The one I saw interviewed (who, BTW, also happened to be black) knew that drawing his weapon was not a good idea, so that’s why he grabbed a small child and ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction. The parents followed.
The police officer killed in that nightclub shooting a couple months ago died from “friendly fire” - i.e. he was accidentally shot by another officer. I just couldn’t imagine having to live with that.
What really bothers me about crime demographics is when women pooh-pooh male crime victims, because wimmin. I don’t get it either. Wrong is wrong.
An aggressive opening demand, but I can work with it. Marriage is overrated these days and really has nothing to do with love or babies. So let’s not worry about out-of-wedlock spawn. We should eliminate gangsta rap, but also country music (Western is fine–that’s all about keeping oneself to oneself, but that jingoistic, hypermasculine hillbilly shit is toxic). On the guns let’s just ban automatic & semiautomatic rifles and see how that works.
Will top guns like Gerry Miculek need to be registered? Miculek can probably kill more people with a six-shot revolver than your usual loony with an AR-15.
Marriage or the lack of it has a great deal to do with negative social outcomes of various sorts, since children raised by single parents (usually the mother) drop out of high school more, have lower educational outcomes in general, are more likely to commit a crime, are at greater risk of emotional disturbance, are more likely to be poor, if they are male are more likely to commit rape, and are at increased risk of abuse, including sexual abuse.
So you need to work a little harder with it, because you are mistaken.
This. The two couples I know who have been together the longest and seem the happiest have never been married. Also I’m in a committed relationship and although we’ve considered getting married, other than the party there doesn’t seem to be a good reason.
Same kind of response is applied to issues of Islamic religious terrorism. Comfortable Americans suggest that followers of Islam should rein in the terrorists who assert they are doing Allah’s will. But they are not at all comfortable if that question is turned on them. I once called out The Washington Post, hoary old liberal institution that it was, for using the term “Islamic terror” but not calling equivalent Irish troubles “Catholic terror” or abortion-clinic bombings “Baptist terror.” They published my letter (mysteriously changing “Islamic” to “Muslim” terror), but roundly failed to call out Western religiously-inspired terror (or terror claiming to be religious.)
Most of us “white” people are far too comfortable calling on perceived others to police their own demographic but entirely blind to the idea that we should do the same – because we don’t think we have a demographic. Other people belong to this or that ethnic group and are responsible for that group’s reputation; we’re just people, not an ethnic group. This is one of the things activists call “privilege.”
So what? That could be said of practically half the U.S. population.
Heck–one could say that most right wing race terrorists also went to elementary school when they were children, celebrated birthdays and holidays, had access to computers and the internet, and had popcorn and soda at the movie theater at some point in their life.
Depends on what he did to “save some”. In this case, it appears he didn’t use his gun at all, so no, that doesn’t count any more than the hundreds of other people who ran as fast as they could helping someone next to them. Having a gun played no role.
That’s the stray bullet problem: all the bullets fired by any armed “responders” (police or civilian) go somewhere. If they don’t hit the shooter, where do they go? Do they hit someone else?
Then there’s the case of the black man in Florida who pulled his gun in response to a shooter and was helping other people get out, he was shot by a security guard who mistakenly thought he was one of the shooters. OOPS!
That’s the problem with being an armed civilian in the zone. How does anyone tell the good from the bad? You pull your gun in case you see the shooter you can shoot back, someone else does the same, then you see each other and think “there’s the shooter”. Or law enforcement does.
You addressed a different point than the one Inigo Montoya was making. People can love each other and have a long-term relationship without getting married. People can have babies and raise them in a two-parent home without getting married. Marriages don’t mean permanent or even stable relationships - consider the divorce rate and consider people who live miserable family lives but are married.
It is true that marriage is a socially sanctioned way to establish a stable basis for a family. It’s not the only one, and doesn’t work as well as people might like.
Also, your assumptions are showing when you mention “drop out of high school”. High school kids having babies is it’s own problem. In most cases, marriage at that age wouldn’t help, and would arguably hurt both the parents and the baby.
It’s a valid response to the claim that marriage is important in reducing crime. We’re talking about a specific type of crime here, and the facts don’t support that claim.
I just couldn’t imagine having to live with that.