Well some people have schools that are borderline "shady" at best; and even here they have police guarding and walking around, especially in jr. high or high school. Some schools have banned backpacks; that's one solution.
Kids can readily understand that since "a few choose to disobey"; we must check things to make sure everyone is safe. I'm sure they would rather do that than be in the middle of a horrifying shooting.
You say "homeland security is a joke", but then you say you feel safe. Then why did we form homeland security and billions of YOUR tax dollars go to them? It was because we were attacked in a way never expected, and thousands were killed.
I feel fairly safe in my town, but never go out at night, never walk alone, lock my car, I keep my eyes and ears open; but it is notorious that people will be under a car and grab you in a parking lot; steal Xmas packages. Women have been raped in the parking lot. Every night the evening news is full of crime; I don't even watch it.
If we're so safe; why do so many houses have security systems?
I AGREE that we're more likely to die in a car accident; I'm very careful every day.
Your children will get older and want to go to peoples houses; as teenagers they'll want to go to the mall and walk around. I see mounted police and police on sedgways; but they surely can't be everywhere at once.
Mental health is a huge issue, but most know that the availability of that for folks has declined. 40 million families without insurance.
In Europe I'll bet they're very careful who gets on trains, etc., because of terrorism. London has cameras and I know they have a very fast-response system. If people know this, they are less likely to do terrorist acts or crimes.
When we've had 4 huge mass shootings in a years; it's something to be alarmed about. We can't just forget and walk on....
You say you could always produce something countering my statistics; but the fact is you don't and cant. I'm quoting recent assessments that have been widely on various news channels, valid reports; that the crime rate has risen two years in a row, and that police are being gunned down by assault weapons, at a rate 50% higher than last year. They are already training and upping their weapons. They showed films of it on the ABC news.
The answer to why? The Republican Congress let the assault weapon BAN EXPIRE last year. What they were thinking, I don't know. They were listening to NRA statistics and reasoning, which are "cooked".
I do think small towns are safer - maybe you live in a small, nice place but most people these days have to deal with dangers; our country is a fairly unsafe place considering our affluence and education level.
I think perhaps that you and I have different approaches in our beliefs about how and why people feel safe. IMHO, people do or don't feel safe based on their own cumulative personal experiences with the world. If, time and again, the world has been harmful to them, they come to view it as unsafe. If, time and again, the world has not been harmful to them, they come to view it as safe.
How safe we feel is not based on the "statistics" we read - which, as you and I both know, can be (and often are!) made to show that any hypothesis under the sun, no matter how ludicrous and erroneous, is absolutely true. How safe we feel is not based on what we are shown on the news or read in papers and magazines - because, and again you and I both know this - these sources are so slanted towards the negative that goes on in our world that they are biased to the point of silliness.
When "news" sources give at least equal time to the good that people do every single minute of every single day, then and only then can we possibly consider the bad or dangerous in any sort of genuine perspective. (And by the way - this equal time of the tremendous amount of good news going on would have to be broadcast for years and years and years to come close to catching up with the negative in our societal consciousness!)
The government spent billions on homeland security because they felt like they had to show they were doing
something - no matter how ineffectual that something actually is - to apear powerful and in control to the country and the world! That's a very masculine, human response to being attacked. But it's nothing but BS macho posturing - which is of course one of the reasons we started the war in Iraq. But BS macho posturing is not
real - it is sound and fury signifying nothing.
It's to the government's advantage to keep people fearful. Fearful people are very easy to control!!
Atlanta, Georgia's not a huge place, but it's not a small place. (I was at Centennial Park when it was bombed and worked tirelessly for the people killed and wounded in that incident when I was involved in their lawsuit). We're not huge, but like any other place I suspect we have enough crime here to be getting on with.
You say I can't and won't produce "facts" that support my contention that the world is safer and more unified today than it ever has been, but I can and will, if you like. I don't know that this is the thread for it. Perhaps we could open a new one. I suspect we would spend page after page debating each other's stories and sources - which I, who like to debate, would be happy to do.
But I believe in the end, neither or us would sway much from our feelings about safety. As I said earlier, I believe how safe you or I or anyone else feels is based primarily on our individual life experiences. All the current news and statistics do is serve to whip people into a frenzy of fear. But I can't possibly take thiese things too seriously until there is a fair counter balance.
Yes, the bad stuff exists and we should address it. But no, I don't feel like things are so bad that we need metal detectors and armed guards and all that jazz. Again - just my opinion based on my experiences and observations.
Every single day for years and years and years I have seen and experienced (on a personal, community and international level) more people behaving kindly and nobly and lovingly than the opposite. But you won't hear about that on the evening news and few people will care to do a study "proving" it.
