chaim
Member
A cousin of mine was attacked by his neighbor's dog (a mutt that was half pit bull). He was mowing his lawn when the neighbor let the dog out the front door loose (illegal in Bethesda, MD where they live). The dog, without any warning, charged my cousin and attacked him. He had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. He is currently staying with my aunt in Rockville (she is his cousin, he is my mom's first cousin but he is my age, anyway, back on track). We don't know if there is any perminant damage but there is some fear of nerve or muscle damage. If there is it may make him unemployed. His job, he is a research scientist doing work to protect the blood supply, involves a lot of time on his feet and the use of fine motor coordination skills. Hopefully, everything will be ok. I have no news on the dog, but hopefully the owners are being fined and hopefully the dog is being put down- no need to keep demonstratably dangerous animals around (it attacked a guy, my cousin, on my cousin's property).
To make this gun related, I do use every opportunity to try to put some doubt in my parents' head over their strongly anti gun stances. I mentioned that if my cousin had a handgun in a holster he could have stopped the dog, possibly before being attacked, probably before any concern over perminant damage. My dad's reaction was two, really sheeple, reactions. "You can't just shoot a dog!!!" I say, "dad, the dog was attacking him". He says, "well, you can't go discharging a firearm in a residential neighborhood. You'll disturb people and it is dangerous" I couldn't believe it. My dad is willing to let his anti feelings win out over the demonstrated safety of a family member :banghead: . I can sort of understand being unwilling to question your cherished views over a totally theoretical situation (suppose someone you cared about was attacked by a dog, robber, rapist, murderer, etc), but this was an actual situation that I was using to demonstrate that "sometimes" a gun can actually be useful and he reacted as if I had three heads for such a suggestion.:banghead:
To make this gun related, I do use every opportunity to try to put some doubt in my parents' head over their strongly anti gun stances. I mentioned that if my cousin had a handgun in a holster he could have stopped the dog, possibly before being attacked, probably before any concern over perminant damage. My dad's reaction was two, really sheeple, reactions. "You can't just shoot a dog!!!" I say, "dad, the dog was attacking him". He says, "well, you can't go discharging a firearm in a residential neighborhood. You'll disturb people and it is dangerous" I couldn't believe it. My dad is willing to let his anti feelings win out over the demonstrated safety of a family member :banghead: . I can sort of understand being unwilling to question your cherished views over a totally theoretical situation (suppose someone you cared about was attacked by a dog, robber, rapist, murderer, etc), but this was an actual situation that I was using to demonstrate that "sometimes" a gun can actually be useful and he reacted as if I had three heads for such a suggestion.:banghead: