Enough

The thing that has occupied my mind since event that caused me to start this thread is what would I have done if I had been there at the time? I would normally have visited the shop at about that time every day, but for some reason didn't then. The shop keeper and the little lady behind the counter had become my friends over a long period of time and she, sadly but understandably, has not returned. She was there on her own when the raiders entered, one carrying a knife and one a gun (that turned out to be an imitation).

So, in the environment of keyboard warriors, what would I have done had I been there? I don't know. I was in my youth a merchant seaman, an amateur boxer, and an apprentice in the Glasgow shipyards. I am six foot one tall and fourteen stone, and I know how to hit someone so that it has a calming effect! I just have not had to do anything like that for a very long time, and I don't particularly want to do it again. Would I have frozen in bewilderment, struggling to understand what had so suddenly happened?

I repeat, I don't know. But I suspect that I might have reacted irrationally and set out to plant the nearest raider to me because of the threat to the lass behind the counter (an alpha male reaction possibly). Would I have wanted to hunt them down and take a pickaxe handle to both of them and put them at the mercy of the HSE for a very long time to ensure that they could never pull the same stunt again? Damned right I would! I would happily cripple the vermin!

The point is that I and other citizens should not have to face this dilemma. We should be guaranteed the security of the state and the PUNISHMENT of criminals to the extent that they don't dare to try the same thing again. I don't want the raider of my village shop to be rehabilitated. I want him punished so that he won't dare to do the same thing again. I don't want to sleep in my bed at night tormented with what I might have done then, only to hear that the raiders have been given bail and will probably be put on probation for terrorizing a woman to the point where she can never work in a shop again.

What do we have instead? Well, we have justice minister who has managed to embroil himself in controversy over the police service upon which my village shop should have been able to depend. We have the wholesale closure of rural police stations in order to save money, when the people of this country are being taxed to the hilt to pay off foreign gamblers. We have armed robbers who are given bail when they are, clearly by their actions, a threat to the community. We have a judiciary that seems to live in some ivory tower where the "human rights" of a criminal are more important than those of his victim. I wish that I and the people in my village lived in such a benevolent and protected community, but then we can't be afforded police protection 24/7 can we? We are not important people, we just pay for those who are.

I don't want to form a local vigilante group, but by God it is becoming tempting!

bobcoffee wrote: »

Well it is one of those situations were its either a Hero or Hero who get others into danger.
If it ends up that those guys were just fickle criminals then it would have worked out fine, guys landed in hospital and the woman would feel safe.
However if it ended up fighting the wrong guys, who have no point in coming back with a van full of people looking for you and the woman.. well you can see where that is going.
Stronger community would help reduce the issue but its not a solution.

Like my post above it, pointing out the its not as simple as you think.
No idea why those guys were robbing that store.
Believe looking at issues that are making these situations a fact would be a better choice.
I'm 6ft5 and spent most of my life helping those who would be consider weaker then me.

Your point to get these guys and give them real justice is a fair point and one worth of discussion.
What about those who are forced into these situations, who are pushed by society and the laws that govern them.
That is not an excuse, I have witnessed this many times during my youth.
When you expect to be dead before you reach 18, things look very different in life.

No idea why the guys were robbing the store? Could we not take the simplistic view that they did so because they thought it would be easy money that they didn't have to work for? Burst into a small village shop and threaten a small woman with a gun and a knife. Real heroes they! I'm sorry, but I can't find anything to justify their actions whatever their reasons for doing so.

What about those who are forced into these situations, pushed by society and the laws that govern them? They live in a welfare society where, if they are unemployed the state will support them, often to the extent where it is more remunerative not to work for a living ever. Were they underprivileged in childhood? So was I in wartime and even more so was my wife's family where the kids had to share the bloody wellies and hand-me-downs. Neither I nor they ever turned to attempting to rob village shops or any other form of crime. Instead I and they all became responsible citizens.

I respect your opinion and your obvious experience, but I cannot accept that the law or the community forces people to behave like the raiders, drug dealers, or muggers. In generations past there were many people who were much more deprived than anyone nowadays, but they had a sense of community and that old-fashioned concept called "honesty". So what has changed in the law that forces these criminal behaviors? Or could it simply be greed, lack of discipline in youth, and a shocking lack of proper policing and punishment for wrongdoing? The law doesn't force people into crime -- its sole purpose is to prevent it.

I also accept your comment that if I had been there on the day and had over-reacted, that I might then find a whole gang of them coming looking for me. Possibly that is why, nowadays, so many choose not to see or to become involved -- the fear factor that is the uniform of the criminal nowadays, and if that is so then it is an indictment of law enforcement in this country. All I can do is repeat that I have never been in this situation so I have no experience, but if they came looking for me then I swear that some of them would find an early path to their gods. Then if I survived I would be punished by the laws that protect them and their bloody "human rights".

The few facts that I know of this incident are that the Gardai caught them the next day, which does seem to suggest that they had some "form". The next day they appeared in court and were given bail -- bail after carrying out an armed robbery. So we await their next court appearance when they will, no doubt, be given suspended sentences, probation orders, and a firm slap on the wrists with an instruction to continue collecting their dole money without any further misbehavior. Perhaps the court will take into account that the guy with the gun was deprived of his teddy in his infancy!

Meanwhile there is a small woman who earned a few bob in the local shop but is now too traumatised to ever do so again. This is the new law of the land:o