I have one comment on this. Two actually, the first being that I like the picture. But the second is one that troubles me, but I don't have a good answer for. I, too, totally agree that one should avoid potential confrontation and dangerous spots. You have to do that and concurrently be ready to fight and take life if that is your only option. I understand this part of it. Here is what bothers me. You live in a town and you have access to the whole town. Okay, fine. Then a few years go by and the "bad part/s of town" have expanded; so now you don't go there either. Sooner or later you are going to be holed up in your house, afraid to walk to the corner store to buy milk or to take your kids for a walk. I hear of and read all the time about how we need to only be ready to intervene for our direct family members and we need to avoid areas of potential trouble. I do this myself, but what bothers me is this: Criminals used to be afraid of what we (society) would do to them if we caught them. It seems that now the situation has mainly reversed itself and we (society) are mainly afraid of what the criminals will do to us. This feels like surrender to me. It feels like the whole country is just limiting their radius of travel to just work-home-grocery store. That is pretty sad I think. It bothers me when they try to ban guns, even if I don't care for that type of gun myself (say a 50 BMG), and likewise it bothers me when a part of my town becomes a dangerous hotbed of criminal activity - even if I don't live in that part. I view our society as a living, breathing body. If I am a kidney and the body gets cancer, but it is only lung cancer I don't think I should feel too good about just writing off the lungs. The lungs are part of the body I live in and sooner or later this cancer will work its way to me and destroy my place also. Anyway, this is a serious reply to a nice, light-hearted posting. But, if someone has a comment on this I would like to hear it.
-Jake