Yeah, I'm glad she took one too. She actually doesn't have a gun yet, and she plans on taking a refresher before getting one.

I don't know if the girls would know what to do or not. Frankly, they're already being stupid when they go out at night. *Everyone* gets a huge lecture at the beginning of the year about the dangers of jogging alone at night. Even though our police force is the third largest in the district, they can't be everywhere at once. So...basically their feelings of safety can't be trusted.

When I move out onto my own, I'll probably take a course and at least have a handgun in my house/apartment/cardboard box. But basically, here in this town, the options for a girl walking around off campus are (a, walk with a large group of girls, (b, walk with some guys you *trust*, or (c, take a handgun course and carry it with you. The campus also provides a free transportation service.

Personally, handguns don't make me feel safer. If I have one, it will be because I feel I need it for protection. Thus, my safety supposedly lies in a piece of machinery. Also, a handgun does nothing if you aren't actually willing to use it when necessary. If you tell someone to stop or you'll shoot and they come closer, they'll figure out that you can't handle the gun if you spaz out.

It was weird, though. One time (a little off-topic), my aunt and I were talking about this sort of thing (she's only a few years older than me ^_^). She's pro-gun control. But something she said interested me. She told me that she believed in gun control in that only people with clean records and who had taken a required amount of gun courses should have them. She said that, though she's personally against handguns, she feels in reality that if guns are outlawed, then, besides police and military, only outlaws would have guns. So if a criminal, having gotten a hold of a gun illegally attacks you, you can't defend yourself with equal strength. It was a really interesting conversation.

Completely, way off-the-charts, nowhere near the topic, the campus police have TAZERS! Yup! The guy speaking at our dorm (an all-female dorm) said that he hoped that he'd never use it on us (mainly because it'd hurt his pride...having to resort to using it on a girl and all ^_^), but warned us that if we saw the police pull it out, to scatter. A little red dot appears on the target's chest and then BAM! They're flopping on the ground with some serious voltage for about five seconds. It was cool.

Tazers are real! Live long and prosper!

*pops in Revenge of Khan*

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What if there is a spoon?

That thing with guns being outlawed so only the outlaws have guns is pretty much the case over here. Outlaws and farmers (farmers and gun club members legally with licenses), anyway. Police only carry guns only certain circumstances. But I'm still glad that guns have to be licensed and so are not owned by the majority of people. It's a bit of a problem that with the war in Bosnia and other conflicts that a lot of guns have been smuggled in illegally, and so far more criminals and tough-guy gang members have them than, say, 15 years ago.

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."

If the gun registries worked, I'd be all for them.

I forget the stats, though, but the vast majority of crimes are either with properly registered guns in cases where there is no question of who to blame, or with guns that aren't registered (either imported or stolen).

Likewise, most of the damage done by guns is by people who wouldn't be affected by a gun course -- either not take, or not listen, or no brain to start with.

I'm sorta on the fence for this one. The law enforcement folks have to have ready access to enough firepower to down the baddies, and fast. Yes, investigate later, and definitely do lots of training for alternatives and how to talk someone calmer, but, when it comes right down to it, a foot-wound puts some people into shock, and others continue after chest-wounds. And I'd rather the cop survive. Or the person in front of the bear.

The average civilian?

If they have a gun, they have to know how to use it and care for it and store it.

Whether the average city person should have one? Locally, TG, we don't need them, and having them would only escalate the spiral. But in other places, where the spiral is well on its way up?

And a grizzly hurting you first? If that's the case, having the gun is a mute point. Maybe "hurt me by scaring me and raising my adrenaline to dangerous levels".

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Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl