2004 Ford F-150 curb weight: 4758 pounds 2004 Ford F-150 Gross Vehicle Weight Rating: 6650 pounds Minimum GVWR to require a CDL: 26,000 pounds Maximum allowable vehicle combined gross weight: 127,400 pounds.
I'd say that the tractor trailer, at 13 to 64 tons, is a bit more of a potential hazard than a pickup truck that weighs 2-3 tons.
For the record, I drive a 1996 F-150, and apart from a slight sense of top-heaviness, it drives much the same as a standard sedan. My brother in law's semi, on the other hand, does not.
That's a few lines to "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, from his 1981 album "Face Value".
Here's the full lyrics to that song:
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord I've been waiting for this moment, all my life, Oh Lord Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning I would not lend a hand I've seen your face before my friend But I don't know if you know who I am Well, I was there and I saw what you did I saw it with my own two eyes So you can wipe off the grin, I know where you've been It's all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord I can feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord And I've been waiting for this moment all my life, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Well I remember, I remember don't worry How could I ever forget, it's the first time, the last time we ever met But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you don't fool me The hurt doesn't show; but the pain still grows It's no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord...
We Americans like big cars because we like big everything. Cars, breasts, houses, food, guns, you name it - if it's bigger, it's better in our eyes.
All kidding aside, though, we like bigger cars for a myriad of reasons, from the status symbol quotient to being able to put a week's worth of groceries for a family of 5 in the trunk. Some prefer them because of the (maybe no longer true) fact that larger cars offer a smoother ride, which is understandably important when you see the state of disrepair our roads are in.
Hey, this part of the discussion is about reducing dependency on the automobile itself - not making them more efficient. But to stray back to the topic at hand, one of the things I disagree with Bush on is that he slashed funding for hybrid research. Taking that further, hybrids are a great idea, but hydrogen fuel cells will be better. Unfortunately, they're at least 10 years away, no matter how much tax money we throw at them, because research funding doesn't speed up the research on a linear scale - once you reach a certain level, you get into diminishing returns, where twice the money won't make an idea come to market twice as fast. I'll grant, however, that the current level of funding is way too low, and that if we built a few less cruise missiles and put that money into hydrogen power research, we'd all be driving hydrogen-powered cars by the year 2030.
The point of my post and the two which preceded it, however, was that these ideas are all short-sighted stopgap measures that don't address the root problem. That problem is dependence on expensive, wasteful personal vehicles themselves. Why spend hundreds of millions on more efficient cars, billions on roads, and billions on related infrastructure, when we could redirect some of that money into building better cities and eliminate or greatly reduce the need for those things in the first place?
(Blowing the mod point I spent earlier to mod up another post in this discussion)
I'm a Bushie (sort of - I disagree with about half of what he's done since he took office, but I'll vote for him because I disagree with well over half of what Kerry wants to do). And I agree wholeheartedly with the post to which you replied, at least in regards to cities and towns. Rural areas will still need personal transport because of the impracticality of having train services in those areas, but for cities and towns, sure, let's build railroads and trains instead! I'd like to see rail stations on the outskirts of every city larger than, say, 150,000 people, where the rural folks can park their cars and ride the train on into the city. Put cameras in place and have security patrols there so as to discourage auto theft, whatever you have to do to make it attractive for Joe Farmer to park his car at the station and ride the commuter trains on into town. Build nice wide sidewalks. Bring back the street trolleys.
Most cities, even the ones with no commuter rail service, have bus service. It helps, but not much. Most folks who otherwise would ride buses don't do so because of fear and/or the stigma that's attached to them. Everyone thinks that only the homeless, the destitute, drunks, and drug addicts ride the bus. To a certain small extent, this is true - at least where I live. I don't know how to address this problem, other than to say maybe if regular Joes were to begin riding the buses again, they'd eventually run off the panhandlers and "seedy" types. (Note that I don't think the homeless and destitute are all seedy, most aren't - they tend to be destitute and homeless through no fault of their own - but a significant minority of them are people I wouldn't want to ride in a bus with).
