Among the var­i­ous online RPGs I play is City of Heroes, in which you play a super­hero. Cur­rently my char­ac­ter is on a mis­sion to recover a “P.L.O.T. device.” Here is the description:

The Phased Lin­ear Oscil­la­tion Trans­ducer is a mirac­u­lous device, capa­ble of pro­duc­ing such a vari­ety of effects that many find it sim­ply unbe­liev­able. How­ever, overus­ing a P.L.O.T. device can have seri­ous con­se­quences, and the more egre­gious uses can strain the very fab­ric of real­ity. P.L.O.T. devices have fallen out of favor over­all, but many a young and reck­less pio­neer has picked up a well-used P.L.O.T. device and run with it.

Pro-Gun Law Help­ing Crime Vic­tims Defend Them­selves?.

You don’t say.

Good for the Detroit Free Press for run­ning this story.

[The Agi­ta­tor]

One week after a fatal car­jack­ing in Ham­tramck, an 18-year-old would-be car­jacker was killed when his poten­tial vic­tim opened fire. Police said Michael Evans of Detroit bran­dished a hand­gun as he approached a 36-year-old man from Troy as he got into his vehi­cle after hav­ing din­ner with friends. The Troy man used his reg­is­tered hand­gun to shoot Evans in appar­ent self-defense.

The shoot­ing, which occurred in front of Detroit Police head­quar­ters at 1300 Beaubien, remains under inves­ti­ga­tion, but pros­e­cu­tors likely won’t charge the uniden­ti­fied Troy man if his ver­sion of events checks out.

Notice that the car­jacker didn’t think any­thing of bran­dish­ing a gun and try­ing to car­jack some­body right in front of the Detroit Police head­quar­ters. This case clearly illus­trates which is the more effec­tive self-defense strat­egy: car­ry­ing a gun or rely­ing on the cops.