Putting the Boston Bombing in Perspective

[seedcorn]

Steve, as I get older, I want to spend less time arguing over anything. Some posters I will spend no time on unless others join in on thread and spread falsehoods. Then I will challenge them with facts while they rant on with emotions.

We are surrounded with Church of Brethren here along with Mennonites and Amish (many different sects of them). I do believe their intentions are pure. Although I do take exception with Amish belief that they can cheat "English" and be approved.

To answer question, under "random rumblings" I do enjoy some of the non-gardening discussions. Knowing the participants are earth related makes their opinions more valuable to me than some bar hopping city yuppy--my prejudice. Those I don't enjoy, I ignore--to everyone's delite......

 

[catjac1975]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/boston...ttered-chinese/story?id=18980823#.UXCUFKXv1iU
This is perspective.

Yes, it was a tragedy! My heart goes out to all who were touched by this dastardly act, but let's take a wider view;

In 2010 (The latest year that statistics are readily available for.) there were, in the U.S. an average of:

90 deaths per day and 6,027 injuries per day caused by traffic accidents!!!

Kinda makes the Boston Marathon bombing look like a run in the park, doesn't it.



Yes, I expect a lot of hate mail for pointing out this fact.

 

[OldGuy43]

Yes, a young woman died, and that is a tragedy. My point is that everyday 90 people are murdered on the streets and highways and it rarely makes national news. They too have mothers and fathers and children, but because we don't see it on television we are complacent. In some states you can kill someone with a motor vehicle and do no jail time whatever. The only state where you can get life imprisonment for killing someone for driving while intoxicated is North Dakota.

Under Massachusetts law, had the Boston Marathon bomber gotten drunk and driven through the same crowd killing and maiming who know how many people the maximum penalty is 15 years and a $5000 fine, but because he used a bomb instead of a car he'll face the death penalty.

Does he deserve being put to death? Most certainly! He committed a conscious act when he placed that bomb, but how does that differ from someone who, of their own free will gets drunk and than operates a motor vehicle?

The logic is, to my way of thinking, irrefutable. Where's the justice for all those who are killed or maimed by drunk drivers?

 

[thistlebloom]

The FBI has identified the two suspects of the Boston bombing and as of this morning Boston is on lockdown while they search for the remaining suspect. One was involved in a shootout where a police officer was killed and another is in critical condition. The suspect did not survive. The other is still not apprehended.

Vfem, please make note of this: The two suspects are brothers, originally from Chechnya. 26 year old Tamerion Tsarnaev is now deceased. His brother, 19 year old Dzhokar Tsarnaev is at large. He was a student at UMASS Dartmouth. They are both identified as Muslim.

I'm pretty certain that they will find they were NOT NRA members.

 

[Jared77]

Its intent.

When someone gets behind the wheel of a car who's drunk their intent is not to go take out a car full of teenagers on their way home from Homecoming. Their intention is not to take out a couple on their way home from their 65th wedding anniversary, or a K9 units patrol car with both the K9 officer and human officer in it. How do I know? I've been the responding unit on all those calls. I've treated every one of those people, I've even had to pronounce them on scene because they had injuries "not compatible with life" all while listening to the intoxicated driver slurring their words about how they were just trying to go home and instead they just wrecked their car and how were they going to manage without a car.

They were not spouting some radical ideology. They did not want to cause fear, chaos, or harm anybody. They were not armed with IEDs, or carrying an armory's worth of weapons with the intent on causing maximum carnage and psychological damage. No, there just someone who was over served and opted to drive home instead of finding an alternative means of getting home and met up with other people at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Were the teenagers in the car innocent and just trying to enjoy one of the rights of passage many of us are familiar with? Absolutely. Will the happily married couple who got to spend so many years together be missed? Dearly. Will the officers survive to do what they do and continue to keep us safe? They did.

Those are tragedies. The loss of any and all of those individuals are, and is devastating to those who knew and loved those individuals. That doesn't take away from what happened to them. Why them? Why then? I don't know. I can't dwell on those questions or I'd never be able to perform my duties when called. We're not numb to those things. When we hear about them we do feel bad. Do things need to change? Absolutely. It doesn't belittle what happened to those people.