If we could bring back the mom and pop corner stores, put one in every neighborhood, build sidewalks for short trips and railroads for long trips, put in bicycle-only lanes on the roads for the in-between distances, and make it easier for Joe Farmer to park his truck at the train station and ride on into town for his weekend nights of high-stepping, that'd be great.
Having said all that, I'm an auto enthusiast of sorts. I own 2 motor vehicles (car and pickup truck), watch NASCAR racing every Sunday, and think there's nothing more beautiful than a 1986 Chevy 3/4-ton 4x4 pickup with 4" suspension lift, 38" mud tires, chrome double-tube roll/light bar, and billet grille. By all means, enjoy autos if that's your thing - there will still be situations where they're the best transportation solution. But dammit, the way it is now, most folks hop in a 10 mile-per-gallon behemoth to drive half a mile down the road for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread! That's just not right! The human body is made for walking, not sitting on its ass using its right foot to press a pedal.
The government really needs to regulate violence on television. The violence on television lately is so poor that the only fix is for the government to step in and ensure that all violence shown on television meets standards of quality. I for one demand that the violence in my entertainment be the finest violence available.
and to have one of these scumbags sitting in my chair for a root canal...
"Oops, sorry, thought I'd given you the anesthetic....too late now, let me turn on some soothing music to take your mind off the pain....oh, wait, sorry, can't do that anymore"
That happens to me too, though I'd use a different word to describe the sound. I don't get a dick every time I get a phone call...still have the one I was born with:-P
Also interferes with the home stereo, the television, etc. - pretty much anything that involves an audio amplifier and speakers. And it does it every now and then, maybe every 5-10 minutes, call or no call.
This is with Cingular, on GSM. And the service sucks too, dead zones all over the place. Fuck GSM, give me back my CDMA!
Oh goody, I can't wait to get one of these emails. I'm already composing my reply:
Dear Nigerian Scammer,
I shall not be paying you off, and request that you send your snippers at your earliest convenience. In case you don't have this information already, my name is (insert my full name here) and I live at (insert my street address here) in Rossville, Georgia, USA, 30741. I drive a white 1996 Ford F-150 longbed pickup truck with red interior, bed-mounted toolbox, step bumper with trailer hitch, and a shotgun rack in the back window. The tag number is (insert tag number here). I am 6 feet tall and 225 pounds, with clean-shaven head and a red goatee speckled with grey.
I look forward to meeting your snippers and the target practice they're sure to provide for my amusement. Please instruct them not to sit still, for I would like a good challenge.
Sincerely, (Insert my full name here)
Of course, it's not entirely finished - there should be a few arrogant and subtly derogatory phrases in there to make sure that the scammer will be sufficiently angered...
It's the opening of Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.
Re:Selective "recognition" of UN rulings legitmacy
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, I'm a US citizen, and I've never thought of the UN as anything other than scammers bent on screwing the American People.
They're not exactly incompetent though, as they've managed to get the US to foot the bill for pretty much everything of consequence they've ever done. And the US, despite providing quite a bit of the most expensive real estate on planet Earth for the UN's office space, despite providing virtually all the manpower ever used to enforce UN policies, despite paying in blood for the UN's fuckups, still owes UN dues!
The only reason I don't want to see the US withdraw from the UN (and cease all foreign aid to banana republic dictators, etc. etc.) is because at this point in the game it would just make matters even worse.
Slackware does not put any fancy GUI hand-holding utilities between the administrator and the system. Pretty much all configuration is done by editing config files. This is a Good Thing(TM), and here's why: Those fancy, pretty, GUI-type configuration utilities introduce unnecessary possibilities for bugs to arise. I've never seen a GUI configuration utility that handled all the options and settings I wanted to modify, and rarely have I seen one correctly handle all the options and settings that it claims to handle.
There's also the matter of standardization - once you have learned to configure your own system without a 3rd-party kludge to hold your hand and do it for you in a point-and-drool interface, you can then apply that knowledge to pretty much any Unix-like system. If all the configuration you've ever done was accomplished via a distribution-specific GUI tool, then all you've learned to do is configure that specific version of that specific distribution.
Slackware uses a sophisticated software update system comprised of the pkgtool utility (and its attendant installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg cousins) and an incredible A.I.system abbreviated as "S.Y.S.O.P."
