Displaying your stereo on Facebook

I ditched FB about a year ago. It just got creepy on so many levels.

As for posting elsewhere online? Well, I’d like to see a snatch and grab of a 100 pound amp and 130 pound speakers. And even if they were stout enough to do that, they’d have to get past the angry owner who is generally well prepared to defend his home.

I live downtown in a small city. There are frequent petty crimes, yard tools, stuff left out, stuff in unlocked cars, even a break-in down the street a few years ago. Everything taken was small and no-count. Primarily young stoned crack heads committing crimes of opportunity according to cops. Just to get a few bucks for drugs.

To steal a serious hi-fi system would have to be a planned hit looking for a big score....which would be useless around here...no pawn shop or fence is going to give a plug nickel for hi-fi equipment. No real market.

So I think we can all relax.....unless your home and goods are super flashy and enough to interest serious thieves...

I have a concealed carry permit too. In a world where a 16 year old can drive a car while texting, law abiding citizens carrying guns and geeks carrying swords are the least of our problems.

As far as risks of legally carrying a weapon, certainly no more than not carrying one. The risk of ending up in jail....well, only if you do something illegal. In the hands of a competent person the gun conveys no risk. In the hands of an incompetent or stupid person, same as anything else with incompetent  stupid people. They are the ones you need to worry about, not inanimate objects.

Experiences are different.

I rabbit hunted with an older, skinny Barney Fife looking country fellow for years before noticing a Vietnam pin on his hat. Quiet fellow. He was a friend of my Dad's. He always struck me as kind of wimpy. Maybe a little incompetent. I asked him about the pin. He was an Army sniper.  He would get dropped off by a chopper with a spotter and be in the field for two weeks at a time usually at or behind enemy lines. I replied that it must have been an awful thing. He said not at all. In fact, he loved it and remembers it as an adventure. He said he would do it again if he was able. And that was all he ever said about it.

At first I doubted him but my father and others confirmed it.

Some may see him as heartless or bloodthirsty. But in his life after his service he was quiet and almost meek. Rarely shot at a rabbit. 

It takes different types. I thank God that we had and still have warriors like him. We would be in a bigger mess without them than with them.

I'm a physician and taking a life is the last thing I would ever want to do. I'm also a Christian. But there is nothing about my calling or my religion that dictates that I not defend myself. I also served in the USAF.

bdp24 said:

"Have you heard? Trump just reversed Obama’s ban against selling firearms to mentally ill people. Insanity! The blood is on his hands."

Completely wrong. You need to read the Obama regulation and Trump's reversal. I hate Trump but this is the sort of misleading statement that makes things seem worse than they are and distorts the truth. It has been and remains a law that mentally ill people cannot purchase a firearm. It is part of the background check. The Obama regulation (it was never a bill...which means that the next President can change it) only added a Social Security database of mentally ill persons that was to be used in the background check. The problem was that this database included a lot of people who were no longer mentally ill or whose illness did not legally preclude firearm ownership.

On top of that, it didn't work anyway. So you had an executive order that trampled on the Constitutional rights of some individuals and was also ineffective in preventing gun violence. And if you still think it was a good regulation then it should have been a bill, passed by the established legislative processes in this country. Of course, its flaws were evident to all so it never would have passed as a bill.

I agree about the value of "things". Not worth dying for. Probably not worth killing for. The problem is, things are not the only precious items in my home.....and someone who comes into your home while you are there is likely to be a threat to your life or the life of someone you love....who also just happens to depend on you.

How each of us confronts these (admittedly rare and remote) possibilities is personal. For some, they are less rare. And even then, how we plan to deal with them remains personal. And if how we deal with them is legal,ethical and moral, then I have no criticism.