OT: Americans love their guns

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

Steve Lamb <grey at despair.dmiyu.org> wrote previously:
|No, that isn't the question.  The question is when someone breaks
|into my home which do I want more in my hand, a .45 (is a caliber, not a
|quote) or a banana.

I'll take the banana.  I'd rather be out a stereo and a laptop than be
dead in a gun fight (or even than harm someone else who merely wants my
money).

|Do this simple test [...absurd story of criminal pathos and bathos...]

The VAST majority of gun violence (or any violence) is between people
who know each other well:  husbands, wives, children, parents, friends,
etc.  Loved ones without guns are many, many times less likely to kill
each other.  Well, actually, the majority is suicide--which roughly
falls under the category described also.

Sure it sounds gruesome to get struck by lightning at the moment you are
getting run over by a railroad... but frankly, it ain't gonna happen.
On the other hand, keeping poison out of reach of children, for example,
seems like a sensible action, even if the much more likely resulting
death wouldn't make for quite as colorful a story as the train/lightning
thing.

Yours, Lulu...