What are the benefits of living in the USA?

Well I'm telling you something is very different.  We did not have mass casualty events like this.  If you want to call it my perception, fine.  I was there and I'm not alone in what I recall.  Such acts as we see today were so rare that the very notion would have had people looking at you like a space alien.  I can't believe others, even here, didn't have the same experience i did.  No offense but your numbers are not telling the whole story, nor the most important part of the story.  Other kinds of homicides certainly happened but it was not this kind of violence and that is my point.  Guns can and were safely used and respected by the families I grew up with. 

Wow six acres, the maintenance must've been huge.

I see, like a little wilderness.  Nice.

I feel the same about crime stats in general in this area.  They tell you crime is down, you are much safer now than in the past.  I do not buy it based on my experience.  We were able to play and hang out well after dark in same areas that you would be insane to let your kids today do the same.  We were able to leave our doors unlocked and we often did, which you would be fool to do today.  And yet the news reports keep saying....you are safer now, crime is down.  Not always do these numbers reflect practical reality.  And if people believe them as they are being administered, I guess I can see why people erroneously blame guns for our US sociopath problem. But I cannot because of what I lived through.  Other factors, way more than "the gun debate" I see out there.

I guess that's a part of the numbers thing....different places having different results....you are urban area David?  SF?

^^ Yep, and it's a fairly tough town despite the hippie image.  We had break-ins regularly all across the city up til about 1990.

Yeah as long as you know how to be in a city it's fine.  I probably know the insane dude.

Finnforest wrote: Gary what part of the MW were you?  I grew up in suburban twin cities

Finnforest wrote: We had about that much behind us too although my family didn't own it.  God it was paradise to grow up with large swaths of undeveloped land around you....and still be near "the city".  In my case it was not "maintained" land, it was an adventure.

A Person wrote: TeleStrat wrote: I will go along with Finnforest but I'm older and go a little further back. In the fifties I was a kid in the Midwest and it was common for every household (that I knew of) to have a rifle or shotgun. My Dad had the shotgun that belonged to his Dad and when I was seven I would play with it  outside (unloaded of course and we lived on six acres).  Now, this wasn't Mayberry, RFD and there was crime and there were occasional murders but seldom, if ever, with multiple victims and never anything like the mass killings today. I grew up (and still live in) similar conditions here. 10 acres in the middle of nowhere, rarely any break-ins or murders (although they do happen).