THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

Most people probably go through life without realizing what dangers they face each day.  For example, I hear that most automobile accidents happen within 5 mi of home.  Most people who are shot know who shot them, e.g. Adam Lanza's mother in Newtown, CT.  The single biggest challenge to your health is smoking.  You can be a careful driver, but, if that semi-truck trailer comes over the median strip at the wrong time, you can be history.  It is not only the deaths in automobile accidents, gun deaths, or bombs as far more people are injured with many having life changing injuries.  We hear of such things, but they don't seem to apply to us because the probabilities are they won't happen to us.

Then something happens, like the Newtown school Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut and people go bonkers and want armed guards or armed teachers in every school (and how would you feel teaching a class if students were allowed to pack heaters?).  But there were 98.817 public schools and 33,366 private schools in America in 2009* so of the 132,183 public and private schools only one had the mass murders.  Yes, the Newtown shooting was a tragic event and we should see if we can do better identifying dangerous mentally unstable people, but this school happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In fact the students were in the wrong class at the wrong time as most classes were untouched.  There were 456 students in the school and 20 were killed.  There is hardly any reason to arm every school no matter how much the arms industry would benefit from it. You could have attended the Boston Marathon and chances are high you would not have been damaged by the Boston Bombers.  A lot of life is fate, you just happened not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there are people who are.  I have discussed my own experiences with the probabilities of being injured or killed in dangerous situations.**

So it looks like we are ready to accept that over 32,000 automobile deaths/year*** because we think (subconsciously) that we won't be the wrong person at the wrong time.  Of course, automobile safety has been improved in spite of ourselves, what with seat belts and air bags among other safety features.  We accept over 11,000 murders per year**** because we think these murders have nothing to do with us.  Deaths by firearms in the U.S. per hundred thousand inhabitants are three time those of France, eight time those of Germany and 36 times those in the United Kingdom.  We are told that background checks don't work, but one place that has them has had a different experience.  According to the governor of Colorado speaking on less strict background checks than Colorado has now (http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/03/watch-this-thing-works-says-colorado-governor-on-new-gun-law/):

In 2012, 38 people who were accused or convicted of homicides applied for gun ownership in Colorado. In addition, 600 burglars, 1,300 people who committed felonies, and 400 people who had restraining orders from a judge also tried to buy guns.

* http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84 (There are some schools that have guards in dangerous neighborhoods that may be justified)
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/01/working-underground-my-rational-self.html
*** http://www.statisticbrain.com/car-crash-fatality-statistics-2/ (in 2010)
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-aftermath-of-firearm-newton-ct.html