The next time a man waves an unloaded pistol at police and is then gunned down, shall we blame the police?
You see, I'm just trying to follow your logic. If I bluff and say I have a weapon and you then believe me and respond accordingly, is it really your fault?
In case you need it spelled out, this is precisely what Saddam did. He claimed huge amounts of WMDs and then failed to account for what happened to them. The inspectors were in Iraq to verify the weapons' destruction, not to play hide-and-go-seek in the desert with a dictator. He willingly signed the armistice, and this was one of the conditions.
Posted by Discoshaman at November 18, 2005 06:55 PM | TrackBackI saw just such a discussion at a gun-blog the other day.
It was related to a question of whether BB-gun makers are at fault when someone carrying a BB-gun is shot by police...who think he's carrying a Glock 9mm, or a Smith & Wesson 0.40-caliber handgun.
Almost everyone in the comment-thread said that a man threatening a police officer with a toy that is hard to distinguish from a real gun can expect to be fired on very quickly.
So America doesn't really play the role of a police officer worldwide...but the person pretending to threaten the world with dangerous weapons shouldn't be surprised when someone calls his bluff.
Posted by: karrde at November 18, 2005 10:18 AM