Am I cold and heartless? ie Jerk?

[saracelica]

Okay so this Sunday two firefighters went into an apartment building that was on fire and got trapped inside and ultimately died. Tragic yes. It was on the news, I'm still okay with it that is news worthy. Well now they have memorial funds since one of the fire fighters had a 3 year old and a 1 week old baby and wife left behind. The other was not married. Tonight they are broadcasting the funeral ceremony on tv during prime time! Really. I didn't know the firefighters why should I care? Is it the same as caring when another pilot dies? Because that I can relate to, I recognize it can be dangerous to be a pilot.

The community has totally rallied behind all of the Cities fire stations and there are Facebook pages dedicated to them and people can sign up for when they can bring them dinner. Seems a little blown out of proportion. But I had no other outlet for this since several of my Facebook friends are either firefighters or are married to one. So am I jerk for feeling like this?

 

[Jim Logajan]

2011

• 177 Officers Killed (67 due to gunfire)

General homicide rate among general U.S. population in 2010 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm):

5.3 homicides/100,000 people/Year
3.6 gunfire deaths/100,000 people/Year

There were 794,300 LEOs in 2010 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers ) so using 177 and 67:

22 deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year
8.4 gunfire deaths/100,000 LEOs/Year.

Assuming those numbers are reasonably correct, then LEO's are about 4 times more likely to be killed than the average person, and about twice as likely to die by gunfire as the average person.

I don't look at what put the person in harms way as determining whether I should feel for their death - it is by its very nature not something I apply rational thinking to. I don't think one is being cold or heartless for not feeling for someone else's death. There have been billions who have died and billions more to go; I don't have that much empathy to spare. I'm not sure I can grok all the mortality that existed and will exist in this universe.