This is something I've actually thought about a lot. When we take self defense in high school we are basically taught that we need to seriously injure somebody quickly before we are overpowered. A bigger, stronger person can fight somebody off in the same scenario, they don't understand the burden of having to possibly cause somebody permanent disability. I know I wouldn't leave that scenario without questions. What if I just waited a second longer, what if he was about to let up (que analyzing every minor detail), what if somebody else was about to come to my aid who could have overpowered him in a non-lethal way, what if it didn't have to end this way over and over and over again. That's something you don't just wake up and move on from.

Recently there's been a debate in Canada over firearms use in rural property theft. Basically people are mad, cops don't show up in time and they feel like they just have to let this happen. Obviously in a scenario were you are defending your life you are allowed to kill, but you aren't allowed to kill to defend your truck. You definitely aren't allowed to shoot somebody who is running away. The thing that really struck me is that people have no idea what they are asking for. They are frustrated and they want to be given permission to act on that frustration but they haven't considered for a second what happens after they kill somebody. They can't take that back, it fundamentally changes a person. There are soldiers who return from war struggling to come to terms with how they have killed people and these people act like shooting somebody on their property over a truck won't screw them up. I don't think you should ask to be allowed to shoot somebody if you don't even understand what it means.

So to get to the point, it very often is a death-penalty offense today but I'm not okay with that and as a society we need to realize that we can continue to make progress on this. In order to make that progress we need to be able to have compassion to say no, this man shouldn't have had to die, he should have had support and programs that helped him deal with his anger issues before your friend ever had to take on that kind of burden. Women have come a long way in society, violence is down and it's not because women all got guns. I've had to think about this because I've been in bad situation that thankfully didn't end badly, I don't wish I could have carried a gun. I wish those men got the support and help they needed to not turn out like total pieces of shit. I wish that they, as young boys, were in programs to keep them on a good path so that I, as a grown woman, didn't need to sleep with a weapon just to fall asleep. I'm mad at the people who vote against that, because as a society we have had opportunity to do this. I get that at this point in history I need to know how to defend myself, but I don't want anybody to act like that's okay. That I need to just accept that because there will always be bad people. We have come so far as people that to just dismiss that progress and say well that's just how the world is is such pessimistic crap. This is just were it ends ? This is how far we get to progress ? That's shit.