Three Thoughts On A Friday

[chris_gerrib]

Armed Response

Comes news today that a hospital shooting in Pennsylvania was stopped when a doctor pulled out his own gun and shot the attacker. This does demonstrate that, yes, Virginia, armed citizens can interrupt mass shootings. Alas, only about 3% of Americans carry a gun, so this doesn't happen very often. ETA Not advocating more Americans carry a gun, merely noting that since most Americans don't, "good guys with guns" are scarce on the ground.

Reagan Republicans

I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984, and Bush in 1988 and 1992. Since then, I've been trending Democratic. this article very accurately traces why.

Fast Food Wages

From various sources comes news that Elizabeth Warren announced that fast food workers deserved a "living wage." I'm all in favor of people making enough to live off of, and considering the US has the lowest minimum wage of the industrialized world, we could probably bump ours and not hurt anything.

Having said that, the real problem is thanks to the deindustrialization of the US (Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound") jobs that pay decent wages for non- and semi-skilled labor are scarce on the ground. The real fix is a change to industrial policy to pull those jobs back from overseas. Relatively small tariffs would, I think, be very helpful in that regard.

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Your comment, "Alas, only about 3% of Americans carry a gun" implies that one solution would be to increase that number. Is that what you meant to suggest?

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

No, more of a statement that "97% of the time, there won't be an armed citizen around."

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Do you think it would be better if there were?

I'm not trying to set you up or anything. I'm genuinely curious.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Do you think it would be better if there were?

No, not really. I look at it from a practical perspective. First, the chances of getting into a gunfight are slim to none (rarer than getting hit by lightning). So the real risk to more people carrying guns is accidental discharge.

Second, tactically speaking, surprise is a big problem. Even in this case where the armed citizen stopped the shooting the armed citizen got shot. Had the attacker been a better shot or luckier the doc would have been dead and the attacker would have had a second gun.

I'm in favor of allowing adults to decide to carry (or not) a gun. I do think that people who decide to carry should be held to a strict standard with regards to safety, conflict de-escalation and general liability. But I'm not in favor of encouraging people to carry a gun. If they need encouragement, (read "increasing their courage) then they shouldn't be packing.

(You may see a cleaned-up version of this as a front-page post in the near future.)

[(Anonymous)]

The minimum wage should be high enough so that a full time worker neither needs nor qualifies for public assistance. Let business pay to full cost of labor, not the tax payer.

Jerry Critter

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty good standard. I also like the British system, which has tiered minimum wages - they have a "16-18" wage, an "over-18" wage and an "apprentice" wage for people just entering the workforce.

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

So it should probably be tied to inflation.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

yes.

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

So it should probably be tied to inflation.