Gear Theft - Strange Debate

[lerxstcat]

File charges and make the thieves either pay for the refenish or new instruments. Plain and simple.

And don't open carry. All it does is attract attention and shows someone who might do harm who to take out first. I always take notice of who openly packs...it's not a deterrent.

Yeah, the thread was only posted after the guys were jailed for it. It's the police who recovered the gear for the band who were robbed. So at the very least they're busted red-handed for possession of stolen goods - in the rehearsal room right across the way from the one they hit.

The apologist is poormouthing his buddy, the band leader and ringleader, because he was apparently living in his rehearsal space. Well, you can get foodstamps if you're poor - I know that for a fact. But don't steal my gear. Well, he's getting fed and housed in county jail right now unless someone else made his bond.

And I am not gonna open carry, it may be legal but as you say, not necessarily prudent. But a nylon carry case or even a plastic case are considered "holsters" and if a cop pulls you over and it's on your seat, it's considered "open carry". Of course it can come out of the glove box while you're being pulled over.

My greater point was that it's a gun culture in my state, and I'd say that a jury here would look at shooting a thief about the same as a Texas jury would. If you tell a bunch of people that your bud is coming after them for talking about HIS crime, I think you are endangering your friend more than anything.

[PowerTube]

Why not go even further? Publish a website with pictures of the thieves, tell the story, and warn everyone about what they did. Then post a link to it on every music forum you can find.

This also cannot be libel because a) they're guilty of the crime and b) we have the First Amendment.

Their feelings? Fuck that.

[Vass]

You're dealing with full-on industrial strength stupid- Maybe even worse than stupid- people whose morals & values are so completely out of whack that they feel that not only are they right, but cannot be swayed in any way from their thinking.

My buddies & I typically call that "wrong and strong".

Look- If you really want to twist your tail, just write this:

"You guys are idiots. Have fun visiting your buddy in jail, because that's where this is going- Take your curbside lawyering and bonghit philosophy somewhere else- All your histronics amount to nothing in the end, and in the end, your dirtbag buddies are going down. I hope they enjoy their felony charges, because congratulations- you just locked yourself out of ever having any kind of normal, productive life. You want to join them there, keep making threats."

But honestly, I have said this before and I will say it again- Idiots will always, always, always be with us. Don't waste your time on them because their opinions are worth less than a wet fart.

[Shawn Lutz]

Take your curbside lawyering and bonghit philosophy somewhere else.

I resent that remark about bonghits :ROTF:

[Rsmacker]

Thieves are cunts, no two ways about it.

And, don't feel too bad about your comparison with rape. Strictly speaking, "rape" entered the language as a description of "being violated", and didn't necessarily have anything to do with fucking, it could actually mean robbery in some cases. It is only relatively recently that it has taken on a meaning of a sexual crime, and as such, it is a very emotive term.
However, it is also a broad term, there is a huge difference between someone who jumps out of a dark alley onto a woman with a knife in his hand and someone who, after a night on the piss, shags somebody else who then sobers up and decides she didn't consent. Both men could be rapists, but there's a world of difference between the acts. The first example is of a rapist who should be shot, no questions. The second......hmmmm, there but for the grace of God go I, and I dare say many others here.

Not a defence of rapists, it's about degrees of intent and being able to foresee the consequences and effects on victims. For me, someone who with presence of forethought, breaks into a place, steals and then takes ongoing action to conceal the fact in order to hang onto his ill-gotten gains is far far worse than the second example of a rapist above (that's if that person even could be called a rapist, which IMHO, he's not. The Law says differently).

Which leads me to the fact that many victims of theft DO feel violated, and find it hard to get over that. Burglary victims will speak of feeling vulnerable in their own homes, having had their personal stuff rifled by some low-life scrote. I wonder if your critics would tell one of those people, psychologically scarred and traumatised, that they shouldn't put their "material things above human life". Fuck them, they are obviously low-life themselves. How do they know how the owner of the Les Paul is taking it all? What if it were left to him by his late father, and now he can't look at the shitty respray and feel devastated, his happy memories destroyed? No-one can tell how much they themselves will be affected, let alone other people.
If my friend had stolen someone's guitar, tried to conceal it, I don't care how good friends we were, he shouldn't expect me to defend him. He would be a cunt, end of story.

I suggest you go to the message board, proclaim the thieves to be CUNTS, and those who defend them to be cunts too, retarded ones. Invite them round for a tea-party, but ask them to sign a disclaimer, so that if they get found in a ditch with shredded arseholes, no-one will think they have been raped.

