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As long as you realize it is irrational. I’ve lived in the west and south all my 50 plus years, with a couple years spent overseas, and I’ve never seen a gun d

by mrkstu 6y ago

As long as you realize it is irrational. I’ve lived in the west and south all my 50 plus years, with a couple years spent overseas, and I’ve never seen a gun drawn or shot in anger. I spend zero time worrying about gun violence because there is no rational reason to. Now, I’ve lived in suburbs (no gated communities, just straight middle class) instead of large metros, though I’ve worked in plenty of the same. I’ve felt unsafe in those metros, but it had little to no relationship to guns, just people who acted out in the train or bus or aggressive in their panhandling. I’m no gun fanatic- been to a few events hosted by friends where I shot their guns at targets, but never have owned one. But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence.

acdha 6y ago
> But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence. Your mileage may vary: My high school, in a nice safe San Diego suburb, had a mass shooting a few years after I graduated. One of my favorite teachers retired that year because he couldn’t go back to the place where a student had bled out in his arms while he was trying to tourniquet him. I met the Aurora, CO movie theater killer when he was a UCSD student working on our lab cluster. Good thing I never WONTFIX-ed his support tickets… In what is possibly the most American game of small world, a now-coworker used to go to the late show at that theater often but not that night. A friend of ours had a close call and lockdown due to a disgruntled employee bringing a gun to his office (past armed guards!), a mile from where I work. My wife’s school had a full hostage negotiation one afternoon when a student made a threat. They talked him out of it but … it’s not exactly hard to imagine that it could have gone the other way. Nobody I’ve met from outside of the U.S. has even one story like that, even the ones from countries we look down on.

by mrkstu 6y ago

acdha 6y ago

> But unless you live in Baltimore or similar environments, the US is absolutely safe, statistically, for one to work/play/live in without spending any thought to protecting yourself from gun violence. Your mileage may vary: My high school, in a nice safe San Diego suburb, had a mass shooting a few years after I graduated. One of my favorite teachers retired that year because he couldn’t go back to the place where a student had bled out in his arms while he was trying to tourniquet him. I met the Aurora, CO movie theater killer when he was a UCSD student working on our lab cluster. Good thing I never WONTFIX-ed his support tickets… In what is possibly the most American game of small world, a now-coworker used to go to the late show at that theater often but not that night. A friend of ours had a close call and lockdown due to a disgruntled employee bringing a gun to his office (past armed guards!), a mile from where I work. My wife’s school had a full hostage negotiation one afternoon when a student made a threat. They talked him out of it but … it’s not exactly hard to imagine that it could have gone the other way. Nobody I’ve met from outside of the U.S. has even one story like that, even the ones from countries we look down on.