[UA] Violence in the USA

[holycrow at mindspring.com]

>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). 

Hm.  I probably fired my first rifle when I was 12 or so.  I've never handled a handgun personally, but I know at least three people in my immediate area who own them.  

>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'm a fairly liberal, gun-control advocate type (let's please NOT DISCUSS IT!) and I always considered my family fairly liberal in that regard too... but my father had a shotgun and a rifle in the house and I remember gun racks at two of my uncles' homes.

>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).

I've only been assaulted in the street twice, but both times it was child-on-child violence, so I'm not sure it counts.  It sure made an impression though.  

In three years of high school I saw... lemme think... four really serious fights.  Wait, no, five.  Including one where a guy kicked his girlfriend in the face and broke bones in his hand punching her, if I recall correctly.  I only got hit once in high school, and not very hard, if you discount sibling squabble stuff.  

All this occurred, by the way, in Davenport, Iowa.  I haven't seen serious violence since I graduated high school... something to think about for the UnderAge concept, huh?  Or you could read it that members of the OU and other criminal classes are just cases of arrested development...

-G.

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