The following two questions occurred to me today:

How many people do you know, first-hand or second-hand, who successfully used a gun to stop a robbery or protect themselves from an intruder?

How many people do you know, first-hand or second-hand, who were hospitalized or died as a result of COVID?

For me, the answer is zero to the first question, and something greater than zero to the second.

First question-- zero.

Second question-- the number of people I know or know of with COVID (and radiating outward from there) seems almost unbelievable.

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
How many people do you know, first-hand or second-hand, who successfully used a gun to stop a robbery or protect themselves from an intruder?[quote]

Zero.

[quote]How many people do you know, first-hand or second-hand, who were hospitalized

A disconcertingly high number.

quote:

or died as a result of COVID?

None first-hand.

Second-hand, five.

Question 1 = 0

Question 2 = 2.

Question 1 = 0
Question 2 = one who died
three who were sick.
Interestingly I was taking not long ago to a neighbor near his backyard garden, and asked him question #2.

I was stunned that he AND his wife had contracted the virus, and his nextdoor neighbor on the other side (two houses down from me) had been sick and LOST HIS WIFE to Covid!

My neighborhood isn't super cosy though many are more friendly with each other than me (all the ones here when I moved in are dead or left).

This revelation, though, has left me with the suspicion that there are a GREAT many more hospitalized or killed than I had suspected. (If you don't ask, you don't know!)

And now I have a question # 1 B.

How many people do you know first or second hand who have committed suicide with a firearm?

My answer is that I know three (second-hand) who killed themselves with handguns.

Of course, with so many unknowns we can't respond about all the positive answers we know (but don't know we know).

Amanda, I know one. Never saw it coming.

I feel bad about that.

I know zero people who have used a gun to stop an attack or intruder, and many people in my life have kept them for just that purpose.

As for COVID, I know someone second-hand in his late thirties who died in the hospital last week. I know someone second-hand (sixty-ish) who was hospitalized for almost the entire pandemic and recently sent home in terrible shape. I know someone slightly (fifty-ish) who was Patient Zero here in Norman, was hospitalized, and has recovered well. I have a first cousin (sixty-ish) who would have been hospitalized last winter but there was no room in the hospital for him in Mobile. His doctor said, "If you hadn't been playing tennis for the past fifty years, you wouldn't be sitting her talking to me."

One of the dearest friends in my life took his life with a handgun. Two other men I knew less well but who traveled in the same social circles did the same within a few years of his suicide. All three were in their late sixties and single, but they did have social connections. In the case of my friend, he had many, many social connections. You simply cannot know what is going on in someone else's head, but I regret deeply that I didn't see what was going on with him.

When I was a teenager, my Sunday School teacher's husband took his life with a gun. It was explained to me as a hunting accident, and it was years before I knew what had actually happened.

None.

None that I know of. I have several friends who have had cases that didn’t lead to hospitalization. A very close friend of a very close friend from Germany was in Florida for training. Half the class of eight got it. Two hospitalized. One died. That was before the vaccines were out.

Intruder/gun: 0
Covid deaths first-hand: 1
Covid deaths second hand: 4
Suicide by gun: I can come up with 4 right off the bat

quote:

Originally posted by Amanda:
Question 1 = 0
Question 2 = one who died
three who were sick.
Interestingly I was taking not long ago to a neighbor near his backyard garden, and asked him question #2.

I was stunned that he AND his wife had contracted the virus, and his nextdoor neighbor on the other side (two houses down from me) had been sick and LOST HIS WIFE to Covid!

My neighborhood isn't super cosy though many are more friendly with each other than me (all the ones here when I moved in are dead or left).

This revelation, though, has left me with the suspicion that there are a GREAT many more hospitalized or killed than I had suspected. (If you don't ask, you don't know!)

Well, yes, and governments keep lying about the numbers.

I wish the numbers you report in your neighborhood were surprising to me, but TBH, replicate this most everywhere, and it doesn't give one much hope.

I have known a handful of people who committed suicide. Some by legal (death with dignity) means, so I don’t count those as “suicide”. In all but one case, I don’t know how they did it, so I can’t answer whether it was with a gun or not.

We had a lot of people leave the. NFFMCo in the last few years. Dee was the finance person for my previous group. She was always cheerful and bubbly. I believe she took a voluntary layoff, then retired. A few months ago, a friend sent me an e-mail to say that Dee had taken her own life. There were no further details. It really rattled me, mostly not to know any of the reason why.

And, further off topic, I recently found out that one of my best friends from high school died a year and a half ago. He had gotten over 400 pounds and his body just shut down.

Even further off topic...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/19...-shooting/index.html

The number of people I know second-hand who've died from covid just increased to six.

The man who died has a teenage son.

I just remembered, there was a fellow I worked with who moved to California when the company moved his job there. He was hospitalized last fall, seemed to have gotten better, then a couple weeks later was rushed back to the hospital and he expired two days later.