no disagreement there. I ain't fantasizing that, nor is that a worry for most folks, even those living in rougher sides of town. The only people wanting to do any killing are these rich fucks.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            2 months ago

            You're scolding me over a complete distortion of the facts. The vast, vast majority of home invasions are intended to be while no one is home, so you will have no cause to shoot someone because either you aren't there (this is most likely) or you are there and you will scare them off with a threat (if not your mere presence). Cheshire Home Invasion situations are so rare that there's a reason many people outside of Connecticut know its name, because this scenario of sub-human sickos aiming to break in while your family is home and murder you happens less often than people getting struck by lightning.

            Fantasizing about shooting people is pathological. Do better.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                ·
                2 months ago

                It's common courtesy when you make a citation on a forum like this, that you actually link to it. I must assume this is the report you mean, which, if so, you misread or misrepresented, because what it actually says is 7% of home invasions involve violent victimization (in most cases just assault). Anyway, it's my fault for inviting us to get too stuck in the weeds.

                I'm never said people shouldn't take measures against burglary, and on the contrary have nothing against having locks, deadbolts, cameras, security systems, and signage for the latter two. Probably the main thing that I have against keeping guns is that you're more likely to hurt yourself or a family member or someone than a Home Invader, which I'm sure you'd agree is only prudent.

                But even that's sort of a distraction because my main gripe wasn't with people keeping guns but with them focusing on this specific circumstance of killing a home invader as an automatic response. As another poster said, it is both more humane and more sensible to hypothetically use the gun mainly as a means to threaten the hypothetical Invader. They aren't going to be interested in attacking someone with a gun, it makes things easier if you're being a moron (as many people apparently are) and just mistaking some innocent person for a threat, and it's also not just treating the Home Invader's life like it's de facto fit to be ended by summary execution. But no, Americans would rather play King of the Castle and hype themselves up to murder the Unworthy, indeed getting so excited that they are, again, more likely to shoot their own family member or some random drunk guy who thought he was at his own house or something.

                  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    You have repeatedly characterized one specific type of preparation as "pathological".

                    I have never once said this, you continue to wildly misrepresent me. I'm tired of repeating myself, but what I'm talking about is a) fixating on this home invasion scenario and b) shoot-on-sight. Those things are pathological. Keeping a gun is probably a bad idea for statistical reasons already mentioned, but it's not pathological in any further sense.

                    You ignored most of what I said. Yes, obviously if you threaten rather than bluff, that means you are willing to follow through. I cited the other poster's example, of having a gun pointed at the door and informing the burglar that you'll shoot if they open it. Obviously I am not saying you make a bluff and then let them strip the shirt off your back if they call the bluff. Obviously.

                    This only message that a home invader should hear and believe is that entering a home is suicidal.

                    But if that isn't true, what good is blustering? It seems much more productive to tell the truth, that attacking someone may be suicidal, since it still protects the safety of the resident while accounting for the more likely scenario that the person taken for an invader is not one.

                      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        2 months ago

                        Stop gaslighting. You have misrepresented such preparations as "fantasizing about shooting people" and declared such preparations to be "pathological".

                        "Gaslighting is when someone disagrees" You're being ridiculous. Look back, I never once said that getting/keeping a gun for self defense was pathological beyond the thing I mentioned a few times now about injuring non-home-invaders. I've explained this over and over, but you really want to brow beat me into a ridiculous position because, I don't know, maybe I offended your sensibilities. It doesn't matter.

                        Meanwhile you've regressed to liberal Castle Doctrine fantasies, ignoring all the points about avoiding misunderstandings and maybe even caring about human life. We haven't moved an inch, this conversation is pointless.

                        Edit: I don't care to investigate it at this point, but I'm pretty sure you literally just misread/misinterpreted what I said as a more hardline position than what it was, and no number of paragraphs of explaining what my position is will dissuade you, you just accuse me of "gaslighting" you like some miserable twitter dork, when if you were actually right you could very easily produce evidence.

                        This conversation is a waste of time. Stay in your Castle reciting liberal mantras about social contract theory, I don't give a shit.

          • Ivysaur [she/her]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            lmfao idiot. you still wearing a mask for covid big boy. please talk to me more about being denigrated for taking health and safety seriously. do it. I dare you.

              • Ivysaur [she/her]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 months ago

                Wrong answer! You can be an asymptomatic carrier at any point while Covid is still hanging around the general public, and especially while no one is taking mitigation seriously, you caring guy, you! You should be wearing a respirator any time you will be away from your home. You should be wearing one any time you would be in public, not just while you are sick, until Covid is gone; extinct, or cured. If you actually cared, you would know this. But of course! You’re a regular Semmelweis, only instead of being hanged for washing hands you’re at the stake for shooting and killing people. Of course you care!

                May we never meet.

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Respirators do not filter their exhaust. They protect the individual wearing the respirator. They do not protect the public. With one exception, your advice is nonsensical.

                  May we never meet.

                  I wholeheartedly agree.

                  • Ivysaur [she/her]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    2 months ago

                    So let’s get this straight, smart guy. I asked:

                    you still wearing a mask for covid big boy

                    You responded:

                    Every time I get COVID, certainly. It's the responsible, civic-minded thing to do.

                    and now you say:

                    Respirators do not filter their exhaust. They protect the individual wearing the respirator. They do not protect the public.

                    …by your own words, if they don’t protect the public from an infected person, and you are only wearing them after you’re already infected…well, then I DEFINITELY hope we never meet!

                    Of course none of this matters because you and I both know you’re just full of shit.