[lerxstcat]

Rsmacker, you have a way with words! No, Tekky was right to call me down because his wife WAS raped, and shared it with us. But I am glad you understand what I mean, and you elaborated far better than I as well. I was just shocked at the way this kid came out on the thread.

Which of course as a good jailhouse lawyer, he keeps saying he is NOT defending them and is NOT threatening us - he said it's more like a warning of a coming hurricane. Yeah. He says he won't comment one way or another on whether he thinks they're guilty or not. Though no one debates that they were caught with the gear in their possession, right across the way from the burgled space. But his friend's sweet life is so much more important than the "petty theft" of gear, in his last post.

I corrected him on petty theft, saying the amounts would be considered grand theft, that's when he informed me that ALL theft is petty compared to a human life. Yeah.

So I gave him a variation on Vass' statement. I just took out the bonghit philospohy part (I'm with ya, Shawn!) and said that if people get jumpy around his buddy and someone shoots him because of all the "warnings", he can partly blame himself for ramping up the "warning" about it.

I'm sure he'll just tell me I'm too stupid to comprehend his greatness...

[Spivonious]

Thieves stink, that's for sure.

BUT

I wouldn't be spreading it around until they are convicted. If they are found not guilty, then they could sue you for libel. These days it seems anyone can sue and win.

If the "alleged" thieves are found responsible, then the other band has every right to sue them for money to pay for the refin of the guitar, plus any value that is lost because of it.

[lerxstcat]

Thieves stink, that's for sure.

BUT

I wouldn't be spreading it around until they are convicted. If they are found not guilty, then they could sue you for libel. These days it seems anyone can sue and win.

If the "alleged" thieves are found responsible, then the other band has every right to sue them for money to pay for the refin of the guitar, plus any value that is lost because of it.

You are correct, and that is the friend's tack, but we are saying that they have been jailed on charges of theft, and that the gear was recovered from their rehearsal space. These are facts, not conjecture. We have then gone on to say that IF they are guilty, they deserve what they get and local musicians deserve to know that they were indeed caught with stolen gear in their possession. That is established fact.

The guy confided in me via PM that his friend was living in his rehearsal space, down on his luck, and therefore thinks this human tragedy is worse than any "petty" theft his friend may have committed. He also told me in PM that he has no doubt of his friend's guilt, but will not say that publicly on the forum. I have gone so far as to not reveal that on that board, though I don't have a problem saying so here. I don't think anybody there comes here or vice versa except for me.

He still maintains that material possessions mean nothing compared to a human life. While I agree with that in an abstract sense, when you are talking about stealing those possessions, which have not only great sentimental value but are also tools of the trade, in this context I have to disagree since other human lives ARE affected thereby.

Oh, and because this guy is dead-ass broke, I don't see him paying for repair of the gear. His only punishment will be prison. Maybe he'll pay restitution when he gets out, if he can find a job. But that will probably be a few years, so the injured parties will have to fix the damage on their own, at least initially.

[Vass]

Truth is an absolute defense to libel. If he wants to go after you he's got to go to civil court and he doesn't want to do that. He ISN'T going to do it. So you can declare his guilt to the mountaintops, have no fear.

Sad fact- pull up a chair kiddies, I'm going to hit you with some knowledge.

That which is broken tends to stay broken. Human tragedy it may be, but these are not 14 year old kids. This guy is a crook and a loser, and he will, barring a very unlikely conversion to the side of the angels, remain a crook & a loser until the day he dies. If you meet someone who is a badguy in his 20's, he's going to just be an older badguy when you see him again in his 30's.

Sad fact of life. Losers stay losers, winners stay winners, and you usually know which is which somewhere around 20 or so.

If he didn't get pinched for this, he would have been pinched for the next thing he did. Good for his future victims that he got caught.

One thing- I would keep my trap shut about the guns & the defending yourself stuff. One thing I guarantee you is that on the off chance that something does happen and you do have to defend yourself, you'll be facing a printout of your comments in a courtroom, either civil or criminal, with either a prosecutor or a plaintiff's lawyer waving it in front of a jury claiming it's what you had in mind all along.

As Don Corleone said, don't ever let anyone know what you're thinking, especially not your putative enemies.

[Reverend Timmy]

If your hungry and things are'nt going your way,I'll feed you.Need a place to stay,I'll help you out.But neither one of these is a free ticket to steal anything from anyone.I hate a thief and the two that are taking up for him are no better.Like mama always said"You made that bed,now you gotta lay in it"..................

[Mrs Tekky]

I tend to not get involved in these kinds of discussions because people like to say my history skews my ideas and understanding - what they don't know is I felt this way well before I myself was raped.

