Better Safe Than Sorry - Lessons From Perugia

FASCINATION & INVOLVEMENT
Worldwide interest is on the dreadful murder in Italy of Meredith Kercher. Citizens of three or more countries are involved. A young student living overseas, who should have been having fun, and had all her life ahead of her, has lost her life. What can we learn from this?

WORRY
I keep telling myself to stop thinking and worrying about this. It's not my problem, only one of thousands of murders and deaths every day. It's not in my country. Nobody I know is involved. The situation is not one that I can change or help. There are not even any lessons to be learned. Or are there?

Why does this drama hold the attention of the rest of the world? Cautionary tale?
There but for the grace of god go I? Reminder of how much better off we are than we think we are when stressed out?

The mystery element makes you keep turning over the facts, as if by analyzing it, just one more time, you will be able to say that this must have happened or that must have happened. As if you could work out whether this person must have been guilty therefore another person must have been innocent, or maybe an accessory after he fact protecting a guilty party.

An unsettling element is questioning one's ability to judge character and predict events. As is so often the case, whether it's a massacre, a suicide bomber, or a single slaying, all the families come forward and say but my son or daughter must be innocent - they could not have done it.

So what do we conclude? That nobody can ever guess? That friends and family cannot tell?

So you cannot trust anybody, not even your family? Not your flatmate? Not your boyfriend or girlfriend? Not your spouse? Not your son or daughter?

PEER PRESSURE
Or should we reach another conclusion? Any young person can easily be persuaded that it's okay to kill themselves and somebody else?

DRUGS
Do drugs make you forget what you've done? People in court claim that drugs make them remember nothing about where they were, who they were with, or what happened. Under the influence you could not have attacked anybody else? Nor defended them!

ACCIDENTS
Many people in court under suspicion of murder claim that they committed manslaughter, not murder. They say that they only meant to frighten somebody, not to kill them. If that's true, our education system is at fault. We needed classes in both survival - meaning self-protection, plus self-restraint and safeguarding others.
Sometimes it looks like a genuine accident. But more often a bystander can see 'an accident waiting to happen', because people play with weapons or play fight.

DANGER
Excitement comes from the element of danger, of a power struggle, or the triumph of winning.
Elements of danger are normally present with any compression of the neck, and carrying or using knives and guns. Danger to yourself and others.

Being a victim is one danger. Being a witness is another danger.
Committing a crime and regretting it is one danger. Getting caught is another danger.

Being in the vicinity of somebody else and being accidentally mistakenly - or deliberately - blamed by police is another. Being blamed by somebody else trying to shift the blame from themselves to you is yet another danger.

We have a case in the UK of a boy playing with a gun who killed his sister. At least one person in the US has been killed by a gun which was loaded when the person holding it didn't realize or didn't know it would go off.

At least one case in the USA and another in England of people shooting themselves in the foot with their own gun.

Surely common sense and caution tells you to check a gun is loaded? And what about somebody holding a knife to somebody else's neck just to frighten them?

PRECAUTIONS
What precautions do you take? Do you lock your bedroom door at night, even when flatmates are about? Do you avoid people who are high on drugs? Do you take care not to play games with people who are drugged or drunk?

Should one avoid threesomes - the commonest fantasy of men and women, according to one survey.

Or should one just shrug? Usually after a well-publicized incident there are calls for changes in the law to prevent it happening again.

Insurance companies don't take a fatalistic attitude. They require you to set up locks and fire alarms and sprinklers.

Societies set up to prevent accidents at work and home and on the roads attempt to find causes and then prevent the events being repeated. In the UK we have had many knifings and now legislation has got tougher on the carrying of knives.

Airlines also don't allow any excuse. No knives. That's it. They stop you taking knives in your hand luggage or pockets.

Laws and rules have stopped youngsters from buying knives. And from taking them into school. What more can be done?

PS Looking at the news stories again two things stand out, drugs and consent. Drugs should not have been clouding common sense. Consent should have been obtained.

For safety:
1 Don't mix drugs and sex

2 All parties must consent at all times - this includes agreeing in advance and being allowed to change their minds if the situation changes and they are no longer

3 You have to care about somebody when you have sex with them or play any games.

4 They have to care about you, not just fancy having sex with you, care about you and your wellbeing. This means either caring about you specifically. You must allow time for this feeling to grow.

Or they must be the sort of person who cares about anybody and everybody. A nurturer. Again, you need time to know their personality.