The gun lunacy in the US just boggles n croggles me. From CNN.com:
According to the FBI, in the entire country in 2011 there were just 201 justifiable homicides committed with guns by private citizens. There are over 300 million guns in America, which means that about 1 out of every 1.5 million guns was actually used for lethal self-defense. According to the National Weather Service, your chance of being hit by lightning this year is a mere 1 in 1 million.
The paucity of training in statistics and how to understand them is obviously part of the NRA strategy. If you scare someone, they are at a disadvantage for staying rational. It’s a fact of the human brain. In fact, the ability to force one’s brain into staying rational while scared out of your tiny mind is one of the things that distinguishes humans from critters. Not everyone is so gifted, though.
I came up with another lovely line for my notebook last night. “Darwin backed into a meatgrinder and assembled something from the chunks” (with respect to an ugly critter from a video game, but could be more widely applied… Jeff is playing Borderlands II and there’s some UUUUGly critters.)
SO TEMPTED to go with Tammy to New Orleans in March.