08:41 – We’re having a get-together for Memorial Day with Barbara’s sister and brother-in-law. Colin will have lots of begging opportunities.
We don’t store freeze-dried just-add-water complete meals, but if you like these meals you might want to check the Costco web site. They have several Augason Farms freeze-dried complete meals on sale through the 31st for anything from $10 to $50 (15% to 20%) off their normal prices, which are pretty good to start with. (Note that I’m not recommending these meals. I’ve never tried them, but customer reviews are generally good.)
Oh boy,
Rioting in Cleveland. Rioters pepper spraying random people.
I wonder if that would justify a deadly force response. You feared serious injury, there was a mob rioting, you don’t know what they would do while you were incapacitated.
What is the appropriate and legal response? What would you do?
I think I would warn, and possibly draw, and if they advanced, I don’t think I’d feel bad about shooting. BUT tactically that might not be the best response.
This is one of those areas where you might have some unexamined assumptions. You might have assumed that a rioting mob, attacking people, would always justify a deadly force response. Does this one? Is it TACTICALLY sound? It might be better to ‘take your lumps’ and ride it out, only shooting if they start physically attacking. What if they attack your wife or kids? You are stuck in the restaurant, can’t retreat. A jury of THEIR peers is unlikely to see pepper spray as justification for shooting.
Some things to think about.
nick
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six.
In the first place, I wouldn’t be there. If they invaded my space, I’d be in fun-house mode. I’d sure hope to be better-armed than a pistol, but worst case I’d have my .45 Colt Combat Commander and a Sparks Six-Pack, which gives me 50 rounds. I’d never draw on an opponent unless I intended to shoot immediately.
But, no, I can’t imagine any circumstances in which I’d allow myself let alone Barbara to be attacked and not use lethal force in defense. I’m nowhere near as good at combat pistol shooting as I once was, but I suspect I’m still a whole lot better at it than any likely opponent.
Oh, yeah, I’d not stick around either. And I have spare barrels, firing pins, etc. and am conversant with forensic science, so that pistol would soon be completely different from a forensics standpoint. It’s a crying shame how hard crushing a barrel in a vise makes it to get a test bullet through it to examine striations. Same thing with the firing pin, breech face, etc.
Agreed with RBT; don’t be anywhere near such stuff. If, however, you find yerself smack dab in the middle of it by accident/no fault of yours, you have a right not to be attacked suchlike. This is known as A&B w/DW, or at least it was in my day. Potentially lethal if you suffer from, say, asthma, bronchial condition, heart trouble, etc. And if you’re there with wife and kids? Please. Let it rip.
I’d be trying to get away ricky-tick, of course, but if cornered I’d have several lethal responses available to me, but probably not the 12-gauge or AR or grenades I’d really want if it was a mob attack. I’d have to pick off closest goblins and maybe a ringleader and be making a tactical retreat ASAP. Sure not gonna kneel down and be sprayed and then stomped, cut or shot or burned to death by subhuman revenants.
But the whole point here is to avoid at all costs such scenarios in the first place, which increasingly means getting out and forever avoiding the big cities. Although the point has been made that in various riots in our history, some citizens were untouched and unfazed, ’cause they lived in completely different districts than where the mayhem was taking place. That’s swell if all other things are equal, like Grid power and the presence of law enforcement at some point. If not, not.
Nice summary.
I was talking to Mary (Kim’s mom) earlier today. She commented on the situation in Cleveland, and her feelings echo my own. We sure don’t want to see it happen here, but we’re fully aware that it easily could. Mary grew up in NYC and remembers the 1942 riots when she was a young teenage girl. She remembers her dad telling her that they couldn’t show a light and had to remain quiet to avoid attracting attention from the mobs roving the streets. And that was in the days when the police didn’t put up with nearly as much as they do now. I told her that I wasn’t born until 1953, but I certainly remembered the riots in the 60’s including the Watts riots. As she said, back then the rioters tended to keep to their own neighborhoods, but nowadays they’ll invade peaceful neighborhoods like ours.
Well, that’s kinda what I’m aiming at here. Apparently the victims were just sitting in restaurants eating with their families. That is perfectly normal life, and not something to be avoided. So forget the “don’t be there.” If you can’t go out to eat with your family, the end is already here.
There’s no retreat, because you have 2 young kids strapped into highchairs, and dozens of chairs and tables between you and the exit.
This isn’t WROL, it’s Saturday night out with the family.
