Posted on 10/21/2002 1:38:25 PM PDT by RobFromGa
Since this is such a hotly contested topic that tends to hijack other news-related threads and turn them into flame-wars, I thought I'd set up a new thread just for this debate.
I know it's not likely I'll be shot. I know I might sooner be robbed, get in a car accident, be struck by lightning, be kidnapped by aliens. But the patternlessness of the shooter is unnerving.
I'm less aware of the fear - or rather, it rests more at the back of my mind - when my children aren't with me. The thing that bothers me most is the thought of walking out of the grocery store with the kids and either being shot in front of them, or else seeing one of them taken out. Those thoughts nearly undo me. I'm not nearly as concerned - at least not with an active, forefront kind of fear - when it's just me.
So I grocery shop when I don't have the kids with me. I make sure to pump gas when they aren't with me. There's no good way to guess, based on "patterns," which gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. are safe. So it's a guessing game - the only thing I can really do to ensure that my very worst nightmares aren't fulfilled is to see to it that when I do these things, my children aren't with me.
I don't zigzag whenever I'm walking in the open. I'd look ridiculous. But I have made some minor changes to my life, aside from running errands that seem to be the shooter's favorite situations when the kids aren't with me. I try to gas up off the main highway. I try to run my errands in the middle of the day, or at least not between 5 and 9 p.m. If there's an incident, say, at a gas station on Wednesday, I try to gas up shortly thereafter since the shooter seems to have decided to take no more than one kill every couple of days. (I know that one's kind of shaky logic, but it makes me feel better, which is the object of these exercises in change; no changes can REALLY make you safer, short of staying in your house fearfully watching the news - it's all about what an individual can somewhat rationally do to make himself/herself FEEL better and less afraid.) When I'm walking to my car from a store, or when I'm putting gas in my car, I try to keep an eye out for spots where someone might have a good shooting advantage. I look for unusual people or things that just don't feel right when I see them. (Other than the guy I saw doing tai chi in front of Ruby Tuesday's in Centreville over the weekend, these instances of unusualness are few and far-between.)
None of my changes are major, but they make me feel more in control in a situation in which I have virtually no control - and it's THAT, rather than actually being able to make myself truly safer, that gives such changes value. I don't choose to serpentine across the parking lot on the way to work, but if it works for someone else, far be it from me to try to take that away from him/her, even if it seems silly to me. What I'm doing works for me, even if others think I'm taking undue precautions. I think it's very much a YMMV situation and nobody's fears or concerns are invalid, be they greater or smaller than mine or those of someone not living close to here.
If nothing else, not doing errands with the kids makes me feel less inclined to wring their necks because they're bouncing off the walls when I need them to NOT pick up everything they see from the endcaps. And it would behoove us all, I think, to be generally more aware of our surroundings and what's going on around us as we're out and about. So there are fringe benefits to my life changes that are unrelated to the shooter. Or maybe that's just me rationalizing what I'm doing. But hey - it floats my boat, and as long as what I'm doing isn't bothering anyone else, that's what matters, right?
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