[UA] Greetings

[sneadj at mindspring.com]

 =?iso-8859-1?q?Will?= <will_ml at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> 2nd thing, the level of violence depicted. I'm 26, I've never had a
> real gun in my hand, I've never even had a close look at one (I've
> seen a rifle once or twice, though). None of my close friends or
> family own a firearm. I can't say for sure for people I know less, but
> I suspect they don't either. I've never been in a real fight nor
> witnessed one. And, without having ever lived in really bad
> neighbourhoods, I'm no secluded ermit either (I've been living right
> in the middle of Paris and it's not really the most uneventful of
> places you can find in the world :). I've been directly physically
> threatened only once (to little extent).

That isn't all that different from my life, and I've lived all over the US, 
mostly in non-affluent areas.  I've seen exactly two handguns in my 
life, and maybe three rifles.  I've never seen one fired or seen any 
sort of weapon use or threatened weapon use.  The only time I ever 
heard them fired was when I was over at some friends house on 
New Years eve (in a moderately bad neighborhood) and I heard a 
few of the neighbors shoot off fireworks and fire guns into the air.

The last fight I saw was driving by an unarmed (and very drunken) 
brawl in a street outside a bar several years ago (a couple of horn 
honks scattered the two people).  I can't remember the last one I 
saw before that, it was likely in high school (I'm 39).  The US is 
*scarily* heavily armed, but I know very few people who own guns 
(being folks I know through the net, and happily none of them live in 
the same city as I do).  It's honestly not as violent here as many 
people think.


-John Snead sneadj at mindspring.com  



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