You are on at LEAST 3 different cameras. The restaurant security cams, the “protester’s” smartphone documenting their “protest”, and the business across the street’s security cams as you parked and entered the restaurant. You shoot, and the whole internet will be looking to figure out who you are. PD will be backtracking you to your car, will have your plates, etc, so you are NOT anymouse….you are you.
You can’t leave the restaurant, as there is a CROWD OF RIOTERS outside! And they know you just shot several of their members.
You are carrying your concealed carry gun, a 7-9 shot 9mm and AT MOST 2 reloads, probably one or even none. After all, you are just going to dinner with the family, not collecting the rent at one of your section 8 rent houses.
Your wife may have pepper spray of her own, and (a very few) some of your wives may have a carry gun of their own. You might have one or more other CHL holders in the restaurant who will act if you do.
Keeping in mind that many confrontations are ended simply when a gun is presented, what can you REALLY do?
Take a look at this scenario presented by The Best Defense. Watch the whole thing to see the other alternatives, or just jump to 5:20. I have to admit that before watching the episode, I would have chosen any of the first responses, and not even THOUGHT of the one at 5:20.
click on the link – it will auto start a video with the volume at 75%- then scroll down to “Trouble on the Trolley-scenario from The Best Defense”.
http://outdoorchannel.com/showvideos.aspx?show-id=720&page=2
Sorry for the awkward referral, but they have made it hard to link to it.
nick
“… but nowadays they’ll invade peaceful neighborhoods like ours.”
Because they know full well that:
A: The police are many minutes away if they show up at all, and they may just stand around in formation with helmets and suchlike and watch the show.
B: They now use a bit of technology, like cell phones, to coordinate flash mob points-of-contact and ambushes.
C: They also know they have virtual carte-blanche these days from the court systems, political leaders, and our sick, twisted and permissive, guilt-ridden, matriarchal/infantile culture.
Like RBT, I was born in ’53, the year the Korean War armistice was signed, most of us little knowing that we’d still be over there 62 years later, or in Germany, or Okinawa or Guam, etc. Also the year Koba the Dread entered Hell’s vestibule where everything looked pretty familiar to him as it was much like what he’d just inflicted on several hundred million people himself.
So I also remember the nightly nooz with wunnerful Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-Brinkley Report, etc., and saw the Murkan cities afire with armored cars, tanks and machine guns in the streets as choppers whirled overhead and troops lately back from ‘Nam fired back at rooftop snipers. After 15 minutes of that, we watched other troops on patrols in the ‘Nam jungles and rice paddies, along with various body counts. This was night after night. Nothing in our recent history so far has been anywhere close.
In retrospect, the troops in ‘Nam and Watts should have been deployed in Mordor and on Wall Street instead, with total martial law in effect in those sectors and public hangings of politicians, lawyers, diplomats and banksters.
But there I go again, being cynical, and bitterly clinging to my religion, guns and 2-liter bottle of Moxie.
“If you can’t go out to eat with your family, the end is already here.”
Not in a big city anymore. Esp. if you are aware, as you should be, that there is potentially violent unrest within walking or public trans distance. OK, you ignored all the signs, you feel it is your God-given Murkan RIGHT to sit down in a crowded urban restaurant with the wife and kidz. Then a mob appears outside, guys rush in and spray peeps with an unknown substance, the glass is breaking. People are panicking, rushing around and screaming. I’d grab the kids with the wife and take cover to the rear, hopefully able to beat a retreat through the kitchen or whatever, which is another example of where we need to case a joint for this sorta thing before we just blithely sit our asses down and dig into the filet mignon. Or chicken cacciatore. As a last resort, when cornered or blocked from exiting safely, let it rip. Whip out whatever you got and try to keep going; but if they’re spraying stuff at me I’d drop ’em. Hopefully also someone is playing the game and dialing up 911, for what it’s worth.
On the trolley? It’d be nice to shoo the goblins away, gee, otherwise normal-looking white guys, right?, by waving the handgun around for them and yelling. But if they’ve already begun stabbing people then fuck that, drop ’em. Nice crouching shot UP at the goblin there in one of the scenes, yeah, that works. At some point we have to stop wetting our pants about over-penetration and shrapnel flying around when the immediate threat is directly in front of us and we gotta do something about it real fast.
I agree with Dave.
Also I’m surprised that you think few other patrons would be armed. You’re in Texas, right? Here in NC, a fair percentage of women keep gubs* in their purses, and more than a few of the men would probably also be carrying concealed. Or openly, for that matter.
* Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run
Bank Teller #1: Does this look like “gub” or “gun”?
Bank Teller #2: Gun. See? But what does “abt” mean?
Virgil: It’s “act”. A-C-T. Act natural. Please put fifty thousand dollars into this bag and act natural.
Bank Teller #1: Oh, I see. This is a holdup?
You don’t carry a Claymore mine when you go out in public? -shrug- To each his own, I guess.
I also make do with one or two selective fire long guns and a couple of frag grenades. Claymores are great, but they take too long to set up. They also get you talked about.
Pardon me for being off today’s main topic of discussion, but I came across this. It looks like an almost perfect bugout home:
http://gizmodo.com/you-can-take-this-little-wind-and-solar-powered-home-an-1706538003
“Ecocapsule has been designed by Nice Architects -a young architectural studio based in Bratislava, Slovakia.”
“Take the Money and Run” will still put me on the floor laughing myself to death; that was when Woody made funny movies. Now he ain’t so funny anymore and hasn’t been for a very long time. The scene in the prison where he’s attempting to fold laundry is a killer, one of the best ever in any comedy.
Grenades? They’re wicked pissah, as we used to say down in Masshole country. There’s gotta be a way to make them at home. Not that I would.
That pod capsule would be OK for vacations or sumthin, but as a permanent domicile for me? No thanks; I’m too large and claustrophobic. I’ll take my chances in this 200-year-old pile of bricks.
@nick, got URL for the Cleveland pepper spray incidents?
@Mr. Lynn:
http://sputniknews.com/us/20150524/1022518794.html
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2015/05/24/thugs-pepper-spray-restaurant-patrons-in-cleveland/
Claymores are great, but they take too long to set up. They also get you talked about.
No they don’t.
Yes they do.
and:
http://www.wcpo.com/news/state/state-ohio/hundreds-protest-few-arrests-after-cleveland-cop-found-not-guilty
“No they don’t.
Yes they do.”
They didn’t take long for you, MrAtoz, ’cause you didn’t bother reading the warning and just set ’em up any old how. That’s why you dodgin’ fragging charges, probably.
In one of the Stross Laundry series books, they set up a Claymore that has stenciled on the business side “This Side Toward Life Insurance Claimant”.
That’s pretty funny!
We need home-build designs for grenades and Claymores posthaste.
You gear-heads, chemists, etc., get on the stick.
I’ll handle the marketing and Mr. SteveF will do the testing. (he’s evidently of a mind to tote one around all the time anyway.)
Setting up a Claymore, IIRC: lever out the little feet, pop the cover off one of the places where you stick the detonator, put the mine down approximately level and with the convex side toward the enemy, open the package with the detonator and wire, push in the detonator, walk away while uncoiling the wire, get behind cover, make sure the detonator’s safety is engaged, attach the two wires to the squeeze detonator.
Elapsed time: two minutes or less. I’m pretty sure that if I practiced it twice I’d be able to do it in under a minute even with my busted-up fingers.
No, two minutes is way too long if three “playful youths” are heading toward you with pepper spray or for any other reason. However, Claymores are not a close quarters self defense device. They’re a crowd control device. If you know or suspect a mob is heading your way, that is a perfect time to set up your Claymores. Oh, sure, you could retreat from the mob, but we’re civilized men (and allegedly women, though approximately none comment here) and it’s not seemly for civilization to retreat from barbarism.
Field-expedient home defense Claymore: mount a pair of wooden or other strips along the sides of your front doorway, with half a dozen or so 12 ga. shells in each strip, with an electrically-activated striker behind each shell. Run the wire up to a battery and switch in your bedroom, so it can be activated in case you think thugs want to come in. Optionally set up a sensor on the doorframe so they’ll go off automatically if someone breaks the door down.
I may hypothetically have built and tested a prototype with a manual switch. Twelve shells may hypothetically have been fired by pairs in about a second.
Besides crowd control, them buggers were/are useful for perimeter control outside a temporary bivouac out in the sticks. But sometimes Mister Charles figured that out and cut the wires. He could be pretty slick. But fuck him anyway; now we can learn better shit from our hadji pals over in the Sandbox with their nifty IEDs controlled with cell phones.
I like that doorway (or window) config; of course nowadays it might well be the cops/SWAT busting in on ya, without necessarily shouting out their ID in a coherent and intelligible manner at 03:00. You bring those library books back on time last week? Got organic carrots growing in yer back yard? Run a late-night poker game? Cut hair on the side?
