Well, is it safe to go to town?

 No picture today

I started this blog to work through decisions.  I was approaching that time in ones life when decisions needed to be made.  These decisions would basically affect how I was going to live the rest of my life.  Retiring is not a downward spiral to the end of ones useful life but it does enact some constraints.  Once retired you have basically stopped earning income and what you have saved is what you need to live on.  You need to make decisions that will allow you to live and not run out of money.  Of equal concern is restricting life too much to save money.  So much so that you miss out on having fun in retirement.

I absolute adore the area we have chosen to retire to.  Historic McKinney has beautiful tree lined streets and wonderful homes.  The Historic central square is a short walk (or bike ride) from our house and has shops and great restaurants.  We moved into the area in the fall of 2019.  Then covid hit and craziness ensued.  Misinformation was rampant and that is when I started thinking about information, misinformation and the decisions we make.  We were locked down for several months and when things started to loosen up we all had to make decisions about whether or not our health would be compromised by visiting the local market.  In short we all had to decide whether it was safe to go to town.

Recent local events have exposed another dimension to the "safe to go to town" decision.  I am obviously talking about the mass shooting that occurred in Allen Texas.  We lived in Allen for 20+ years.  Both our children attended Allen High school.  We had friends working at the mall the day of the shooting.  Thankfully all of them are physically safe.  I have been to the mall and have also brought my mother there.  So now I have to re-examine the decision "is it safe to go to town".

Before going ahead I do have acknowledge that this tragedy has had a far greater impact on the victims and their families.  Those that had to shelter in place have had their lives altered in ways I cannot imagine.  I am fully aware that my exposure to this situation is superficial.  I hope however that anyone reading this may be able to cope with their feelings.

Guns,  I have probably had more exposure to guns than most people.  I have operated about a dozen different types of rifles, shotguns and hand guns.  I even have a favorite; the Lee-Enfield 303.  However firearms are not and never were a big part of my life.  My Grandfather was an avid hunter.  My Dad hunted with him.  My Dad did not take me hunting.  He did teach me how to safely operate a rifle.  I am just not very interested in firearms.  As for gun control I have to say that I am for it (if you don't like that leave a comment).

My opinions on gun control are irrelevant to the central question.  Is it safe to go to the mall, send our children to school or go to the movie?  Even if congress was to act and gun control advocates got everything they wanted (assault weapons bans, high capacity magazine bans etc.) the threat of a mass shooting would still exist.  Forbes estimates that there are about 20 million assault style weapons in circulation in the US (Forbes article).  These are not going to disappear overnight.  The threat will still exist for quite some time.  So even if congress bans these weapons I cannot see them going to everyone's home and forcibly removing them.  They will still exist and the threat of them being used violently will prevail for some time.

Usually by this point in my posts I have mostly sorted out the main issue.  This one still has me bewildered.  I am sure that if we look at the statistics that the chances of being a victim is very small.  That is not much comfort to those that have suffered in any of the recent tragedy's.  These acts are still so beyond any rational explanation that they defy any logic.   A google search on "what to do in a mass shooting situation" yields results from every media outlet, every government agency and every university.  I will let you all read them on your own.  I admit that I am pretty sick of all this.

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