Yes being burglarized is a form of violation - however burglary does not tend to have the same violence and force related to rape. As it sounds - the victims of this crime were not there when the items were stolen and were not physically in danger at the time of the crime. Doesn't mean that they don't or shouldn't feel violated - but it's definitely a different type.

As for where the word rape comes from - it's never meant just being violated - it's very definition from the beginning was based on the idea of persons and items being forcefully and violently taken or violated (Vikings raping and pillaging the land and people)- it's so much more than just a home or space being broken into when a person is not there and having items taken. It's come to be less as people have bandied the word rape about to mean anything they didn't like: "The football player was raped when they guy knocked the ball out of his hand." Many terms have changed over the years - gay used to only mean happy but is not used that way anymore for example. Rape is bandied about as a bit of nothing rather than representing a violent and dangerous assault.

I can honestly say would much rather have my material possessions taken than be physically raped any day. It's a much more intense experience (which is why rape victims have very high rate of PTSD versus other crime victims). Not to say that a burglary victim doesn't have the right to feel violated, fearful, etc - but it's a lot different in it's entirety. Having had both items stolen and having been raped - you feel violated in both situations but it is most definitely different.

And for the record - rape is never about "fucking" - it's about power, control, and force. And while there's different amounts of violence or danger in types of rape and sexual assault - it's always a matter of consent - which a drunk person is not able to give - so yes if you take off with an obviously drunk person who doesn't really know what's going on and have sex with them - then yes technically that's rape - same if a woman does it to a man. In the drunk situation - your choices are taken away and your rights are violated - even if it's not horribly violent - there's still force. That's also why there are different levels of sexual assault or rape in the legal system - they aren't all charged the same.

As for the case, legally you can't reference someone as having committed a crime until they have been found guilty in court - even if they were arrested red-handed. Yes you and technically the message board may be held libel in that situation. However, if people close to the "alleged" criminals are threatening those that could be witnesses in the trial - that should most definitely be reported to police as it's witness intimidation and tampering - which carries rather hefty penalties and jail time.

Personally I hope the gear thieves and defacers are dealt with harshly in court - it's inexcusable and needs to not be tolerated. But watch your P's and Q's - because there are legal protections for all no matter what - whether we like it or not. And legally you can't say someone is any type of criminal until they are legally found to be so - reports in the paper are very careful how they word thing to protect themselves.

[Vass]

For publications it's a 2 fold matter- what's "right" and what could get you sued. Newspapers should use "alleged" because they have no first hand information regarding the accusation and therefore it's the right thing to do- give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

Nice thought. Of course, the real reason they have style guides that dictate how accusations are presented is to protect against law suits.

However, that doesn't stop them from going after people they believe are guilty, or that they believe won't be able to sue them sucessfully because the accusations are true. One example of this would be the Duke University Lacrosse team situation. The papers went after those kids with gusto and ended up paying for it.

Lerx knows these folks are guilty, has reason to believe they are guilty, and in a civil proceeding could defend himself...but he'll never have to. You most certainly can state that someone has committed a crime, even if they haven't been convicted. You just need to be right.

Anyway, this guy is not going to sue anyone so it's a non issue.

In regards to unfortunate parallels drawn between this crime and other much more personal crimes, well. Can only agree, and getting into semantics about origins of words doesn't help. I am sure that nobody intended to use the word in a way that was hurtful or belittling, but it's a good reminder that while nobody need be censored, discretion & thoughtfulness avoids misunderstandings.

I'm guilty of doing that sort of thing too- No sin in it, just resolve to be a bit more careful of how what your saying sounds.

[lerxstcat]

That's true, Vass, and Mrs. Tekky, I apologized to Tekky and I apologize to you too. I didn't mean to minimize what you've gone through at all.

But I was kind of amazed at the guy saying that the theft was "petty" because his friend living in a rehearsal space was worse.

Believe me, I have sympathy for anyone being down on their luck. It's happened to me too often. But it doesn't justify theft. And their apologist actually dismissed the "tools of the trade" argument by saying that band's not making any money playing out anyway. Which is beside the point and insulting to the victims of the crime in one shot.

[Musician78]

He still maintains that material possessions mean nothing compared to a human life.

I guess this depends on how you look at it. If I actually caught someone in my house trying to steal my stuff, ESPECIALLY my guitars, I would have absolutely no problem shooting them several times. Even if I didn't feel threatened in the least. I can honestly say that I don't even think I would feel badly about it either.

[dg]

If these assholes think material possessions are meaningless, then why are they stealing them? Idiots. The friend sounds like the type who'll also end up living in a practice space at some point, and he'll probably blame society or everyone who has a real home for his problems.