About that "police blotter". [View all]

[rrneck]

I don't mind it. Those stories serve as reminders of the reality of people's lives. Doors do get kicked in by multiple assailants. People do get carjacked. Sometimes the gun helps, sometimes it doesn't.

And by the same token, people do some profoundly stupid stuff with guns. They shoot themselves in the ass in the restroom. They wave them around needlessly. They leave them where kids can find them.

Discussion about what people actually do is how we learn about ourselves and others who have experiences with which we are not familiar. That's what people do. It's an important way for us to find common ground. When the discussion is confined to the abstractions of policy and statistics we stop thinking about people and we only defend pet ideologies.

I might suggest that if anyone wants to post human interest stuff, try to find news items that include some back story. That will give the tacticians something to figure out and the humanists something with which to empathize. Those on both sides of the debate can be both if we give them something to work with.