Then you hit the switch and send several of them to the ER or the boneyard and guess what? The next visitors will arrive in Blackhawks or Apaches. Or maybe just a state cop sniper with a Remington 700 nicely scoped. Stay away from the windows, Grasshopper.
@steveF
@ofd
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not the only one who considered that standard tactics has the entry team stacking to each side of the door.
Spray nozzle in the porch ceiling, and a laundry dryer spark ignitor….
Little puff of non-dairy creamer and a spark…
‘course you better have a covert way out the back at that point….
@RBT there are 800k CHL holders in TX. Not sure of our overall population, but figure 1 in 4. An unfortunate number DON”T carry all the time. I look and I’ve only spotted 2 guys at Costco in the last year. Doesn’t mean there aren’t more, but I wouldn’t bet on any more than one or two out of 20-30 diners. After all, you’re just going to dinner with the family.
BTW I’d like to point out the escalation. They started out just disrupting diners, and yelling at them. Now it’s pepper spray. How long before a molotov thru the glass?
nick
Been working in the yard. popup projects are the BEST ;-P
BTDT, before I turned 16. Pretty damned effective, too, if I do say so myself.
And we wonder why no womyn comment here.
Oh yessir, pop-up projects really send me, too!
We need an updated version of the Boy Scouts, teaching practical skills for today’s America. Dealing with police, dealing with other gangs, protecting your online accounts, mounting a social media attack campaign, making explosives, making and using weapons, identifying incipient mob violence. Then, when someone brings up home-made Claymores, a guy can say “Psh, I got that merit badge when I was 16.”
Oh, and nick, I’d say that the knockout game, which is 99% conducted by the same slice of the American demographic as those who participate in 99% of the flash mobs, fun-loving urban youth groups, and social protests which happen to spill over into looting and arson, was an escalation dating back a few years.
You guys must all wear t-shirts with bulls-eyes painted on them,
both front and back !!!
AmIright ??
@sam,
maybe the IDPA “no shoot” target…
nick
@SteveF,
yep, it always escalates if they get away with it.
That’s why I don’t have any issue with the death penalty being applied during a robbery or other crime. Today pushing a shopkeeper around, tomorrow holding a gun to his head, next week shooting him pre-emptively to avoid being id’d.
nip it in the bud.
nick
Meh, I’m already on “the list”, assuming there is one, which of course there isn’t. I’ve been involved in real-life “potential domestic terrorist activities” such as voluntarily enlisting in the Army, getting a pistol permit as soon as I was old enough (side note: NYS sucks ass), working on the campaign staff of a candidate for state legislature who wanted to tear down all non-essential government activities (he got about 0.0000001% of the vote, not surprisingly), handing out fully-informed juror leaflets (and being threatened with arrest for a variety of bogus violations), conducting mini-seminars on what to do if the police come to your door, and working on strong cryptographic code and protocols and applications. According to the FBI’s standards last I knew them (which is forever ago, I’ll admit), my real-life history makes me a bazillion times more watch-worthy than any mouthing off on the internet that I’ve done.
“We need an updated version of the Boy Scouts…”
I second that emotion. Way updated. Include STD info, IED info for those idiotically signing up, like me, for the military, LSD intel for anyone still playing around with that like I also idiotically did, IRS Gestapo bumf for those, haha, planning to go to work and have their taxes confiscated right from their pay checks, just like the rest of us, and let’s not forget decent intel on evading the surveillance state and securing one’s commo.
Issue the same handbook to the Grrl Scouts and change some of the update info accordingly, like how to play boys and men like fiddles, manipulate family dynamics, and take advantage of the matriarchy-in-power while it lasts, ’cause after the chit hits the fan real good, feminism and its associated neo-Marxist ideologies will be deader than shit. We’ll be back to solid hardcore patriarchy again, despite one-armed Charlize Theron and the bleatings of Germaine Greer and Jane Fonda.
“…the knockout game…”
Haha, I long earnestly for the day some group of playful teens try that one on me. I’ll even let them have the first shot; lessee what they got.
“You guys must all wear t-shirts with bulls-eyes…”
Say, that’s a darn good ideer!
As one of my erstwhile net pals has said more than once, “we’re all made.” But they’ll probably grab up Mr. Bob and Mr. SteveF before me, ’cause I’m a hardcore patriotic Murkan vet and ex-cop and Christian Believer. I’ll visit them at the compound, though, and try to slip them toolz and suchlike, maybe some cookies.
@OFD
“compound” ??
You mean the re-education camp ??