Through its amazing abilities, the S.Y.S.O.P. system monitors a steady feed of bug reports (the famed B.U.G.T.R.A.Q. system, first implemented in 1997 as an experiment in networking S.Y.S.O.P. systems over long distance, high latency networks in an asynchronus way) for information on what to do with the system. A S.Y.S.O.P. system will tirelessy maintain and care for your server installation, and can even create whole new bits of software, in the form of shell scripts or what have you, in the pursuit of its goals!
While those Debian people may be happy to just blindly apt-get-upgrade their BIND installation every few weeks, and those poor Redhat users are forced to rpm -i --force --nodeps nearly every single package they want, it has been found that through proper use of a S.Y.S.O.P. system, you can ditch the automated upgrades and truly secure your system(s) once and for all time! These amazing devices will also help end users if they are clustered sufficiently to prevent burnout.
An intelligient S.Y.S.O.P. -- no server should be without one!
Large parts of the previous few paragraphs were stolen from the alt.os.linux.slackware mod-fortunes file
The article doesn't go into this, but the current state of LPFM (Low Power Frequency Modulation) radio broadcasting is truly sad. Want to set up your own LPFM station? Sorry, only "noncommercial educational entities and public safety and transportation organizations" qualify for a license. Individuals and commercial organizations need not apply.
In any case, good luck finding an unused spot on the FM band. Oh, and you have to prove to the FCC that your school's station won't interfere with any existing stations within a frequency range from 0.6MHz above to 0.6MHz below your operating frequency. Is your school's station broadcasting material that doesn't cast a flattering light on the government? Be ready for the letter from the FCC notifying you that your state's Department of Highway Safety is taking your frequency over, so you can't broadcast anymore - and since you're no longer licensed, you must dispose of your broadcasting equipment within 90 days or be fined for possessing unlicensed broadcasting equipment. By the way, nobody will buy the stuff that you paid big bucks for because they can't get licensed for it either.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. See the FCC's page on LPFM for what the FCC themselves say about LPFM.
What if you can't do it? I mean, you talk very easily about ending someone's life
Ending a life is not, and should not be, an easy thing psychologically speaking. Anyone who can take a life casually and without regret is a psychopath, IMHO. The instinct to defend one's life, however, should overcome one's reluctance to take another's life.
(and you would be aiming for their chest, not a great place for even one bullet to hit) but when push came to shove could you actually shoot someone? I doubt it.
I've never had to, and hope I never have to, but should I ever have the misfortune to find myself in a situation where it's him or me, I have faith in my survival instincts. I'm comfortable with firearms, respect the power that is placed in my hand when I hold one, and am not afraid of using them. I hope the strength of will required to shoot another person when the situation calls for it is at least partially hereditary. I also hope that I have the wisdom to recognize such a situation, and more importantly, to recognize when such a situation is absent.
The one time I've been a witness to a shooting, the shooter was my dad and the shootee was breaking into our home. We lived in a rural area, where it would have been physically impossible for the police to arrive in under 20 minutes, even if they were at the point in their regular patrol area nearest our home and drove at the fastest possible speed up the mountain the instant we called.
Here's what happened: We heard the guy jimmying the back door. My dad took a few steps over to the coatrack where his revolver was hanging in its holster and pulled it out. He warned the man in a loud voice that he was armed, and told him to leave. The guy kept on, got the door open, and took a couple of steps into our house. My dad saw that he was holding a large knife, shot him in the chest, and called the police.
The man turned out to be mentally unbalanced, and had a list of convictions for such offenses as burglary and attempted manslaughter. The attacker was hospitalized, then went to prison for parole violation, attempted burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon. No charges were filed against my father.
BTW, my father worked at a nuclear power plant, and was thus forbidden to carry his revolver to work. He was killed in a mugging on his way to work one night in 1991. The police theorize that the mugger pretended to be a broken down motorist on a bridge over the Mississippi River. He stopped to help, and was shot for his trouble. The mugger got about $200 and a leather jacket.
Yes, all of these are covered in other posts. This is just a summary. Posted without karma bonus.
In descending order of desirability:
Carry yourself with confidence. If you don't look like a victim, you're less likely to be one.
