Good article. I believe Vermont is a no permit state, as in no permit required to carry. Anyone who wants to can carry. Yet their murder rate is lower than Canada. Fascinating.
Good article. I believe Vermont is a no permit state, as in no permit required to carry. Anyone who wants to can carry. Yet their murder rate is lower than Canada. Fascinating.
bae, your article was excellent food for thought.
I read a lot of history, and since there was more than one person on the earth there has been violence. Through the years women have been raped and enslaved, men murdered, children victimized etc. In the last 100 years, a relatively civilized era compared to a lot of history the Holocaust, Darfur and Rhwanda , Boznia, Cambodia killing fields, My Lei massacre, numerous wars with bombs dropped, shots fired, forests and fields torched, the whole priest sex abuse scandal, and I bet every one of us can recall a murder of a child somewhere close to where you live being tortured and beat to death by a parent. Drive by shootings, the nut who set his house on fire in Webster NY last week and killed the first responders. Just to kill. you name it, our so called civilized societies have done it. So much genocide and ethnic cleansing and plain old murder. The Oklahoma bombing and 9/11 were carried out with the intent to kill those who were innocent.
Maybe it has nothing to do with video games or TV or who does or does not have guns, but rather the fact there are a lot of evil people out there who given the chance will kill, rape, torture, enslave and pilfer.
So how to feel like you are doing all you can to protect yourself? A lot of people have turned to guns.
I read a weird little story - someone was researching about helping turtles get across roads and found a certain percentage of people go out of their way to intentionally squish them with their cars. Not on the same order as the behaviors mentioned above, but it really makes you wonder what goes on in people's minds...Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/c...kes-dark-twist
I just go on living my life. There's a difference between clear-and-present potential for danger (wandering the streets of my neighborhood at 3 a.m., standing on a subway platform when some obviously-mentally-ill person is milling about, etc.) and living a shallow joyless life because you're afraid of what could happen. I can eat at a raw-foods restaurant in town to avoid the problems linked to, say, broiled meat, and get salmonella poisoning because nothing I ate was cooked. Jim Fixx was a famous runner and died in his 40s of genetic and lifestyle factors -- so much for all that exercise.
It's very much a matter of the real statistical risk (not the sensationalized risk presented by the media) compared to the "price" of eliminating that level of risk. Sometimes, when the weather forecast calls for a 40% chance of rain, I go without my umbrella. And sometimes I get wet. OTOH, I carry insurance on my house because the kind of money it takes to replace that ain't exactly walking around money. So I choose to do something other than nothing, but I do not prepare for every eventuality in the world. That runs contrary to many of my other values. And I don't worry about it.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Well said, Steve.
More than once, I've seen a car or truck swerve to hit a squirrel in the road, instead of avoiding it. There are all sorts of people in the world.
As for protecting myself from a spree killer--frankly, I don't think you can. If someone is really determined to kill people at a certain place and time, they pretty much will figure out a way to do so.
It's like my house. I take reasonable precautions. There's deadbolt locks on the doors. Lights outside the house. Locks on the windows. I pay a higher rent to live in a safer part of town. It's enough to deter the average thief who is just looking for an easy place to break into.
But if someone was to target me deliberately? Yes, they could probably break in. I'm not living in Fort Knox.
Spree killers are rare. They are scary because they are unpredictable. But there's probably a greater risk of injury or death on a daily basis just getting into a car or crossing the street. To protect myself from the 1% chance of encountering a spree killer, I'd have to alter my life in ways that I don't want to--not leaving home, being afraid all the time, not going places I'd like to go to.
Steve. I actually agree with you, I don't have a gun. I live carefully but not with paranoia. I just understand those who feel they need to.
On a reciprocal note, I believe Illinois still has an outright ban on concealed carry. The law has been struck down in a higher court, but was in place for 2012. The city of Chicago recorded it's 500th homicide of 2012 just last week. Both the Chief of Police and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel blame the problem on ILLEGAL guns and gang activity. It will make for an interesting case study comparing 2012 with no carry laws to 2013 when citizens are allowed to carry.
"Back when I was a young boy all my aunts and uncles would poke me in the ribs at weddings saying your next! Your next! They stopped doing all that crap when I started doing it to them... at funerals!"
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote