On Rand Paul's Injury

Last week Rand Paul's neighbor attacked Paul while he was sitting on his riding lawn mower. He broke six ribs. The neighbor was charged with fourth-degree assault and released. Both parties have characterized the incident as a minor disagreement between neighbors.

But because of the nature of the injury, some have speculated that something much more nefarious must be going on, especially since the neighbor is a Democrat! Exactly how serious is Paul's injury? This article discusses it.

But it doesn't really say anything about how common it is, or what sort of circumstances can cause such an injury. The thing is, this can happen to anyone in the most innocent of circumstances.

I have a friend who had pretty much the same injury as Paul. He was out for a walk with his wife. He tripped on a section of short lawn fencing. He fell and broke several ribs. He was in agonizing pain for weeks.

Minor falls can cause serious, even deadly injuries. A Minneapolis cop was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for throwing a single punch at a loudmouth in a bar. The victim fell backwards and cracked his head on the stone floor. He needed three brain surgeries.

This is why "minor" assaults and bar room brawls should never be treated lightly. Punch someone in the eye and they can go blind (detached retina). Hit someone in the chest and their heart can stop (commotio cordis).

The law recognizes several degrees of assault, but the fact is that a single punch or a single fall can kill you if it hits you in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you land wrong.

Pretty much every mass murderer in history started out with with some form of animal cruelty, domestic abuse or assault. Society needs to treat all forms of violence as potentially deadly threats, instead of pardoning the perpetrators with the lame "boys will boys" excuse.

Assault rates vary greatly by state: in 2014 Kentucky, Rand Paul's state, had an aggravated assault rate of 250 per 100,000 population, while Minnesota had a rate of less than half that: 123 per 100,000. Alabama's rate was 283, while Vermont's was a mere 69. Wisconsin had 170, California had 236, Illinois had 213, New York had 229, Texas had 245 and Florida had a whopping 366.

Violence is clearly concentrated in big cities and the South, implying that it has a lot to do with poverty, which breeds violence.

But culture has something to do with it as well: the South is clearly much more violent than the rest of the country. It seems that Southerners don't take insults well, and react violently. Which would explain why Rand Paul was attacked over seemingly nothing, and Paul and the local cops dismissed the attack as minor.

Maybe if we stopped condoning minor violence and stopped teaching our children that it's okay to beat people up in anger, we'd have mass shootings once a month instead of almost every day.