So, speaking of rights.

During this last major storm, tens of thousands of people were without power as many inches of heavy snow pummeled the North East.

In many towns where we live, in Southeastern Massachusetts, rural people were completely isolated from civilization, sometimes without power or phone service.

There is absolutely no question that police would have been unable to respond to a 911 call for someone facing harm from a criminal.

Thankfully, most people on earth are good.

Fortunately, like fires, the incidents of those using the storm for violence were extremely rare. Fortunately, like fire alarms, many people go decades or a lifetime without needing protection from violence. Unfortunately, evil does exist in our world. Seasoned police detectives and undertakers can tell you that there are those who do not care about your life, family or dreams but have pure evil intent.

In some cases: for everyone during a situation like this storm, or for people in remote areas, they are their own emergency response – in a life and death emergency, there is no option to call police other than to hope they arrive to collect bodies.

In these cases one has a few options:

– You can opt to “play the odds” – a pretty good bet given that your odds of facing a deadly threat might be quite slim. With over a million break-ins per year and many of those cases where a homeowner is home AND injured or killed (it appears to be roughly 50,000 per year but home invasions are not tracked as a unique crime category, there are also tens of thousands more muggings, rapes and non-home attacks) the odds might favor you, they might not.

– You can opt to die – a true pacifist could opt to die rather than defend themselves. Logically, the truest pacifist would also opt not to even call police, even if they could arrive, as the police too would use guns and violence – few people would claim to be so idealistic, fewer still would carry through. For most, the right to self defense is reasonable.

– You can opt to be Macgyver, Dr. Who or Bruce Lee – the two fictitious heroes who use their wits and a stick of bubble gum or futuristic sonic screwdriver to save the day or the real martial arts skills of a great master. You could rely on a frying pan or scissors to defend your life and family from evil. Depending on your skill level and luck, this could work — but, out of the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the last couple decades from violent crime, we know of very few examples of this type of heroics.

– You can opt to hope and pray – despite evidence to the contrary you can simply hope that, if confronted with evil, your evil people will be a kinder, gentler type of evil.

– You can place your fate in the hands of the State. In cases of imminent violent attack, 911 calls, police almost never can arrive on time to prevent tragedy – in large cities delays can be 45 minutes even for extreme emergencies, in rural areas, even longer – unusual circumstances such as a blizzard can rule it out entirely. But, like playing the odds above, you can opt to place your faith in the police — before doing so you might consider ASKING the police what the odds are they’d be able to save you (they will tell you its slim) but, who knows, if a police cruiser happens to be nearby you might be in luck.

– You can opt to arm yourself – you can choose to train and have a safety system and have access to a weapon so that, if you must be your own emergency response, you have some capability to be effective. Your downside is that you have some risks by having a firearm in your home, you should train etc. but you have the greatest chance of survival if attacked.

I don’t care which option you choose.

What is odd is those who choose to prevent someone else from even having this choice.

Everyone has a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Everyone has a right to defend themselves from someone who would kill or harm them or their loved ones.

If you choose not to exercise that right, no problem. Attempting to take that right from another person is simply wrong.