On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:39:08 -0500, dpb wrote:

HeyBub wrote:
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
If you saw a thief stealing from a store, how would you know he was
not carrying a gun?

If he was, we'd have a gun fight.

That would probably be against store policy, too...

And I'd support it if I were standing behind either of them.

Or if anyone might be, which they might.

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:07:08 -0500, Caesar Romano
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:23:09 -0400, "curmudgeon"
wrote Re Home Depot fires two managers:

The reason's simple: ain't no lawn
mower or light bulb worth dying over..

That's very true if it's *some else's* lawn mower vs. *your* life.

OTOH, if it's your mower, then it's really not about your mower, but
rather it's about your ability to live free without constant and
continuing fear of being a victim.

There is another way to solve that. Stop fearing it.

When I buy a used car, I assume it will need 2000 dollars worth of
repairs. If it doesn't, I'm ahead.

When I buy a house, I assume I'll have to spend some money on repairs.

I assume I'm going to lose a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff
because of crime during my lifetime, and so far I've lost less, so I'm
ahead.**

If I lose 2000 some day, I'll raise my expectation to four thousand.

Cost of doing business. Cost of living. I have a home alarm and a
car alarm, but I'm not going to let my blood pressure climb to avoid
theft. Fearing crime wouldnt even help.

And of all the crimes that have been committed against me, I was only
present for 3 of them, and only lost about 15 dollars total. (the 3rd
time was 25 years ago.)

It's the crimes when I wasn't there that have cost me the most.

Although I do like the time, 2 lawmmowers were stolen from under my
deck, don't know when. They were there in the fall and not in the
spring. I had three mowers and none worked and I was taking parts
from all of them to try to fix any one of them. One wasn't under the
deck. I never could fix any of them, and I'm sure the theives
couldn't fix the two they took. They saved me the trouble of getting
rid of them.

**(Not counting the stock broker who lied to my mother and cost her
thousands of dollars in taxes, money that would otherwise have gone to
my brother. The broker did this just for the commission, and she
didn't use a gun. Ironically, my mother was fully competent, but old
people are still the common targets.)

Then again, many people in this country are conditioned to be victims.