Get in shape. Muggers go for the easy target. If you look like you can and will put up a fight, they'll find someone else to victimize.
Learn to handle yourself in a bad situation. Self defense classes are available just about everywhere. This will help you with the two items above.
Find out what neighborhoods are actually bad, and try to avoid them.
Don't carry anything you don't need. Do you really require all that gear?
Camoflage the stuff you do carry. Put your iPod in a pocket, use other-than-white earphones. Put your notebook in something that doesn't scream "Hey! I've got an expensive notebook in here!"
Get a self defense device and learn to use it. Mace, pepper spray, a tazer, stun gun, etc. all qualify.
You live in the UK, but for those who live in places where it's legal to carry a firearm, get a permit, get a handgun that you can use comfortably and naturally, and train with it. This should ONLY be used as a last resort, for both legal and moral reasons.
Even if that DID happen the ONLY smart thing to do would be to drop the gun and give up.
Hypothetical situation: 7 thugs armed with knives surround me with intent to rob and kill me (because dead men can't identify their attackers to the police). My S&W revolver only holds 6 rounds. Why do they not kill me? Because the first one to attack will be the first to die. None of them wants to be the first to die.
And they can protect themselves much more safely by just calling the police.
Find the post in this discussion about a 1974 ruling that says the police have no obligation to defend the public from criminals.
If I'm in a situation where my life is being immediately threatened by someone, yet somehow manage to pull out my phone and place a call to the police before I'm killed, I'll probably be put on hold for a while. If I manage to survive long enough, with the physical disadvantage of having one hand occupied holding my phone to my ear, I'll eventually get to tell some overworked dispatcher that I'm being attacked, and give them my location (if I know the address). Moving right along, I can now look forward to a 15-30 minute wait until one officer shows up to scrape my corpse up from the pavement. It should be nice and cool to the touch by then.
Or, I could just take a second or two to shoot my attacker, then pull out the phone and call the police.
It is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Slashdot Mirror
2004 Ford F-150 Gross Vehicle Weight Rating: 6650 pounds
Minimum GVWR to require a CDL: 26,000 pounds
Maximum allowable vehicle combined gross weight: 127,400 pounds.
I'd say that the tractor trailer, at 13 to 64 tons, is a bit more of a potential hazard than a pickup truck that weighs 2-3 tons.
For the record, I drive a 1996 F-150, and apart from a slight sense of top-heaviness, it drives much the same as a standard sedan. My brother in law's semi, on the other hand, does not.
That's a few lines to "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, from his 1981 album "Face Value".
Here's the full lyrics to that song:
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord
I've been waiting for this moment, all my life, Oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off the grin, I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord
I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life, Oh Lord, Oh Lord
Well I remember, I remember don't worry
How could I ever forget, it's the first time, the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you don't fool me
The hurt doesn't show; but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord...
All kidding aside, though, we like bigger cars for a myriad of reasons, from the status symbol quotient to being able to put a week's worth of groceries for a family of 5 in the trunk. Some prefer them because of the (maybe no longer true) fact that larger cars offer a smoother ride, which is understandably important when you see the state of disrepair our roads are in.
The point of my post and the two which preceded it, however, was that these ideas are all short-sighted stopgap measures that don't address the root problem. That problem is dependence on expensive, wasteful personal vehicles themselves. Why spend hundreds of millions on more efficient cars, billions on roads, and billions on related infrastructure, when we could redirect some of that money into building better cities and eliminate or greatly reduce the need for those things in the first place?
I'm a Bushie (sort of - I disagree with about half of what he's done since he took office, but I'll vote for him because I disagree with well over half of what Kerry wants to do). And I agree wholeheartedly with the post to which you replied, at least in regards to cities and towns. Rural areas will still need personal transport because of the impracticality of having train services in those areas, but for cities and towns, sure, let's build railroads and trains instead! I'd like to see rail stations on the outskirts of every city larger than, say, 150,000 people, where the rural folks can park their cars and ride the train on into the city. Put cameras in place and have security patrols there so as to discourage auto theft, whatever you have to do to make it attractive for Joe Farmer to park his car at the station and ride the commuter trains on into town. Build nice wide sidewalks. Bring back the street trolleys.
Most cities, even the ones with no commuter rail service, have bus service. It helps, but not much. Most folks who otherwise would ride buses don't do so because of fear and/or the stigma that's attached to them. Everyone thinks that only the homeless, the destitute, drunks, and drug addicts ride the bus. To a certain small extent, this is true - at least where I live. I don't know how to address this problem, other than to say maybe if regular Joes were to begin riding the buses again, they'd eventually run off the panhandlers and "seedy" types. (Note that I don't think the homeless and destitute are all seedy, most aren't - they tend to be destitute and homeless through no fault of their own - but a significant minority of them are people I wouldn't want to ride in a bus with).
If we could bring back the mom and pop corner stores, put one in every neighborhood, build sidewalks for short trips and railroads for long trips, put in bicycle-only lanes on the roads for the in-between distances, and make it easier for Joe Farmer to park his truck at the train station and ride on into town for his weekend nights of high-stepping, that'd be great.
Having said all that, I'm an auto enthusiast of sorts. I own 2 motor vehicles (car and pickup truck), watch NASCAR racing every Sunday, and think there's nothing more beautiful than a 1986 Chevy 3/4-ton 4x4 pickup with 4" suspension lift, 38" mud tires, chrome double-tube roll/light bar, and billet grille. By all means, enjoy autos if that's your thing - there will still be situations where they're the best transportation solution. But dammit, the way it is now, most folks hop in a 10 mile-per-gallon behemoth to drive half a mile down the road for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread! That's just not right! The human body is made for walking, not sitting on its ass using its right foot to press a pedal.
The government really needs to regulate violence on television. The violence on television lately is so poor that the only fix is for the government to step in and ensure that all violence shown on television meets standards of quality. I for one demand that the violence in my entertainment be the finest violence available.
damn you, hitting the submit button just moments before me!
"Oops, sorry, thought I'd given you the anesthetic....too late now, let me turn on some soothing music to take your mind off the pain....oh, wait, sorry, can't do that anymore"
Also interferes with the home stereo, the television, etc. - pretty much anything that involves an audio amplifier and speakers. And it does it every now and then, maybe every 5-10 minutes, call or no call.
This is with Cingular, on GSM. And the service sucks too, dead zones all over the place. Fuck GSM, give me back my CDMA!
It's the opening of Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.
They're not exactly incompetent though, as they've managed to get the US to foot the bill for pretty much everything of consequence they've ever done. And the US, despite providing quite a bit of the most expensive real estate on planet Earth for the UN's office space, despite providing virtually all the manpower ever used to enforce UN policies, despite paying in blood for the UN's fuckups, still owes UN dues!
The only reason I don't want to see the US withdraw from the UN (and cease all foreign aid to banana republic dictators, etc. etc.) is because at this point in the game it would just make matters even worse.
Yup, and I just discovered that I managed to make it into Volume 6. Twice. My nickname in A.O.L.S. is RedBeard, if you'd like to look them up :)
what, pray tell, is the name of it, and can I get it from Sourceforge or something?
There's also the matter of standardization - once you have learned to configure your own system without a 3rd-party kludge to hold your hand and do it for you in a point-and-drool interface, you can then apply that knowledge to pretty much any Unix-like system. If all the configuration you've ever done was accomplished via a distribution-specific GUI tool, then all you've learned to do is configure that specific version of that specific distribution.
Slackware uses a sophisticated software update system comprised of the pkgtool utility (and its attendant installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg cousins) and an incredible A.I.system abbreviated as "S.Y.S.O.P."
Through its amazing abilities, the S.Y.S.O.P. system monitors a steady feed of bug reports (the famed B.U.G.T.R.A.Q. system, first implemented in 1997 as an experiment in networking S.Y.S.O.P. systems over long distance, high latency networks in an asynchronus way) for information on what to do with the system. A S.Y.S.O.P. system will tirelessy maintain and care for your server installation, and can even create whole new bits of software, in the form of shell scripts or what have you, in the pursuit of its goals!
