[geeks] What desk toy or "tchotchke" says "geek" to you?

[Phil Stracchino]

Chris Petrov wrote:
> at no point did I say "ban handguns" I'm simply questioning the  
> rationale behind taking it to work with you and everywhere else you  
> go and to what end? particularly given the escalating rate of  
> depression in disaffected youth.

Well, the basic problem here is that you don't know in advance when
you're going to need it.  It's sort of like car insurance -- if you knew
in advance when you were going to get in an accident, you could drive
uninsired and buy insurance that morning, take a different route that
day, or just not drive on that day.  But you don't know, so you buy
insurance.

Carrying a pistol is like that too.  You don't do anything stupid, you
practice situational awareness, you don't go looking for trouble, but
you carry anyway because you never know when it may find you despite
your best efforts.

To what end?  Well, first of all, the police are not, and cannot be,
everywhere.  Assuming you get a chance to call 911, it may take them
time to get there.  And when they do, it may be too late, or they may
not realize anything was wrong.  There's a legal-landmark case in New
Jersey in which several men forced their way into a house occupied by
two women, one of whom managed to call 911.  By the time the police
arrived, the house was quiet, no-one answered the door, so lacking a
warrant for entry, they looked around outside, didn't see anything, and
drove off.  The two women were subsequently repeatedly beaten, tortured
 and raped over a period of 16 hours or so before one of them managed to
escape.

Out of this case came a Supreme Court ruling that the police cannot be
held responsible for failing to protect you.  And that's the key lesson:
The police CANNOT protect you, nor is it their job.  Their job is to
enforce the law, to catch the perpetrator, and to clean up the mess.
Protecting yourself is your responsibility, and one which American
citizens have been repeatedly taking back the legal right to carry out.
 (I think it was Kansas whose legislature just passed a shall-issue
concealed carry law, overriding its second veto by the Governor.)


-- 
 Phil Stracchino                     Landline: 603-886-3518
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net         Mobile: 603-216-7037
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater