Wednesday, November 12, 2008

It's a big place

Last weekend I went to southern Idaho with my son, his friend, and his friend's father. The boys both play soccer and are involved in state level training (called the Olympic development program). The first 2 sessions had been based locally. This session, 3 hours, was to be in Caldwell.

We could have flown from Spokane, in neighboring Washington state. This is only an hours drive away. Then a one hour fight to Boise, rent a car, and drive 20 minutes to Caldwell.

Instead we took the cheap option. We drove down through Idaho, a mere 400 mile, 7 hour drive. So we had to go on the Saturday and stay the night. The training took place, and then we got back in the car. This time we took the longer yet quicker route. Adding another 50 miles, we came up through Oregon and Washington before turning back into Idaho. This only took 6 and a half hours.

The point of all this is the size of this one state, with a population of 1.5 million. Idaho is large and sparsely populated. So why do so many people have guns? Well, how long do you want to wait for the police to turn up and help? Will the be too late to help? Crime is not a major problem in the mostly rural areas, but why take a chance when you don't have to? Tight gun control takes place in the UK. The only effect of this control is that only the bad guys have guns. Aren't politicians clever?

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