Pathetic

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I don't think that, up until last night, I saw something that was just so unbelievably pathetic, until I ran up on this, from THR (http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/218113.html):

"Maybe we should buy a gun," I told my husband.
As I waited for him to answer, I listened to the birds chirping. I looked toward the sky, hoping for rain.
"No, we shouldn't," he said finally.
"Listen to this," I said, picking up Sunday's paper. I read aloud from the front-page story, "Forced to Kill," about four Charlotte people who had each shot someone trying to protect themselves.
The killings were legal. Necessary. The police said so.
I could slip instantly into the shoes of one south Charlotte man, who woke to the sound of the doorbell seven years ago. When he heard loud banging, he grabbed a revolver and ran downstairs.
A young man had thrown an iron patio chair against the window, shattering the glass. The older man fired two safety shots. When the young man swung the chair again, the older man aimed a third time and fired, killing the intruder.
I could imagine us in the exact situation -- without a gun -- defenseless.

Not in my house
"Can't you see that happening to us?" I said."Sure, I can," my husband said. "But we have an alarm system. And we're not getting a gun."
"Your reason?"
"Two reasons," he said. "Our granddaughters."
That stopped me cold.
About 200 people in the United States kill someone each year in self-defense.
But how many die each year -- innocently -- from guns?
Let me tell you.
In the 10 years ending in 2006, 486 children under age 18 in North Carolina, alone, died from gun-related injuries.
Amazing the figure is that low, considering that 82,000 kids in this state are exposed each year to unsafely stored firearms.

Actually, I would argue that's a tribute to gun owners' diligence, considering that in my own experience, those who own guns are quite careful with them and would never be so careless as not to teach their kids about the dangers firearms pose when said firearms are not used safely. For that "man" to stand there and cite his granddaughters as an excuse not to get a gun to defend his wife and granddaughters is a borderline criminal cop-out -- not to mention a rather frightening prospect, considering he's probably old enough to come from a generation that still believed without reservation that certain things were worth killing for, among them one's loved ones. But here was the clincher, the last couple of lines:

In our house, we'll remain unarmed.
Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead.

I don't think I've ever seen such tortured logic in print anywhere other than a Handgun Control press release. And I hope that poor deluded lady never wakes up to find a goblin standing at her door with a crowbar with nothing to stop him but her manicured fingernails.