Debate Topic: Dealing with Violent Criminals

[|3lack|ce]

Thinking of my own misguided youth brings to mind a pertinent and painful memory. I still bear the little white scars of it to this day. You hear of it happening out in the country sometimes, but ya never figure it'll happen to you...

My brother and my cousin and I were out for a stroll one warm, summer evening. In our wanderings around the countryside that is deep East Texas, we happened upon a local farmer's watermelon patch. Now we all knew the farmer, and knew him to be a 'good ole boy' (an upright individual). What we didn't know was how well he guarded his watermelons when they were coming ripe...

Now I was all of 11 years old, which made both my brother and cousin 17. Those watermelons looked mighty good there in the moonlight, and there was a creek nearby we'd planned to swim in anyway, so we might as well enjoy one while we're out right?

As stealthily as 3 young men could we crept into the watermelon patch and picked out a good one, a yellow-meat (they're sweeter than traditional red-meat watermelons) which was perfectly ripe and the perfect size to carry out with us. My brother made quick work with his pocketknife and off we crept with our prize. Then, from the dark we hear "Who the hell's stealin my watermelons?" then... *BOOM*, followed by the intense pain only a rock-salt load can bring. Three shots fired, 3 boys running like hell through the watermelon patch in intense pain but not so intense that we stopped running or dropped said watermelon. We hauled arse to the creek as fast as our legs would carry us.

The water melted out the salt (it's the only remedy for a rock-salt load by the way, short of cutting out each individual crystal) quickly and soon enough we were just a peppered-mess of small wounds all over our backs and arses. That watermelon was damned good though, best I ever ate. I think it was the effort spent in getting it that made it that way.

Now - what laws were broken? By us - theft under $5 by a minor...a mere handslap and a "You BY GOD better not get caught in anyone's watermelon patch again or I'll salt you myself!" from any judge. By the farmer, not one blessed thing - he was protecting his livelyhood. Evidently the farmer figured we were kids or those rounds would've been buckshot rather than salt, but either way, he broke no law. Even if he'd have killed us (pronounce that 'kilt' to speak proper Texan) good and proper he wouldn't have broken a single law.

[Egaladeist]

Never even heard of a rock-salt load till now...actually that'd be a good replacement for the regular rounds used by police wouldn't it?

Is it more or less effective than rubber bullets?

Great story, by the way, although painful

[|3lack|ce]

Much less effective imho than rubber bullets, since there's more stopping power at range, more range, and less lethality at close range. Salt loads just break the skin from range and burn like hell. Up close and personal they become as lethal as buckshot. There is no in-between range with rock-salt loads.

Here's an interesting site with a guy trying rocksalt loads, but he makes a MAJOR mistake in that he's using ice-cream salt and not a finer grain. Best he'll get out of it is a big bang and boom effect. The best size crystals are those you'd use to melt ice on your driveway - bigger than sea-salt grain but not the boulders ice-cream salt provides. Here's link: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot33.htm

[Egaladeist]

Great link, even if they were off the mark with the size shot...learn something new every day

[rapier57]

In Infantry training, we learned about air superiority levels. What it amounted to was, we had it, they had it, and:

Shoot 'em all down and let God sort 'em out.
===============


Our police used bean bag rounds a lot for crowd control during the WTO riots. Some knock-down, definite sting and marking. No permanent damage.

[Aspman]

A mate of mine is in the Black Watch and he served in Northern Ireland during some riots.

He was very proud of shooting some paddy in the bollocks with a plastic bullet.

They're actually really big and must do some damage.

[SirDice]

I'd say we pack all those criminals up, put them on one or more ships and send them to some godforsaken island at the other side of the globe.... oh.. wait....

[keezel]

I'd say we pack all those criminals up, put them on one or more ships and send them to some godforsaken island at the other side of the globe.... oh.. wait....

And now we have the USA.