Dilettante
Member
Unlike many people here, I can still remember what it was like to be afraid of guns. In fact, I only started shooting this year.
The sense of "Oh my God, these things are supposed to be really deadly" goes away pretty quickly.
Now I find myself explaining to my liberal friends why it isn't weird to go shooting.
Recently I've been thinking about other dangerous things that we use everyday. The one that always comes up is cars, probably because they kill 4 or 5 times as many Americans as guns do. (By the way, all of the gun owners I've met so far have been much more careful with guns that the typical driver is on the road.
I do know that not all gun owners are that responsible, but I plan to stick to people who are!)
So forget about cars. That analogy is old. I'm looking for other things that a lot of people use, without thinking about it, but we know that you have to follow certain rules.
Somebody mentioned swimming pools recently.
Toxic glues and solvents.
Electricity.
Stairs. For healthy people from 4 to 80 or so, this doesn't get a second thought. But your strength or coordination starts to go, every trip up or down can be a risky adventure.
Aspirin and other drugs. Often this has to do with small children taking too many; but some other drugs are dangerous if you (a) take too much, (b) take them too close together, (c) take certain other drugs, (d) are allergic to the drug, (e) get the same effect from a smaller dose of the drug (there can be a lot of reasons for this, like body weight, metabolism, slightly different receptors, etc.)
Does anyone have a new or unusual nominee?
Anyone with young children at home?
The sense of "Oh my God, these things are supposed to be really deadly" goes away pretty quickly.
Now I find myself explaining to my liberal friends why it isn't weird to go shooting.
Recently I've been thinking about other dangerous things that we use everyday. The one that always comes up is cars, probably because they kill 4 or 5 times as many Americans as guns do. (By the way, all of the gun owners I've met so far have been much more careful with guns that the typical driver is on the road.
I do know that not all gun owners are that responsible, but I plan to stick to people who are!)So forget about cars. That analogy is old. I'm looking for other things that a lot of people use, without thinking about it, but we know that you have to follow certain rules.
Somebody mentioned swimming pools recently.
Toxic glues and solvents.
Electricity.
Stairs. For healthy people from 4 to 80 or so, this doesn't get a second thought. But your strength or coordination starts to go, every trip up or down can be a risky adventure.
Aspirin and other drugs. Often this has to do with small children taking too many; but some other drugs are dangerous if you (a) take too much, (b) take them too close together, (c) take certain other drugs, (d) are allergic to the drug, (e) get the same effect from a smaller dose of the drug (there can be a lot of reasons for this, like body weight, metabolism, slightly different receptors, etc.)
Does anyone have a new or unusual nominee?
Anyone with young children at home?
