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Notes -
Left work late the other night to find a druggie going through in my car in the parking lot. First time that's happened, but should have expected it from seeing them stagger around after all the shops are closed down.
I'm assuming it's the fentanyl stumble, because sometimes you see them standing in weird positions staring at nothing, but maybe someone more versed in modern druglore can correct me.
The level of crime here is still low, but the jump from "literally absent" to "a general background level" has ruined the high trust that made this community great.
There are no more open cash boxes at vegetable stands (the last one got smash-and-grabbed a month ago). A friend had all his plumbing gear stolen out of his truck (you can't even fence that stuff locally!). I never used to carry a gun here, but started recently. I never used to lock my door while I was out, but started after my neighbor's place got ransacked. When I was a kid I used to leave the keys in my truck like everyone else, in case a friend wanted to borrow it.
All the petty crime here is carried out by dysfunctional scum who were attracted by the scraps thrown to them by do-gooders. Some of them were deliberately recruited in "rehabilitation schemes" and dumped on us when they inevitably failed. Those responsible quickly moved on to providing "safe drug use supplies" for their former charges at the local community center. All taxpayer-funded, of course.
In fact, I know all the people responsible for importing this biowaste to our community, and they all live in newly-built mansions down long driveways with automatic gates and security cameras.
Meanwhile I have a lot of my net worth in equipment that basically can't be secured right off a main road, relying on the fact that until now nobody just wandered in to steal your stuff.
It might seem stupid to complain about when we still have basically no murders, but it enrages me that we lost something precious, and it was deliberately inflicted on us by smug pricks who will never face any consequences for it. They won't even gain anything from having done it to us, other than the joy of seeing us suffer while they remain comfortably immune.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but like Goodguy's personal story the other week, it's a general reflection on the inadequacy of crime statistics to capture its impact on communities.
And a growing appreciation for the importance of meting out consequences in an equitable fashion.
From a practical perspective, what's the best self-defense weapon?
Lately I've been thinking it's pepper spray. The problem with a gun is that even if it is "successfully" used to stop a would-be assailant you could be facing criminal charges. It also seems harder to use then pepper spray.
But where on one's person do you even carry a gun (or pepper spray)? Surely not in your pockets, and digging through a bag to find a weapon seems difficult. I'm not sure you need to carry a weapon anyway. I live in Seattle, the land of the drug zombie, and even though people do occasionally get attacked by schizos, the odds are pretty small. As a man, I tend not to be hassled either. So I see no need to carry a weapon.
Sorry to pick out one small line from your post...
I mentioned it in the last thread, but having a large protective dog breed with you will generally make you safer around anyone with a shred of rationality left in their brain.
Dogs of course aren't practical for all use cases. But I feel like they fill the most needed gap for some of these cities.
I find it weird that I keep talking up owning a dog. I don't actually own one, and don't want to.
Well, maybe because many people believe dogs don’t belong in most places and get annoyed when people decide their precious little doggie should go to what were once people only locations.
As I said they don't fit in some circumstances. But outside on the street is fine and that is also a place with a lot of crime. Buildings that are secure enough to prevent a dog from entering are also secure enough to prevent obvious trouble people from entering.
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