Backyard Syndrome

If seems the only states addressing gun control are Connecticut and Colorado, scenes of recent mass killings of young people.

We do not factor in risk probabilities unless a disaster happens in our own backyard.

The Arkansas oil spill is another example. The risks involved in oil pipeline transport of the tar sands oils will probably only be appreciated by the neighbors of the oil spill in Arkansas.
The rest of us continue on.
Why?

What is there so compelling in our madness that we ignore the risks? Starting back at risk evaluation in bank holdings in sub-prime mortgages in 2008 and up to school shootings, why do we feel so incompetent in the face of these dangers, so much so that we cannot respond in any creative way?
Shootings? Get everyone guns... that'll stop it.
Contamination of water tables? Never happen.
Climate Change? A deception of an international cabal of scientists.

Personally, I would rather not wait until my backyard is the site of a mass shooting spree over an oil spill in the middle of a tornado... and health care costs too much to do anything about it.

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note

It may be that certain manifestations of "faith" are essentially refusal to evaluate risk.

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