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Katie's New Face

nationalgeographic.com

331–337 of 337 posts

Re: Katie's New Face

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, are you trying to make this anti gun? There are so many ways to commit suicide it's hardly worth listing them here. If her family kept any pills in the bathroom it's likely she could have killed herself without leaving the room.

Rather than offer your thoughts on what may have happened, you might be interested in reading about actual research into suicide. The gist is that many suicides are impulsive when an easy method is available– most often a gun. https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9068255/suicide-impulsive-gun-...

And I'm saying there were other methods just as easily available if not more so if she was already in the bathroom.

Re: Katie's New Face

#332
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem people have with organ donation is that it requires the donor to still be alive, but without brain activity, when they donate. So it boils down to what do you consider death?

Do you have any links regarding the need to be alive? My impression is this is only true for some transplant types.

Google: "organ donation cardiac death".

> My impression is this is only true for some transplant types.

Other way around. Organ donation after cardiac death is only possible for certain types, and only in very limited circumstances.

Hopefully things will improve because it would vastly increase the number of possible donations. The vast majority of people can not donate organs even if they want to - it requires a very specific type of death (brain death where the body is just fine).

Many people also have religious and ethical problems with it because you are killing someone. Obviously that depends on how they define death, which has no commonly accepted definition, the current definition "brain death" was set that way to make organ donation possible, and that makes many people uneasy.

Re: Katie's New Face

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Germans during WW2 had the best plastic surgery for burns.

Do you have any citations or history books you'd recommend? That flies in the face of everything I've ever seen or read, and is not mentioned, even briefly, on Wikipedia as far as I can see. McIndoe gets extensive entries both for himself and under plastic surgery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_McIndoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_surgery#Development_of...

My source is family experience with it. Sorry it's anecdotal. I imagine much was lost in the war and its chaotic aftermath.

Re: Katie's New Face

#334
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not. Someone actually has broken into my home, when I was there, and I am profoundly grateful that I, and probably the burglar, didn't have a gun available. It didn't even cross my mind to arm myself with a weapon. I offered him a cup of tea. I told him I had nothing of value in the flat, and that it'd be safer for him to come d…

I'm glad that situation worked out well. Could you not have done exactly the same even if you'd had a gun though? And that way had he not responded to your excellent de-escalation technique, and had instead attacked you with a bottle, the deterrent of the weapon might have saved you from injury. I feel the need to again emphasize that in general I am in support of gun control and that I don't personally own guns; I c…

No he couldn't. First, the temptation to escalate is there and real. Second, if there is a chance that the homeowner will be armed, the burglar might just as well arm themselves, too. It's a cycle of fear and violence which becomes so ingrained in population's psyche that they don't even consider the world with lesser stakes.

Re: Katie's New Face

#335
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not. Someone actually has broken into my home, when I was there, and I am profoundly grateful that I, and probably the burglar, didn't have a gun available. It didn't even cross my mind to arm myself with a weapon. I offered him a cup of tea. I told him I had nothing of value in the flat, and that it'd be safer for him to come d…

I don't get it? Just because you own a firearm or have one on your person does not mean you must use it. Also, just because you do not feel comfortable deciding when it's appropriate to use a firearm does not mean other people feel the same way.

It still means more guns in the society and, correspondingly, more death. The externalities of arming yourself with a gun are just too high to justify it.

Re: Katie's New Face

#336
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Against what? In the US, that would be against the individuals who collectively commit millions of violent crimes per year (surveys indicate this number easily exceeds 5 million per year).

What are the odds of that happening to you though? I don't know what the actual statistics are but it seems highly improbable. And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.

About 150 per 100k people are the victim of a violent crime every year in my hometown. And the rates are much higher than that in some neighborhoods.

You mentioned London. St. Louis has about twice as many homicides per year as London. There are 300 thousand people in St. Louis. London has, what, 8 million? And half as many murders.

I’m sure you do feel safe there. I’m less confident when I’m back home.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis

Re: Katie's New Face

#337
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the odds of that happening to you though? I don't know what the actual statistics are but it seems highly improbable. And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.

About 150 per 100k people are the victim of a violent crime every year in my hometown. And the rates are much higher than that in some neighborhoods. You mentioned London. St. Louis has about twice as many homicides per year as London. There are 300 thousand people in St. Louis. London has, what, 8 million? And half as many murders. I’m sure you do feel safe there. I’m less confident when I’m back home. https://en.m.…

You’ll forgive me, I hope, for accidentally posting the crime rates for the greater St. Louis area, immediately followed by the homicide totals for only the City of St. Louis.

The actual rates within the city are almost unbelievable: 1,913.2 violent crimes per 100k people.

Of course, this highlights the truth of a chorus oft-repeated there, which is that the region as a whole isn’t nearly as unsafe as the City numbers imply, a problem exacerbated (and concealed) by the City’s relatively small footprint within the area.

But that’s small consolation to those of us who make our homes and spend our time in that undeniably violent core.

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