From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Sep 30 13:40:22 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from riker.skynet.be (riker.skynet.be [195.238.3.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91BFC37B40A; Sun, 30 Sep 2001 13:40:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [194.78.144.27] ([194.78.144.27]) by riker.skynet.be (8.11.6/8.11.6/Skynet-OUT-2.15) with ESMTP id f8UKdmq01787; Sun, 30 Sep 2001 22:39:50 +0200 (MET DST) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: brad.knowles@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <17366261188.20010930142515@nc.rr.com> References: <17366261188.20010930142515@nc.rr.com> Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 22:28:41 +0200 To: Neill Robins From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: Bad Drivers Cc: Kris Kirby , Chern Lee , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 2:25 PM -0400 9/30/01, Neill Robins wrote: > Do we appreciate what they do on our behalf? I certainly do. If I didn't, then neither of these situations would have happened, and there would probably be a number of additional people who were dead as a result. > I understand that these situations probably fall in the 'not-so-wise' > department but I am sure these scenarios are a very small minority of > most emergency personnel decisions. There may have even been a reason > to make such drastic moves. I'm sure we all know how time is crucial > in emergency situations. That may well be true, but I am still lead to ask the same question. > The reason I say this is that I have many, many personal friends and > relatives who are firefighters, police and paramedics, and they are > truly under paid and under-thanked (?) for the work they do and the > things they see every day. I also know that we (civillian drivers) > make their jobs much harder a majority of the time. A friend of mine back in college was a police officer, and a damn good one. He was putting himself through college on his time off, on his way to medical school. I rode with him in his patrol car once, and he took me to a firing range on a couple of occasions and taught me how to shoot revolvers, semi-automatics, rifles, and shotguns. He felt it was important that people know how to properly use firearms, and since I was his friend and interested, he was going to make sure that I had proper instruction. Even today, I feel that rigorous mandatory instruction would be one of the best things we could do to help reduce the amount of crime that occurs through the use of firearms -- usually through the criminal taking the firearm away from the private citizen, and then using it against them. It would also help significantly reduce the incidence of accidental injury or death due to firearms, because people would know better how to use them, clean them, and store them, and they should be less likely to cause or result in the kinds of accidents we hear so frequently about. But I do still wonder if they appreciate what some of us do for them sometimes. -- Brad Knowles, H4sICIFgXzsCA2RtYS1zaWcAPVHLbsMwDDvXX0H0kkvbfxiwVw8FCmzAzqqj1F4dy7CdBfn7 Kc6wmyGRFEnvvxiWQoCvqI7RSWTcfGXQNqCUAnfIU+AT8OZ/GCNjRVlH0bKpguJkxiITZqes MxwpSucyDJzXxQEUe/ihgXqJXUXwD9ajB6NHonLmNrUSK9nacHQnH097szO74xFXqtlbT3il wMsBz5cnfCR5cEmci0Rj9u/jqBbPeES1I4PeFBXPUIT1XDSOuutFXylzrQvGyboWstCoQZyP dxX4dLx0eauFe1x9puhoi0Ao1omEJo+BZ6XLVNaVpWiKekxN0VK2VMpmAy+Bk7ZV4SO+p1L/ uErNRS/qH2iFU+iNOtbcmVt9N16lfF7tLv9FXNj8AiyNcOi1AQAA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message