Should the nation not have wept when Kennedy was assassinated? Or Dr Martin Luther King Jr? What about the space shuttle Challenger?

I've been in Emergency Medical Services since 2000. That's 13 years of being on the ambulance, taking calls, responding lights and sirens when people are at their worst looking for help. I've been apart of more than my fair share of tragedies. Being there on homecoming when the cars cut apart so I can access the occupants of the vehicle, for that elderly couple driving home after celebrating so many years of a happy marriage, when the call comes over the radio of "officers down". Everybody looking around for a miracle and I myself am hoping that God will work through me and help provide one.

Is it irrational to feel bad for the victims of West Texas? Of the Boston Marathon bombing? Of Newtown CT vs say the battered wife who finally meets her end by her abusive husband? Or the child with cancer who finally no longer have to suffer?

That's not for me, or you, or anybody else to judge. Its not about perspective. There is no rating scale for tragedy, or how someone should feel with the events that they are exposed to and have to cope with. It's human emotion. Its raw, unpredictable, and for most people its an uncharted dark recesses that we don't want to deal with; or ever deal with again.

If your unhappy with the lack of coverage over those 90 people who's lives are ended go start your own news network. If your unhappy with the current drunk driving laws, lobby to change them. For example I'd love to see a system where you have to check your car keys in at an establishment that serves alcohol and cannot leave until you can safely blow under the legal limit before getting your keys returned to you or anybody in your party has ordered a drink, or had a drink sent to your table. Simple as that.

The good thing is here in America we have many rights. OG You have the right to down play any incident or use it as a launching pad for some other agenda. I support that right. I also have the right to say I think your timing is poor and your tactics are atrocious and I find that behavior disgusting.

Either way we both have our rights and are using them.

God Bless America

 

[canesisters]

Very well said Jared.

And thank you for your years of service. I did the job (volunteer) for 3 years and had to get out.

 

[897tgigvib]

Right on Jared!

2X

3X

and, where's the infinityX!

 

[dickiebird]

Jared has it right!!!

THANX RICH

 

[OldGuy43]

This has went from misunderstanding to ridiculous! At no point did I even suggest that the Boston Marathon bombing was less than a tragedy. I never said that we should not feel sorrow for the victims and families of the that or any other disaster, natural or man made. I've never even mentioned, as Jared accuses me of lacking empathy for JFK's assassination, the murder of Dr. King or the deaths on the Challenger.

What I did do was hit you in the face with one fact:

90 deaths per day and 6,027 injuries per day caused by traffic accidents!!!

Why? Because I wanted to demean the deaths and injuries suffered in Boston? Of course not! No right thinking person would be that insensitive. My point was, and still is that no one rushes into the President of the United States every day and announces, "90 people died and 6,027 were injured on the streets and highways of our great nation!" Does the President meet with the White House Press Corps everyday and announce ""Yes, we will find you. And yes, you will face justice," No! Where are the hours of national news coverage for all of those dead and injured? If your lucky and it's a slow news day you might get 2-3 minutes, at most on local news.

Why? Because we have become used to the fact that there are traffic accidents and deaths and maiming of all those victims. We're used to the fact that over half of those deaths will be caused by a drunk driver, and that the odds are roughly one in three that that said drunk driver will have been a repeat offender. It isn't until you lose a friend or loved one to a drunk driver that it becomes personal.

Yes, I did point out that more innocent people are killed needlessly on the streets and highways than were killed in Boston. I did it brutally to get your attention. I did accomplish that, but the message has been lost because some have painted me as an insensitive clod. I'm the one who is speaking up for the 45 victims everyday who die at the hands of a drunk driver. I'm the one who is crying for justice and closure for those left behind.

I began my campaign years ago here in Texas, but I'm one lone voice in The Lone Star State. What have you done? What will you do? Answer, probably nothing. Go back to your garden. I apologize for making you read about unhappy facts.

 

[OldGuy43]

Double post.