By Gabby
My super-dooper lefty friend, has just sent me a third article in two weeks about a crime that ended with a criminal shot by the intended victim. The first two stories, she passed to me with a comment stating that, I am wrong, the news does cover gun owners who fight back against criminal targeting. The third article came with no note, just a link. All three were local stories, two involved home break-ins and one was a hold-up in a diner. The articles did not mention any deaths stemming from these shootings and in all three cases, the police did not intend to charge the victims. However, if asked, she would still definitively say that she doesn't think the average citizen should own a gun.In her attempts to prove me wrong about media biases, I wonder if these stories are having any impact on my friend's views of criminal activity or self defense. She, like myself, grew up in New York City, where it's rare that a young person will get held up at gun point, but one that doesn't pay attention may get mugged or pick-pocketed. I didn't grow up scared to walk down the street alone, but I did keep in mind that if I didn't walk with purpose and pay attention to my surroundings, I could be targeted. She really does have a certain level of street smarts and toughness, but still I wonder... Does she not see how any of these stories could, just as easily, happen to her?
One story she sent me was about a man who walked into his apartment, in a new Atlanta building, to find two men robbing his home. He chased and shot one of the men, while the other hid. It was later uncovered that one of the two robbers, lived in the building! I can't help but ask, as a single woman who lives in a large complex in the middle of the city, how can she not see the parallels?
2 comments:
Seeing parallels can often be clouded by lack of exposure and experience. I remember seeing the commercials of hungry and starving children that Sally Struthers campaigned for on tv when I was a kid and teenager. When I went to the middle east and saw first hand the conditions and what people were being subjected to I then had a hard connect in my brain to see the big picture. Some people are better at disconnecting either by principle or moral ambiguity to stick to an ideal that they hold close. Every human is guilty of that I would think. But reality and absolute truth do not change only the perception of them by the beholder.
B
Emotion clouds Logic.
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