                      • Ivysaur [she/her]
                        ·
                        2 months ago

                        To reduce spread of respiratory diseases, we need to understand the mechanisms of spread. There is strong and consistent evidence that respiratory pathogens including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, tuberculosis, and other coronaviruses such as MERS and SARS-1, are transmitted predominantly via aerosols. Infected individuals, whether symptomatic or not, continuously shed particles containing pathogens, which remain viable for several hours and can travel long distances. SARS-CoV-2 is shed mainly from deep in the lungs, not the upper respiratory tract, and the viral load is higher in small aerosols (generated in the lower airways) than in larger droplets (generated in upper airways). Whereas large respiratory droplets emitted when people cough or sneeze fall quickly by force of gravity without much evaporation, those below 100 µm in diameter become (bio)aerosols. Even particles tens of microns in diameter at release will shrink almost immediately by evaporation to the point that under typical conditions they can remain airborne for many minutes. In contrast with droplet transmission, which is generally assumed to occur via a single ballistic hit, the risk of airborne transmission increases incrementally with the amount of time the lung lining is exposed to pathogen-laden air, in other words, with time spent indoors inhaling contaminated air.

                        Respiratory infections may theoretically also be transmitted by droplets, by direct contact, and possibly by fomites (objects that have been contaminated by droplets), but the dominant route is via respiratory aerosols. The multiple streams of evidence to support this claim for SARS-CoV-2 include the patterning of spread (mostly indoors and especially during mass indoor activities involving singing, shouting, or heavy breathing), direct isolation of viable virus from the air and in air ducts in ventilation systems, transmission between cages of animals connected by air ducts, the high rate of asymptomatic transmission (i.e., passing on the virus when not coughing or sneezing), and transmission in quarantine hotels when individuals in different rooms shared corridor air but did not meet or touch any common surface.

                        The certification of surgical masks for particle/bacterial filtering efficiency (P/BFE) does not reflect equivalence to respirators as the filtration is typically compromised by poor face seal. The ASTM F2100-21 P/BFE certification, for example, requires at least 95% filtration against 0.1-µm particles and at least 98% against aerosolized Staphylococcus aureus, but this is on a sample of the mask clamped in a fixture, not on a representative face. In terms of filtering aerosols, N95 respirators outperform surgical masks between 8- and 12-fold. The effectiveness of certified surgical mask material against transmission when used as a filter was demonstrated in a hamster SARS-CoV-2 model. Infected hamsters were separated from non-infected ones by a partition made of surgical mask material; when the partition was in place, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was reduced by 75%.

                        In addition to protecting the wearer, respirators provide very effective source control by dramatically limiting the amount of respiratory aerosols emitted by infectious individuals. In one study, risk of infection was reduced approximately 74-fold when infected, and susceptible individuals both wore well-fitting FFP respirators compared to when both wore surgical masks. Figure 2 reproduces Bagheri et al.’s demonstration of the dramatic decrease in total inward leakage for different types of respirators and surgical masks.

                        Source: Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review

                        In case it's not obvious from this already, not all respirators have exhalation valves. Surely I don't need to provide a source for this statement, and if you don't believe me you can google this yourself.

                        Also, lmfao at you appealing to the CDC while contradicting their advice. According to the CDC themselves:

                        Respirators and masks may filter particles and block droplets when you exhale (breathe, talk, cough, etc.). This reduces the risk that a person with a respiratory infection will spread germs to others. If you have a respiratory infection, there’s a chance you could pass your infection to others. Wearing a respirator or mask reduces the number of germs that you exhale into the environment around you. This is one way to prevent the spread of respiratory germs from person to person, like wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the germ that causes COVID-19.

                        How Well It Protects You: NIOSH Approved elastomeric half-mask respirators (EHMRs) and elastomeric quarter-mask respirators (EQMRs) protect you against gases, vapors, and particles when equipped with the appropriate filter, cartridge, or canister.

                        How Well It Protects Others Around You: Some EHMRs and EQMRs, such as those without exhalation valves, filter the air you breathe out and you can use them to protect others around you. If the EHMR or EQMR do not filter the air you breathe out, you should not use them if your goal is to protect others around you.

                        How Well It Protects You: NIOSH Approved FFRs, such as N95 respirators, protect you against particles. They do not protect against gases or vapors.

                        How Well It Protects Others Around You: Some NIOSH Approved FFRs have exhalation valves that open to let air escape when you breathe out. This makes it easier to breathe and can make the respirator more comfortable to wear. An FFR with an exhalation valve may not protect others as well as one without a valve.

                        • Without exhalation valves: NIOSH Approved FFRs without exhalation valves filter the air you breathe out. You can use this type to protect others around you.
                        • With exhalation valves: If the NIOSH Approved FFR has an exhalation valve, some of the air will come out of the exhalation valve and reduce the level of protection to others. Wearing one of these will provide similar levels of protection to others as BFCs and some disposable face masks and cloth masks.

                        Show Table of respirator and mask performance from the CDC site linked below. Too large to do proper alt-text for

                        Source: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/publicppe/community-ppe.html

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Just because it's "not crazy" and based in some basic animal instinct doesn't mean we have to entertain it or that it's not something that extremely easily leads to reactionary violence.

        We literally the slope this leads down in people gunning down strangers at the door bell or literally in the drive in just approaching the house.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
        ·
        2 months ago

        But I'd rather just the person get scared and run, since I'm not exactly willing to kill someone over my pc.

        Agreed, but you have no direct control over that. The decision to get scared and run is theirs, not yours.