I'm not afraid of terrorism, are you?

[henryp]

Maybe that's because -Little Girl Decides: "He does, indeed, love me"after harrowing experience with local wildflower- won't hit the network metrics? 

I don't think it's worth my time to comment on the relationship between trumps stump and reality.  You could google that one yourself.  I''ll just say that it was impressive, I appreciate that sort of thing.

Seems like we're on a bit of a run with violence of late.  Which makes sense.  ISIS is doing their thing, and racial tensions are going strong at the moment.  So I think it's to be expected we see more headlines than normal that are doom and gloomy.  I wasn't saying Trump's speech was accurate, just that the juxtaposition of Obama's statement and the headline was amusing.

Moreso, as he's been trumpeting black men being murdered willy nilly by cops, and his kids could be next! for a while now.  To then say "Things aren't that bad though" also struck me as amusing.

[henryp]

A gun would probably complicate the 'your car' safety bubble.

I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to shoot someone who is, you know, driving you around at 60 mph.

Your, ahem, mileage may vary.

This is a silly side thing, but real life is not Speed.  

If you see a hitchhiker, you accelerate to 60, throw open the passenger door, let them try and hop in.  Then blow through stop signs, traffic lights, and maybe drive up on sidewalks, until they get to their destination, at which point they have to open the door, and thunderoll out of the speeding car?

[henryp]

How risk adverse can you get? 

Pretty risk averse. More relevant, perhaps, is that I'm risk averse in scenarios like these, where I have literally nothing to gain.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or lose, apparently. I still think that you're downplaying what you get from the rest of us, the global community at large, and even refugees. I mean, Einstein and Wycleff were both fugees....

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to shoot someone who is, you know, driving you around at 60 mph.

Your, ahem, mileage may vary.

This is a silly side thing, but real life is not Speed.  

If you see a hitchhiker, you accelerate to 60, throw open the passenger door, let them try and hop in.  Then blow through stop signs, traffic lights, and maybe drive up on sidewalks, until they get to their destination, at which point they have to open the door, and thunderoll out of the speeding car?

Hey, that's exactly how I envisioned it happening!

No, wait, that's simply a caricature. You see, here in America, we have long, open spaces that are traversed by these things we call highways -- you may have heard of those. That is where what few hitchhikers you see any more try to get rides, because cities have buses. Anyway, on those highways, the speed-limits run anywhere from forty-five to eighty mph.

Now if a hitchiker happens to have his gun at the ready, I usually just, y'know, keep on driving. Because getting in at sixty is, as you pointed out, difficult. Problem solved, right?

Now, let's see if you can winnow my point here or not.

(For future reference, I prefer polite discussion, and will be happy to drop the sarcasm provided you can manage that yourself.)

[henryp]

This is a silly side thing, but real life is not Speed.  

If you see a hitchhiker, you accelerate to 60, throw open the passenger door, let them try and hop in.  Then blow through stop signs, traffic lights, and maybe drive up on sidewalks, until they get to their destination, at which point they have to open the door, and thunderoll out of the speeding car?

Hey, that's exactly how I envisioned it happening!

No, wait, that's simply a caricature. You see, here in America, we have long, open spaces that are traversed by these things we call highways -- you may have heard of those. That is where what few hitchhikers you see any more try to get rides, because cities have buses. Anyway, on those highways, the speed-limits run anywhere from forty-five to eighty mph.

Now if a hitchiker happens to have his gun at the ready, I usually just, y'know, keep on driving. Because getting in at sixty is, as you pointed out, difficult. Problem solved, right?

Now, let's see if you can winnow my point here or not.

(For future reference, I prefer polite discussion, and will be happy to drop the sarcasm provided you can manage that yourself.)

It's hard not to be sarcastic, because you're being silly. I do not have the ability to straight faced say "What if, instead of waving his gun around while trying to get picked up, he has it hidden, and only pulls it when he gets in the car?"  It would be insulting of me to think you really couldn't come up with that on your own.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think a larger point that might be made in this, is that in explaining or describing risk -be it terrorists or the hitchhiker- the only way we can maintain our justifications for being so risk adverse in the absence of any statistical risk is by creating a downward spiral of self reenforcing scenarios built atop the assumed truth of the  initially inaccurate assessment.

There's nothing but misery and paranoia down this road, perhaps uniquely so when the subject of our spiral actually -have- been victims of what we hope to avoid. It;s like avoiding abuse victims because they have a statistically higher chance to be abused again, and we don't want any abusers coming near us.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's hard not to be sarcastic, because you're being silly. I do not have the ability to straight faced say "What if, instead of waving his gun around while trying to get picked up, he has it hidden, and only pulls it when he gets in the car?"  It would be insulting of me to think you really couldn't come up with that on your own.

Yep, you missed the point. Rhythm got it, though.

Anyway, if he pulls it while he's outside the car asking for the ride, you drive off. If he pulls it inside the car, you're already moving. I shouldn't think that would be so hard to suss out.

[The Grand Nudger]

In the context of the terrorist who pulls his shit -while in the american car-...well..we've got his number, we've got his ass.  No extradition arrangements, no sneaking into a country to play body snatcher, no invasions.   Pop, off to a prison that doesn't exist from whence no one is released. A foreign terrorist on american soil is in a -dangerous- position, he's probably taken a greater risk than he poses. OFC, none of this has anything to do with refugees....never did.

[henryp]

In the context of the terrorist who pulls his shit -while in the american car-...well..we'v got his number, we've got his ass.  No extradition arrangements, no sneaking into a country to play body thief, no invasions.   Pop, off to a prison that doesn't exist from whence no one is released.  A terrorist on american soil is in a -dangerous- position.

If you're safe from a gun in a moving car.  Imagine how safe you are from a box cutter in an in flight airplane.

I think we have a disagreement over who's reinforcing scenarios.