02-23-2018, 08:03 AM
I really hope these kids that are making a lot of noise at the moment get some traction and enact change, but I am very doubtful, they are trying to change a culture that is so ingrained. I lived in Phoenix Arizona for a couple of years in the late 90's, real cowboy country. I still shudder recalling a news story I saw when I was there about the leading causes of death in children under 5 years old. Number 1 was drowning. Now Phoenix is in a desert, seriously hot and dry, so everyone, and I mean everyone, has a pool. Pool fences were encouraged, but you did not have to have one by law. Most apartment complexes, like the one we lived in, had a fenced pool (because the owners didn't want to get sued), but I went to a number of private houses where the pools were beautifully landscaped, but no fence. Second leading cause of death was gun shot wound. Almost always it was a sibling or playmate, in the family home, found a handgun in a draw, playing cowboys and Indians, shot their mate/brother/sister dead. This was glossed over in the news story, which went on to focus on how fantastic the USA is, how great their health care system is, in a lot of the rest of the world the leading cause of death in children under 5 is diarrhoea, or malnutrition, or malaria, but the USA is so great that these things don't happen in Arizona. It still makes me cringe