----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 7:04 PM Subject: Re: Most Dangerous States
> > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 6:00 PM > Subject: Re: Most Dangerous States > > > > > The molehill is not 100% fatal. Many people are shot each year and > survive. > > > > > > > And many more don't. Your chances of surviving are extremely greater if > you > > don't get shot at all. > > > > Sure, and you don't die in traffic accidents if you don't hit others cars. > But more people are killed by cars every year than by firearms. And, many more people lose money in traffic accidents than from crimes every year. So, maybe we worry to much about crime in general. The real question is the relative merit of stopping crimes by arming oneself with a gun in the nightstand vs. the demerits of that action. Indeed, if you talk about assaults, both physical and sexual, one is much much more likely to be assaulted by a family member or a friend of the family than by a stranger. Incest is far far more prevalent than sexual assaults by strangers assaulting a woman on the street; and is overwhelmingly more likely than someone breaking into a house to rape a woman. I realize that folks talk about these folks being monsters and needing to seriously punish them. But, if the numbers used by people working with victims and survivors are right, roughly 1 in 20 men (maybe 1 in 25) are pedophiles. 10%-20% of women have been sexually assaulted as youth/children. Priests and kids make the headlines, but, as my wife Teri pointed out, odds are the numbers of priest perpetrators that make the press are low because they are much lower than one would expect if the fraction of perps among priests are the same as society in general. In short, look around at the guys you hang with, and if there are >30 of them, odds are that one has been or is a perpetrator In reality, these guys don't go to jail, its the folks who commit less serious crimes and are not good at hiding them or defending themselves that go to jail. In particular, the jails are full of drug offenders. Yet, the more serious perpetrators are protected by their victims, so the family doesn't have the shame associated with being a bad family. This makes the division between the criminal type and the law abiding citizen type much harder to define. I think we think of the criminal type as folks we don't know who are likely to hurt folks that they don't know, including us. The others are not really important. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
