<VV> Stolen Corvair recovered

[Tony Underwood]

At 10:29 hours 05/22/2005, Thomas Stingl wrote:
> > they told me to stop the guy from following the car because he wasn't
> > authorized to do that.
>
>There is a country in the world where you have to be authorized to follow
>a car, in particular a supposed to be stolen one from a friend?
>
>Thomas



Not the country *I* live in...

Regardless of who said what, *I* would follow the car until it got to where 
it was going or either it or I ran out of fuel.    And if it were MY car 
I'd have a couple of things to *discuss* with the driver.


I read a paper not long ago, written by a crime prevention unit for 
distribution to property holders in a neighborhood (not around here) which 
had been experiencing a rash of burglaries and breaking & entering problems.

The police officer who wrote the paper suggested that the proper thing to 
do if someone was attempting to break into your home was to quickly leave 
via the back door and run for help.

Perhaps  this is the politically correct thing to do, but *I* would be 
standing there in the dark with a shotgun waiting for the door to open.

Likewise one of my cars.  If some lowlife was caught trying to steal a 
Corvair I owned, I would NOT stand by and let him do it.   I'd pick up a 
stick or a rock or whatever and I'd do my best to discourage him if I 
didn't have enough time to go grab up a more efficient weapon.   If it was 
a carjacking at gun point, I'd still do *something*, *anything* I could to 
make his life less easy, including sailing any nearby rock (or whatever 
other solid heavy object I could find) through the driver side window (I 
have replacement glass for all the Vairs here) and against the side of his 
face to give him a hint of my personal opinion of him...  if he lost some 
teeth or an eye or experienced a broken jaw in the process....  well, he 
knew the job was dangerous before he took it, and such injury might slow 
him down enough for me to catch him and have a discussion there in the 
street.    even if he still had control of that fire arm, I'd be at the 
back of the car lifting the deck lid and grabbing the coil wire.

...IF that rock was close by and IF my aim with the rock had been good and 
he'd experienced a momentary lapse in interest to keep pressure on the gas 
pedal and I was in fact able to get to the deck lid etc.   I wouldn't let 
him get off scott-free...  my personal sense of outrage wouldn't allow me 
to let him do so.    My arrogance and stubborn attitude wouldn't let me 
just stand there and let him get away with it.

I'd *have* to do something.     I guess it's just me...  the idea of 
someone trying to steal my property and having some law enforcement sort 
blunder in such a manner as to tell me to let them do it and get away with 
it so as to "protect me" flies in the face of rationality.    That 4th 
Amendment comes to mind.     Sometimes it falls upon the individual to 
enforce the Law of the Land himself.



tony..