TexasCHLforum.com

Welcome back to Texas!

We may not be perfect, but at least here you can shoot back!

I grew up in Calif., and people are shocked by the number of times I was touched by violent crime. I was in a "nice" middle class area of N. Calif., and my story is not unusual. I knew people who had been seriously hurt as crime victims. I also learned that as you got to know some people, you discovered that a fair percentage of otherwise law-abiding citizens carried illegally.

I lost a high school friend to a serial killer (the "Trailside Killer") in Pt. Reyes National Seashore. A cousin vanished without a trace while travelling. I got out of three violent muggings by being armed (first with a pair of sticks against a mugging team of two men, the second with the chain used to lock up my bike against a gang of "yoots," and the third with a Krytonite lock that I was about to use on the head of the guy who was trying to shove me into heavy traffic). During my single year of grad school, there were three riots on or near the Berkeley campus, a shooting on campus, as well as at least one on-campus rape -- of a male law student. For a while there, the little city of Berkeley was averaging about a murder a week. Never again!

Welcome back!

Regards,
Dirty Bob

What with the high taxes, the lack of jobs, the mess that is the real estate market, and the anti-business state govt., the middle class is leaving CA at a rate of thousands/month. I was shocked when I heard that for the first time.

At the rate they're going, soon the only people who'll be able to live there will be the rich and the poor (who receive govt. help). The state is essentially broke, yet they just voted to hit themselves with a cap-and-trade law that will drive up the price of just about everything.

I left there in 1990 after finishing grad school, and I won't ever be back.

Regards,
Dirty Bob