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And what is wrong with having the shades down, the doors locked? I mean, I am not going to walk around like June Cleaver in my house every moment.
There is nothing wrong with doing it in and of itself, what I am saying is that being that paranoid and fearful upon discovering an unlocked door or un-shaded window when you're in Bum-Freak Egypt I'm sorry but that's paranoid. Where COULD such a person feel comfortable, in an underground cave? On Mars? Death Valley? ANYWHERE?
It's like that one person said (I think in another thread), with all of this propaganda about how "the bad guys are coming after you, you better get a 12 gauge pump shotgun and shoot the SECOND you hear ANYTHING" that whole mentality is reckless and irresponsible, besides being just plain screwy in the head. No one place is 100% free of crime and there is nothing wrong with taking reasonable precautions, but gee whiz, if you are THAT paranoid about an unlocked door in the middle of Hickville, you don't need a gun, you need a shrink.
There's nothing paranoid about taking basic precautions
In the city, if you scream somebody will hear you and might call the police. Out here, a scream in the night will be attributed to a fisher on the hunt, if it is heard at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shyguylh
It's like that one person said (I think in another thread), with all of this propaganda about how "the bad guys are coming after you, you better get a 12 gauge pump shotgun and shoot the SECOND you hear ANYTHING" that whole mentality is reckless and irresponsible, besides being just plain screwy in the head. No one place is 100% free of crime and there is nothing wrong with taking reasonable precautions,.
More reason not to take security advice from ex-Vice President Joe Biden nor from SimpliSafe commercials.
My area is pretty much homicide-free, we have a lower violent crime rate than Canada; The last murder here was a domestic incident in the only trailer park in the area, years ago. We're also the best armed state on the east coast (not that there is any correlation).
There is nothing wrong with doing it in and of itself, what I am saying is that being that paranoid and fearful upon discovering an unlocked door or un-shaded window when you're in Bum-Freak Egypt I'm sorry but that's paranoid. Where COULD such a person feel comfortable, in an underground cave? On Mars? Death Valley? ANYWHERE?
It's like that one person said (I think in another thread), with all of this propaganda about how "the bad guys are coming after you, you better get a 12 gauge pump shotgun and shoot the SECOND you hear ANYTHING" that whole mentality is reckless and irresponsible, besides being just plain screwy in the head. No one place is 100% free of crime and there is nothing wrong with taking reasonable precautions, but gee whiz, if you are THAT paranoid about an unlocked door in the middle of Hickville, you don't need a gun, you need a shrink.
Have you not gotten the point yet? The guy you showcased might be paranoid, most likely overimpulsive, but just having firearms doesn't make someone paranoid. Sheesh. He would've done the same thing if he had a Hot Button (sci fi "vaporize intruder" device) instead of a gun. Or, if he were lying down asleep outside and someone abruptly woke him up he would have assaulted them. The gun was the tool he happened to have. The BRAIN is the problem. HE does not represent all rural dwellers who own guns.
... And what is wrong with having the shades down, the doors locked? I mean, I am not going to walk around like June Cleaver in my house every moment.
Feel free to keep your shade down and your doors locked. Nobody cares. I do not mean that as any form of insult, but really nobody cares.
If you had your shades down I would not have nay way of knowing unless I went onto your property and approached close to your house.
My house has no shades. But again you can not see that from the road, you would need to come onto my property and approach our house before you were close enough to see if I had shades or not. That is part of the beauty of rural living.
When anyone comes into our driveway, our dog usually lights up and makes a big ruckus. By the time they get up to the house, we have had time to get 'decent'. Sometimes our mail carrier needs a signature for a letter, etc. Regardless of who it is, we check that we are 'decent' and generally meet any visitors outside as they approach our house.
Any crime in a rural area reverberates more than it might in an urban area. When your expectation is no crime, any crime seems like a lot. For the first 6.5 years I lived in my present home I had never heard of a single house robbery in my town let alone my neighborhood. The only crimes I ever heard of were drug busts, and not a lot of those. Then the house across the road from me was robbed when the folks were away for the weekend. It turned out to be the druggie friends of their druggie son (who doesn't live there), so an inside job so to speak, but it really shook up people in this neighborhood. Ever since then my wife makes me lock the garage and the house is locked once we're in for the day, or even if we just go to visit a neighbor. It is as if that one robbery burst the bubble we were living in.
Feel free to keep your shade down and your doors locked. Nobody cares. I do not mean that as any form of insult, but really nobody cares.
If you had your shades down I would not have nay way of knowing unless I went onto your property and approached close to your house.
My house has no shades. But again you can not see that from the road, you would need to come onto my property and approach our house before you were close enough to see if I had shades or not. That is part of the beauty of rural living.
When anyone comes into our driveway, our dog usually lights up and makes a big ruckus. By the time they get up to the house, we have had time to get 'decent'. Sometimes our mail carrier needs a signature for a letter, etc. Regardless of who it is, we check that we are 'decent' and generally meet any visitors outside as they approach our house.
Right now, there are no shades, no floor screens, no curtains. That's down the road.
Looking out most my windows, all I see is brush, almost. Looking out the living room, I can see the roof of the next ranch over and looking out the bedroom, I can see a wall of that house through the trees. So, in theory, no one should see much.......but such theories I'd rather not put to the test.
