Statistically Speaking

Okay, everybody here knows I'm pro-guns, pro-self defense, pro-shoot the bastards. But I'm here to offer some words of encouragement to those who cower in fear of the scary dangerous gun that's gonna cause the destruction of mankind. It ain't gonna happen to you. That's right, you heard correctly. It's not going to happen to you. And statistics back me up. You have a .005% chance of making the violent crime stats in the United States. .005%! Dayum, huh?

That means it's not gonna happen to you, it's not gonna happen to your friends, your family. No, it'll happen to the family 4 streets over who you don't know, so that's okay. It'll happen to the people in the next neighborhood over, who's kid is in your kid's class. It'll happen to the school lunch lady who grumps at the latest changes in the school diet. But it will not happen to you. So rest at ease! And continue to promote gun control, safe in the fact that these other unarmed citizens are getting what is not going to happen to you...but...

It wasn't going to happen to them either. It was a total and complete statistical improbability that it could happen to them. A .005% chance that they would end up a statistic for violent crime. So if it wasn't going to happen to them, and it's not going to happen to you. It sure as hell ain't gonna happen to me. I'm workin' on gettin' something to carry. If ya live in Texas, here's a tip. Antique guns and replicas of those antique guns. But I digress. The thing is, criminals go after the easy targets. The school lunch lady who's a bit on the obese side, the yuppy parents who live four streets over. The minority couple in the next neighborhood who can hardly speak the language. Sure we'll rationalize it. She couldn't run fast enough, they brought it on themselves with their yuppy-mobile beamer. The criminals thought they were badmouthing them in a foreign language, or maybe it's just the neighborhood. Problem is, it still leaves us with that bit of fear in the back of our mouths. If it happened to them, it could happen to me.

My father, great man, love him to death, told me the chances are astronomical that the house would get broken into; and of course, he's right. It is less than a one percent chance that My home would be picked for the next burglary. Hell, I figure I should feel real safe, but I don't. Yeah, the neighborhood is small houses set right close together, there's a cop sittin' along the main stretch in, and of course, the fact that the houses are right up to the road isn't a big plus for a prospective burglar. But it's still a possibility. Just like the chances that a drug operation was operating out of the house and the end of the street were astronomical, guess what, it happened.

Statistically speaking, everybody should be safe, since your chances are so slim. But realistically speaking, somebody has to be part of that slim margin, and if the people who are aren't prepared, then that violent crime could easily turn into murder, or even rape (Yes, even for the men, as horrific as that sounds.)

I'm going to end with this. I'm not an expert. I'm not a dedicated researcher of these subjects. But what I am, I am a private citizen who is looking for a way to exercise his constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and since I will be armed, and (hopefully) at least minimally professient in the usage of the firearm, I will be prepared, just in case that statistical improbability turns out to be more probable than I'd prefer. Can you all say the same?