Risk Factor

This comes from Min S. Yee’s, The Great Escape; a Source Book of Delights & Pleasures for the Mind & Body (ISBN: 0552685593 / 0-552-68559-3)

The harder the task and riskier, the greater the feeling of self-fulfilment.

Here are some risk quotients for you to keep in mind:

High Risk Quotient: scuba diving, Skiing, surfing, mountain climbing, fox hunting, auto racing, bobsledding, sky diving, ski jumping, playing polo.

Very High Risk Quotient: Gang fighting, building atomic bombs in your garage, flipping the bird to voodoo priests, french kissing cobras, being a member of a snake handling church.

Risk Quotient squared and cubed: Driving an automobile, crossing the street, going out at night in the city, eating TV dinners.

Part of the reason that I mention this is that a fav gunloon argument is that other things besides guns can be lethal. The problem with that argument is that firearms are MEANT to be lethal weapons. If this list seems a bit skewed with things that are commonplace seeming incredibly risky, that is because they are indeed incredibly common.

For example, one of the most dangerous things to do is cross the street. But is it the crossing the street that is the dangerous act, or the dickbrain driver who fails to stop for, or otherwise avoid hitting, the pedestrian? As a former paratrooper, sky diving is dangerous, but you follow the checklist and safety rules to make it safer. Likewise, scuba diving can be dangerous if you have no idea of what you are doing, but you can still be safe if you follow the safety rules.