They’ll all be so busy when the SHTF, that they won’t have any time to mess around with any preppers. They’ll be so busy trying to keep all the looters under control !!
Groups of playful teens tend to get quiet when I glower at them. All but the stupidest people (and I’ll admit that teenage boys are generally classified as “stupidest people”) recognize a bigger predator when they see one. That said, I’ve noticed that when I’m not in a foul mood, people sometimes talk to me when I’m walking to work. Unacceptable! One guy even tried to mooch “just a little change for the bus” sometime last year. There’s obviously something different in my body language, but I haven’t been able to figure out what.
I did somewhat-accidentally break up a playful group of youths who were moving toward a youngish woman by herself, a year or two ago. I was going down a long flight of stairs toward my car (Albany is rather hilly, and there’s a 54-step flight of stairs from one street down to the street where I had parked) at my usual “controlled fall” speed, saw the playful group, accelerated, and plowed into them just as they were about to take the last step to get within arms’ reach of her. They all went crashing down, alas not like a triangle of bowling pins but more like a half dozen brain damaged marionettes with their strings cut. I don’t know if they were planning on a fun little game of knockout, were planning on mugging her, or were just going for a bit of aggressive panhandling. Doesn’t matter. I escorted her to her car, ignoring their muttered threats, and made sure to park elsewhere for a while. I’m not at all worried about being mugged (I’ve mentioned that I used to play Death Wish, right? A jackass or three looking for easy pickings is no threat.) but my car being vandalized in my absence would just piss me off and lead to a situation which might spur the Albany Donut Department to get off their wide behinds.
@SteveF
Such incredible prose. You ought to be writing novels, or at least short stories. Perhaps detective thrillers ??!! Book sales could help pay for legal counsel and court costs. 🙂 Sorry, just couldn’t stop myself. Guess I’m just one of those SPs. Did you get her phone number ?? But you really do describe it well.
Eh? What court costs? There was merely an unfortunate collision between me and a group of playful youths who were no doubt about to offer to safely escort the young woman to her car. It was dark and unsafe under the smashed-out streetlights, after all, and she might have been at risk of a mugging if the public-spirited young men weren’t there to keep her safe. For my part, I didn’t see them on account of the darkness and it was all just a big mistake.
@sam
“They’ll be so busy trying to keep all the looters under control !!”
Hah, they’ll be busy keeping the looters away from the really nice parts of town. The rest of us will be inside the cordon. There hasn’t been one riot in the last year where they tried to “keep them under control.” Doctrine seems to be treat it like a wildfire. Set up firebreaks to limit the spread, and let it burn itself out. ‘Course that didn’t work so well during Rodney King, because the sparks were so widespread. Still, no mansions were burned, right? If you had a business in a strip mall in Hollywood, you were SOL.
I missed the fun and games on that particular party by only a few minutes. I drove past milling crowds but by the time I got home, 20 minutes later and turned on the tv, the strip malls were on fire.
I spent a couple of days with smoke blowing in my front door, and watching my city burn.
That’s why I keep pointing out that “Don’t be there” isn’t a strategy. It can and does come to you where ever you are.
nick
Oh, and I do write short stories and novellas. Some under my name, some under a variety of pseudonyms, one novel written per strict guidelines under a big-name author’s name. (Protip: unless you’re a starving writer in desperate need of cash, don’t go for the ghost writing gig. If my experience is any guide, the money isn’t good enough for the work, the re-work, the re-re-work, and the aggravation. On the plus side, the publisher paid promptly on acceptance of the manuscript.)
@SteveF
I thought so, you seem to be a natural – just like Bob.
Wish he would write some fiction too. Maybe someday,
after he retires??
@nick
That’s why I have my full-frame backpack ready to go at all times, with tent and sleeping bag, etc. The Stanislaus Forest is practically my backyard. How to disappear completely!! Been living here for 30+ years!!
How To Disappear Completely – (free ebook)
by David Bowick
http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/3115/how-to-disappear-completely
Back in the forest I’d be more worried about hungry bears than hungry people. 🙂 And we do have the occasional stray tearing up the garbage cans!! And having the local pets for snacks !!!
“That’s why I keep pointing out that “Don’t be there” isn’t a strategy. It can and does come to you where ever you are.”
No, it’s common sense; don’t be where trouble is likely to be also, according to the percentages, i.e., the wrong ‘hoods, near the downtown of a major city while Occupy Whatever is going on or a “peaceful demonstration” about whatever, or walk out to your car in a distant unlit parking lot at night alone without being in Condition Orange and armed accordingly. We live in interesting times which are about to get more interesting.
