Catch the bastards!

2009-11-18 08:49

It is very tempting to shout “shoot the bastards!” with our cheap populist of a deputy minister of police if you had just been a victim of a violent crime.

It is as tempting to abandon a long-held view that guns are evil and dangerous and to get a firearm for the next time the bastards come around.

I know. I have just experienced two break-ins and an armed robbery at my new home. All three incidents happened in a ten day period.

One’s view of crime and criminals tends to change rather drastically once you had a thug point a revolver at your face in your own home.

One tends to take it very personally.

I have now had time to turn my home into Fort Knox with alarm systems, security beams, security gates and an armed response company ready to pounce.

But after two weeks I still wake up at the slightest sound in the middle of the night, grab the hammer next to my bed and storm through the house.

I truly hate the bastards who disregarded my and my family’s rights to safety and privacy and violated the sanctity of our home.

I am still jittery after two weeks, but I have also calmed down sufficiently to think rationally about what happened.

'I have no doubt that I would have shot him'

I am very happy I didn’t have a firearm when I surprised the burglar carrying my flat screen TV to the street.

I have no doubt that I would have shot him. If I hit him, he would have been dead. If I had missed, I would probably have been shot dead.

I didn’t deserve to die. The horrible thug bastard deserved to go to jail, but he also didn’t deserve to die.

Breaking in and stealing a TV set - even pointing a firearm - doesn’t warrant the death penalty.

If I had killed him, he would now be gone, but I would have to live with killing someone I knew nothing about for the rest of my life.

What really pisses me off is that the thug bastard is not going to be caught, and he knows it.

He knows it and I know it because the police isn’t even trying to catch him.

Not even an armed robbery warrants an investigation by Deputy Minister Fikile Mbalula’s fierce police force.

Why would he stop?

The investigating officer in my three cases did not interview anyone in my street, not even the known criminal everyone suspects.

He didn’t even walk around my house or to the open veld across the street to look for discarded property or other clues. I found several of my stolen articles there the next day.

He didn’t go to any of the pawn shops in my neighbourhood, not even the shady ones, to ask whether someone had tried to sell my very distinctive i-pod docking station. I know because I asked them.

So beware, the young man who pointed his gun at me and robbed me of most of my valuables could be lurking near your house, ready to do the same to you. Why would he stop if he is never going to be caught?

Mbalula’s policemen meanwhile are shooting little kids in the head, because their political bosses are telling them to shoot first and worry about consequences later.

If only Mbalula would get on his populist horse with a new slogan: Catch the bastards!

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