Another thing for me is that since I work an odd schedule, it offsets everything. Today is landline day so to make sure I didn't miss him, I was napping on the floor at the front door. It was locked but I was clearly visible on the floor through the side windows so they could see me, ring the bell, knock to wake me up. Overly trusting? Since I was expecting their visit and had the gate open, no, not really. On Monday, I was taking a day off after a busy weekend and the gate was closed and locked. Mail service has not been established yet so with no one expected, there was absolutely no reason for anyone to be on the ranch. I am toying with the notion of having a telephone in a box at the gate, but that is one of those projects, if it comes about, that is far down the road.
Back to the OP (if we haven't already answered the question), it's a different environment, a different way of viewing things, etc, etc, etc. Just as a simple example, I am now making it a point to refuel every 2nd day or as the last chore before returning home when coming back from a trip. When there is considerable time & distance between you and "civilization", take one more precaution for yourself.
I've actually read a number of such things happening, and then it occurred to me--especially in recent years, I have noticed that rural people (not sure if this was "rural" or not) seem to be really paranoid and "trigger happy" about the prospect of a burglar breaking into their house. They seem to have a really inflated sense of the supposed "high crime rate" of their dinky little town.
I grew up in the rural areas myself, but I spent 10 years in the city before returning to the "sticks" and really noticing this phenomenon. Let me tell you, obviously no place is 100% crime-free, but these people in the sticks acting like their dinky little area is some hot-bed of criminal activity, are you kidding me? Try living in a place where murders appear on page B13 of your newspaper and THEN get back to me about the "crime wave" in your area. They have no clue (and again, I grew up in the sticks and am living there again, so this is not some "city slicker talking down to people in the sticks" as much as it appears, I'm more someone who IS a person in the sticks but who also spent time in the city so I have exposure to both).
I say this because, well, to me, besides just being ignorant in and of itself, to me this mentality is what leads to tragedies such as this, people having a very exaggerated sense of crime in rural areas and being too "trigger happy" as well. If I understand correctly, even the NRA, an organization I like by the way, teaches and stresses gun SAFETY and RESPONSIBILITY, they don't just support the 2nd amendment (by the way I support it too), they also stress responsibility.
Paranoia isn't just irritating, it's also deadly it seems, at least on some occasions. Have these people never heard of yelling out "hello" first or the like? THINK before you pull that trigger, THINK.
Perhaps you should get out of your snug little bubble once in a while.
I don't live in a rural area, but I do know that there's crime there. What's more, with a much lower population density, you can't count on the police to show up within three minutes of calling 911.
To the OP,
I am a target shooter and I live right on the edge of rural NC. The gun range I frequent has all ages and types of gun shooters.
Some are retired military young and old with a great knowledge of weapons, these are the guys I like to converse with at the range.
We also have a lot of young gun owners with the obligatory AR's and the inane requirement to see how many rounds and how fast they can empty their rifles. I tend to ignore those guys.
I have also run into a few older guys who belong to the gun a month club. These guys starting collecting guns as soon as Obama was elected and want to show you what they bought everytime you see them. These are the scary guys, they won't go out into the back yard without a gun on their hip, or to church, or to the supermarket. I don't know what they are afraid of but they sure are paranoid.
Some gun people are paranoid but not all are.
I will carry my gun if I go to Fayetteville, because it's Fayetteville.
Perhaps you should get out of your snug little bubble once in a while.
I don't live in a rural area, but I do know that there's crime there. What's more, with a much lower population density, you can't count on the police to show up within three minutes of calling 911.
That doesn't make paranoia any less irrational and in cases such as this, downright reckless.
No one is saying there is NO crime in rural areas, just that there isn't THAT much to where one needs to be this trigger happy. To me people need to focus on gun safety first and foremost and get it out of their head that a burglary is inevitable and you need to have a weapon "at the ready" 24/7 in such a quiet place.
I DO live in rural areas, have before and sandwiched in between that I spent 10 years in the city. If my experiences are any indication, rural areas are WAY less prone to crime and anyone living in a rural area thinking they're practically in the south side of Chicago is smoking some real happy weed.
I've lived in large urban areas all of my life - and, yes, I have been the victim of a home burglary (while I wasn't home).
However, I feel a lot safer in a big city than I would in a small, rural area. As others have mentioned, if you live in a house in the middle of nowhere & a criminal catches you off-guard, you're SOL. You may still be SOL if the same happens in a big city, but at least there are other people around (whether you'll get help from them is another story, I know).
Read the book In Cold Blood (1966) - it's a non-fiction book chronicling the infamous 1959 murders that occurred in rural Kansas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bus man
In a burglary, the intruder has several advantages. He already knows what he's there to do, whereas the sleeping homeowner has no clue of what is happening. Then, if the homeowner should happen to wake up, he's being thrust straight from sleep to a potentially life threatening situation with absolutely no warning, whereas the intruder is already awake and knows what is going on, and has had time to prepare to confront the homeowner if necessarily.
Exactly! Whether or not the homeowner has a weapon may not be relevant if the burglar catches the homeowner sleeping/otherwise off guard. I have also heard of cases where the burglar/criminal got to the homeowner's weapon before the homeowner did.
Sure, this scenario would hold true in a rural or urban area, but at least in an urban area if someone starts shooting (whether it's the homeowner, burglar, or both) someone will hear something. In a rural area, who knows if anyone will hear anything.
Last edited by The Big Lebowski Dude; 02-01-2017 at 08:59 PM..
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There's nothing paranoid about taking basic precautions