Sure, trouble can come wherever I am; but here in northern rural Vermont it’s more likely to be a runaway cow or draft horse than a mob of screeching revenants piling down the road to loot my collected Shakespeare and assorted computer books. Or, as economic conditions worsen and dope becomes more prevalent among the underclass elements in our region, we’ll get attempted B&E’s like we had here in the immediate ‘hood a couple of weeks ago, even with people home and in their beds across the street. They’re smash-and-grab imbeciles so far, but I can imagine sooner or later we’ll get some clever bastards who case the houses and arrive in home-invasion numbers at the weak points.
When that starts occurring, I’ll be ginning up a discussion with neighbors and the police about a combined “watch” operation and trying to organize something. Individuals operating alone are not gonna last long; we need to form up teams.
Otherwise, yeah; even if you live in the currently safe outskirts of a major city like Houston or NYC or Chicago, the goblins will eventually swarm out to your area, which is why I keep harping on the need to bail as soon as practically possible. Despite presence of other family members who refuse to move and/or heavy investment in real estate and business locally. It’s not worth your life to stay anymore.
And I’d put my money where my big fat mouth is; if over the course of a couple of years we were seeing a mass influx of tens of thousands of much different people moving in here without our same values, for example, and traffic and noise and crime was increasing geometrically with no end in sight, hell yeah, we’d sell this joint and roll on outta here. Let alone if half the pop moving in was mostly criminals and thugs and illegals.
@OFD, I guess I’m not making my point very well. There is no ‘safe place’ to move to, and sometimes you have to be in a dangerous place.
On the day of the Rodney King riots I was at work. If you wanted to make a living in entertainment, Hollywood was where you needed to be. So I was in Hollywood. The main body of looters started south of LA, and moved north up La Brea Av thru Beverly, and into Hollywood. The non-stop coverage (for those who weren’t at work) encouraged locals to get out and do their own thing too. We did leave, just in time, but my point was that we were just doing our thing, same as every other day, and trouble came looking for us.
On 9-11 I was working in New Jersey at the Meadowlands. My crew, and almost all the attendees at my event were from the City. I watched it play out live on TV in the venue office. To say that that day and the next few were surreal is an understatement. Once again, trouble found me.
Time and time again, ordinary folks going about their ordinary business find themselves faced with violence or disaster. “Don’t be there” is one of those things that boils down to the facile answer. Too often it’s used to shut down discussion or thought of real issues. (Not saying that about this conversation.) “If you want to avoid criminals don’t go where criminals are” is trite, pat, and facile. It presumes that there is a mythical place where there AREN’T criminals. Yet we see from everyday life that they are everywhere. They are in our churches, stores, schools, on our roads, in our homes, and at our workplaces. They are in our families, friends with our kids, walking by on the street.
The idea that we can avoid crime by avoiding criminals has some merit, if we say “don’t go looking for trouble” or “avoid high risk areas and behaviors.” Those two things REDUCE the risks. But they don’t eliminate it.
If you aren’t prepared to deal with violence or disaster, wherever you are you won’t be prepared when it finds you.
My basic issue with the “don’t be there” idea is that it ignores reality. Most people need to go to work, and most don’t have a whole lot of choices when it comes to where. Most people would find it VERY difficult to change their living arrangements. It comes down to the old joke, “Dr it hurts when I do this… Well then don’t do that!” Yes there is some truth, but it’s less than helpful when “doing that” is something that is part of your life.
Argg, tired sore and cranky is no way to go thru life….. or the evening.
I better pack it in.
nick
“updated version of the Boy Scouts”
Um…would that be these Boy Scouts.
-scratch head- I’m totally not getting what you’re saying. If you took those away, there’d be nothing left of me. Well, there’d be the multilingual puns, but nothing else.
I think we’re all saying basically the same thing. No, there aren’t any “safe” areas in an absolute sense, but clearly the level of danger varies hugely between some areas and others. As to being forced by personal circumstances to spend time in or transit more dangerous areas, change your personal circumstances. That may be more easily said than done for many people, but the advent of the Internet has made it much easier for many people. For example, I decided twenty years ago to make my living doing something that I could do at home with that home being located anywhere with an Internet connection and a post office.
Here are some places to stay the hell away from; forty of them are in the United States of Amnesia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population
They’re all over a million in pop, but I’d avoid any over 100k if possible.
Is your nearby city among them?