It totally sucks to be robbed. Be glad you weren't home, it makes it worse.

I've had my house robbed twice (different places) and once woke up with someone in my room. He pulled a knife on my roommate and I had to chase him out of the house. I still can't go back to sleep sometimes (12 years later) when I wake up to a noise in the night. I've also had my garage robbed twice, had all my tools cleaned out, including tools I inherited from my grandfather. That one really hurt. I've had my car broken in to and vandalized. I think it's fair to say I've suffered plenty from robbery and burglary. I'd love to see these guys caught and put in prison but I don't think it's the solution. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for saying the following two things, though: I don't believe stealing someone's stuff or damaging their property is justification for killing/exterminating/ending the existence of someone else, and secondly I think if we had a sane drug policy in this country we would see a massive drop-off in criminal behavior. In excess of 90% of crime is derived from the traffic, purchase, or sale of drugs. The vast majority of police dollars go toward fighting drug-derived crime. The United States federal government alone (not to mention other countries or US states and cities) spent $45 billion dollars on drug crime in 2005. That's domestically. Not including overseas operations or DEA enforcement in South and Central America. What has it landed us? A huge drug problem. I thought we learned our lessonswith alcohol during prohibition but we didn't. Illegal drugs == funding of crime rings, organized crime, terrorism, domestic abuse, gangs, etc. It's one of the worst disasters in domestic policy ever invented. Make no mistake: I'm no advocate of using drugs. But we need to start thinking about what's going to actually cure the disease, rather than putting ointment on the rash. What's it going to take to keep us safe in our homes? 300 million guns in America clearly isn't working.

Karl