a lot of corner stores and similar - especially in a high crime area ( if this is one, i don’t know ) - tend to be just barely squeaking by.
training is: hire someone who’s done the job before.
anything that isn’t on fire with actual flames doesn’t get fixed. a license would indeed be just one more bill to pay. and if the city doesn’t care to check, that’s one less thing to worry about
i don’t know if it’s a place like that, but there are plenty of those everywhere.
[eta] it’s obvious how desensitized about mass shootings ive become when i’m ready to talk business licenses. these things have got to stop, and the only way that’s happening is to get rid of the guns.
That, all by itself, was always enough of a reason for me to decline job offers in the US. Not only too many guns, but too many politicians pretending the problem is intractable. It always feels like watching that satirical Shark Pool trailer, but for real, without the humour.
About 20 years ago, I lived in New Zealand. An American colleague had emigrated from Los Angeles. The decision to move came one morning over breakfast, listening to the news. There had been another freeway carjacking, and he said to his wife “We need a gun with real stopping power.” She looked back at him and asked “Did you hear every word you just said?” He replied “Yeah… Actually: we need to get out of here.” “We certainly do,” she replied.
But where you live (I’m guessing the UK) has an extraordinary of knife and bludgeoning murders. Yes, about 1/3rd murder rate of that of of the US per million people.
Because guns make it easier to kill, but
UK murders are still pretty high compared to other countries.
That’s a little terrifying to me. Take away the guns there will be way less murders. But apparently life, or death, finds a way.
Mobil is a franchise. My guess is this place is family operated and their policy is doing whatever they want to do. It’s badly family run because they apparently lost their permit even.
I can’t believe that Exxon Mobil would have a policy to allow something like this because it’s such an obviously bad thing to do in this situation.
What a massive dollop of stupid.
Exactly, all this, is what I assumed also.
Yes, this is the conclusion many people (including me) are coming to.
At my first employer we had a vibe test engineer angrily hurl a chair across a packed conference room because it was pointed out to him that something he proposed for the subject test article was inherently dangerous and unnecessary. The chair was thrown hard enough for one of its legs to spear into a door. It doesn’t take much to trigger some people off.
I assume we all have our moments. “Fortunately”, I have an older (and much bigger) brother who would bully me when we were kids. An education in how not to be.
Don’t forget the maiming: guns maim and injure a lot of people who aren’t killed. Lives forever changed in brutal fashion.
Then there’s the suicides by gun, to the tune of over 26,000 in 2021.
Firearms are the #1 killer of children in the US.
Then there is the subtle effect of suppressing public dissent. When there are assholes carrying guns, it suppresses the speech of those who know many RWNJs have poor impulse control.
Let’s just call it: whether you mean it this way or not, deflecting the danger of firearms by bringing up knives and (clubs? Brickbats?) is just bullshit. Guns are the problem.
The murder rate in the UK is fairly average compared to other European countries. It’s about 1.1 per 1000,000 per year. Germany is lower at 0.8, France is higher at 1.3.
Citation needed. The numbers I’ve seen say about 1/6th (Wikipedia) to 1/10th (OurWorldInData). “83% off” sounds like a good deal to me.
People will still be people. Some will still be filled with fear or greed or hatred. That doesn’t go away.
But as my very eloquent brother-in-law says: “Lawnmowers don’t cut grass: people cut grass. But if you want to cut as much grass as possible, as quickly as possible, with as little skill as possible, you’re gonna need a lawnmower.”
That was some cold blooded bullsh*t. A dispute over 3 dollars and you try to kill everyone in the store? Even the gangsters in the 1920s weren’t that evil, and they had far less. Even if he is convicted and gets multiple life sentences that does not seem like enough considering the complete callousness of this crime.
As regards the EU countries, the highest rates, in 2020, were recorded in Latvia (4.9), Lithuania (3.5) and Estonia (2.8) followed by seven countries with a rate between 1 and 2 intentional homicides per 100 000 inhabitants (Cyprus, Romania, France, Belgium, Sweden, Malta, Slovakia)
So a few Baltic countries come close, but don’t match the US rates. FSU mafias maybe? Or just booze and bad tempers? France, Belgium and Sweden seem higher than you would guess for stable European countries, but even so they would count as among the safest 5 states in the US.
The US has a higher homicide rate than Europe but it’s not such a massive gap, especially given how localized US homicides are. If you’re not in one of America’s high murder locations you’re about as safe as European average.
these things have got to stop, and the only way that’s happening is to get rid of the guns.