While those Debian people may be happy to just blindly apt-get-upgrade their BIND installation every few weeks, and those poor Redhat users are forced to rpm -i --force --nodeps nearly every single package they want, it has been found that through proper use of a S.Y.S.O.P. system, you can ditch the automated upgrades and truly secure your system(s) once and for all time! These amazing devices will also help end users if they are clustered sufficiently to prevent burnout.
An intelligient S.Y.S.O.P. -- no server should be without one!
Large parts of the previous few paragraphs were stolen from the alt.os.linux.slackware mod-fortunes file
In any case, good luck finding an unused spot on the FM band. Oh, and you have to prove to the FCC that your school's station won't interfere with any existing stations within a frequency range from 0.6MHz above to 0.6MHz below your operating frequency. Is your school's station broadcasting material that doesn't cast a flattering light on the government? Be ready for the letter from the FCC notifying you that your state's Department of Highway Safety is taking your frequency over, so you can't broadcast anymore - and since you're no longer licensed, you must dispose of your broadcasting equipment within 90 days or be fined for possessing unlicensed broadcasting equipment. By the way, nobody will buy the stuff that you paid big bucks for because they can't get licensed for it either.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. See the FCC's page on LPFM for what the FCC themselves say about LPFM.
Pak Chooie Unf!
Sounds like how I drive...
Ending a life is not, and should not be, an easy thing psychologically speaking. Anyone who can take a life casually and without regret is a psychopath, IMHO. The instinct to defend one's life, however, should overcome one's reluctance to take another's life.
(and you would be aiming for their chest, not a great place for even one bullet to hit) but when push came to shove could you actually shoot someone? I doubt it.
I've never had to, and hope I never have to, but should I ever have the misfortune to find myself in a situation where it's him or me, I have faith in my survival instincts. I'm comfortable with firearms, respect the power that is placed in my hand when I hold one, and am not afraid of using them. I hope the strength of will required to shoot another person when the situation calls for it is at least partially hereditary. I also hope that I have the wisdom to recognize such a situation, and more importantly, to recognize when such a situation is absent.
The one time I've been a witness to a shooting, the shooter was my dad and the shootee was breaking into our home. We lived in a rural area, where it would have been physically impossible for the police to arrive in under 20 minutes, even if they were at the point in their regular patrol area nearest our home and drove at the fastest possible speed up the mountain the instant we called.
Here's what happened: We heard the guy jimmying the back door. My dad took a few steps over to the coatrack where his revolver was hanging in its holster and pulled it out. He warned the man in a loud voice that he was armed, and told him to leave. The guy kept on, got the door open, and took a couple of steps into our house. My dad saw that he was holding a large knife, shot him in the chest, and called the police.
The man turned out to be mentally unbalanced, and had a list of convictions for such offenses as burglary and attempted manslaughter. The attacker was hospitalized, then went to prison for parole violation, attempted burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon. No charges were filed against my father.
BTW, my father worked at a nuclear power plant, and was thus forbidden to carry his revolver to work. He was killed in a mugging on his way to work one night in 1991. The police theorize that the mugger pretended to be a broken down motorist on a bridge over the Mississippi River. He stopped to help, and was shot for his trouble. The mugger got about $200 and a leather jacket.
In descending order of desirability:
Hypothetical situation: 7 thugs armed with knives surround me with intent to rob and kill me (because dead men can't identify their attackers to the police). My S&W revolver only holds 6 rounds. Why do they not kill me? Because the first one to attack will be the first to die. None of them wants to be the first to die.
And they can protect themselves much more safely by just calling the police.
Find the post in this discussion about a 1974 ruling that says the police have no obligation to defend the public from criminals.
If I'm in a situation where my life is being immediately threatened by someone, yet somehow manage to pull out my phone and place a call to the police before I'm killed, I'll probably be put on hold for a while. If I manage to survive long enough, with the physical disadvantage of having one hand occupied holding my phone to my ear, I'll eventually get to tell some overworked dispatcher that I'm being attacked, and give them my location (if I know the address). Moving right along, I can now look forward to a 15-30 minute wait until one officer shows up to scrape my corpse up from the pavement. It should be nice and cool to the touch by then.
Or, I could just take a second or two to shoot my attacker, then pull out the phone and call the police.
It is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
I think it's a bit late for that, as the smallpox vaccine was discovered over 200 years ago.