Dave_LF wrote:On
This tragically homicidal pair definitely wanted to kill people, and that puts a different spin on the risk, to me.
But why? An x% risk of death is an x% risk of death regardless of whether it's from an accident or a murder, and you're just as dead either way. Why do these two things feel so different?
I understand the argument here. In a purely mathematical world (and wouldn't that be a glorious place? <sigh>) people would calculate risks based on statistics, and never drive again. Not sure what to do with the suicide risk, but you get the picture. Avoidance based on numbers.
But when *I* drive, for each driving event, my possibility of death is not high. We do need to look at numbers, here... that person crossing the centerline is as lethal as those bombers with their guns. But most of the people I drive along side are not TRYING to kill me. There is a smallish chance one of us will make a big mistake, and tragedy will occur.
For those two guys? The danger in confronting them was close to 100%. The probability of being the lucky person with the boat in the front yard is pretty low, but once you are that person, your probability for bodily harm is pretty high.
I think staying in the house for those few hours while the cops did their job was a pretty good use of time, to avoid possibly (yes, a small possibility!) of running across someone who is actively killing people. Driving to the Circle K for milk is a necessary risk, and per event, not a terribly high one.
The numbers are disproportionate because there is so much driving and so few killers on the loose. Thankfully.
And yes, you do start to accept the risk of violent death, if you live in a violent area. My Iraqi friend was in Baghdad during the beginning of the war, and she said you sort of resigned yourself to the danger of death by combatants every day. When I asked her how that felt, she looked me very steadily in the eye and said "you can't imagine it".
She's probably right.