Gun Fondling

Why do some people fondle their guns while they don't do this with other tools?

I've noted before that I'm not anti-gun.  Firearms have their place in our society and as long as they're handled responsibly they're not an issue.  Of course that's the real issue - that nobody handles them responsibly.

Well maybe not nobody, but there are a large number of people in the USA who not only enjoy owning firearms but have almost a fetish about them.  If you have some friends like this, no doubt you've been to their house and they've showed you their collection of firearms, even inviting you to touch or handle one or more of them.

I usually refuse such invitations. A firearm is a tool, and it's only be handled when it is needed or being maintained.  Fondling guns is just sick and stupid.  For some reason the gun nuts like to play with their guns and seem to derive some satisfaction from it.  To me, it makes about as much sense as playing with your circular saw.

I can only imagine the conversation that would take place if you invited your friends out to your workshop or tool room to show them your tools.  "Hey check out my new circular saw, it's a DeWalt!" you'd say, "Here, hold it - check out the heft on this baby!"

"That's nice," one would say, "I have a Ryobi, and those things are really built to last."

"Ah, you don't want that Jap crap," another friend would say, "I've got a Milwaukee, those things are built like iron."

"Kicking it back, old school?" another friend would ask, checking the action on the blade guard.

"What about you Tim, what kind of circular saw do you have?"

"Well," he would reply, "I have a Black & Decker!" - at which point all the rest of the men would start laughing uproariously.  They always thought that Tim was gay, but now they know for sure.

Of course, such a conversation is nonsensical, but then again so is passing out firearms and playing with them. And yet I have had this experience more than one time in my life, where gun enthusiasts have asked me to handle their firearms, which always makes me uncomfortable.  Not only that, but on more than one occasion, I've been handed a firearm and told it was unloaded, only to find that there was, in fact, a round in the chamber.

A responsible gun owner doesn't play with their guns.  For starters, when you hand them to people, they get their greasy fingerprints all over them, which can actually oxidized the finish.  Thus, you have to clean the firearm over and over again.  It is better to keep them locked up in a cabinet until they're ready to use.  If you're using one for personal protection, maybe you keep it in one of those rapid access safes.  Whatever the case, you don't leave them laying around loaded, or hand them out to friends to play with.

That is, any more than you ask your friends to come over and play with your circular saw.

P.S. - laying your firearm collection on the bed (WTF? sexual suggestion?) and taking a picture and posting it on Facebook or other social media counts as "fondling".    Responsible gun owners just don't do shit like that.  Little boys, on the other hand, do.

NOTE:  A reader chastises me for denigrating gun collectors.   Nothing could be further from the truth!  A true gun collector won't open up his gun case and pass around an antique shotgun for his friends to fondle, getting fingerprints and oils all over it - after he spent hours cleaning it.   Collectors and REAL firearms enthusiasts respect the hardware and know that guns are not toys to play with.

My brother-in-law had a collection of over 500 antique radios.  ("Do they all work?" I asked.  "Of course they do - I don't collect broken radios!" he replied).   And no, you could not even touch a one of them, much less play with the dials or buttons, or God Forbid, turn them on.

Does a philatelist let you handle his stamps?  A numismatist his coins?  Does a wine connoisseur let you into his cellar and pass rare bottles around? (they would sooner donate a kidney!).  Of course not.  Gun fondling is a sickness, not a hobby.

The gun nut?  He buys a Ruger-22 and then outfits it with "tactical" style accessories so he can play pretend Rambo.  It is no different that the guy with the Dodge Cummins pickup truck with the 10" diameter exhaust pipe, trying to play pretend trucker.   The guy with the Dodge is far less likely to go on a killing spree, however.

Gun nuttery is NOT being an enthusiast or a collector.  It is a form of mental illness.  The only time you should be handling a gun is if you are cleaning it or shooting it, or inspecting it for purchase.  Sitting in the dark stroking a firearm?   Passing them around for your friends to play with?  See a doctor!

Millennials be like...

Does the special snowflake stereotype person actually exist?  Sadly, yes.

We were staying in a KOA in Wyoming and after supper, Mark said, "let's get an ice cream!" which is very atypical of him.  So we walked around the park and went to the office, where they sell stuff in their little store.   An older couple was pacing around in circles outside the office door, looking very unhappy.  We went in, not knowing what to expect.

Outside the office was parked a brand-new "teardrop" camper, towed by a Toyota 4x4.   Inside, was a young "millennial" couple checking in.  What followed was hilarious. Yes, both of them had inappropriate tattoos and piercings, too.  They were engaged in a long, long, LONG conversation with the clerk as to how much each site cost, and how the KOA "value rewards program" worked.  The clerk would explain the whole thing and we would start to believe the process was done and they could start checking in, when the young woman would say, "wait, can you explain that again?"

We got our ice creams and, because they started to melt, ate them.   I wandered around the store, looking at everything they had in stock, from RV parts, to t-shirts, to food, and camping gear.  I personally picked up and examined every item they had.   This went on for a half-hour.   And apparently, it was going on before we got there, hence the unhappy older couple pacing out front.  At one point, the "Dad" came in to see if progress was being made.  He and I made eye contact, and I shrugged.  He smiled and nearly laughed and walked back outside.

Meanwhile, at the front desk, the young millennial girl is demanding an explanation as to why all KOAs are not priced the same!   Finally, the clerk checks them into a site, but only after they have asked about the amenities at each different kind of site and how much the sites cost.   They settled for a tent site, which should be interesting with a teardrop trailer - no place to park it!   We thought it was all over, but the girl started going through the store and picking up random things and saying, "How much does this cost?" - not bothering to even look at the price sticker on the item.   I had been there so long, of course, I could have told them the cost of each item, from memory.

Finally, they left, but only after trying to maintain an extended (and unrelated) conversation with the desk clerk.  Mark shoved the now-empty wrappers at the clerk and said, "I'd like to pay for these!" which forced the special snowflakes to move on.  The long-suffering older couple finally came in to buy whatever it was they were buying.  I am surprised they hadn't just given up.

What was going on here?  Were they high?  Was the clerk to blame for being so chatty?  I am not sure.   I think, however, it is an example of a behavior I see a lot of today, where people feel they are "special" and need to be waited on, and once it is "their turn" at the head of the line, they can milk it for all its worth and make other people wait in a passive-aggressive game.  That is one reason you are seeing ordering kiosks at fast-food joints.   What slows down the service isn't the poor ergnonics of the "kitchen" but the special snowflakes who get to the head of the line and say, "I'll have, an, uh, wait a minute...." because they are just now looking at the menu, and it's their turn to make everyone wait.   Folks like that must hate the kiosks and the people who order from them and get their food first.

As I noted in The Culture of Belligerence, these sort of games are played by people who feel powerless in their ordinary lives.  They lash out at others, because they have no real economic power, and thus need to assert power in other ways.   The person with the tortured latte order at Starbucks wants to be a special snowflake because the rest of their life is a train wreck.   When they get their half-caf, half-decaf, spiced pumpkin latte with half-skim, half-2%, extra cinnamon, they feel they "won" somehow, even though the money they put in the tip jar would be better spent funding their 401(k), which would provide them with real economic power.

And so it goes with the millennial couple.  They had just bought the teardrop camper and this was their first night camping in it.   They would have been better off in a National Forest, State Park, Army Corps of Engineers site, or other more bucolic area.  For some reason, they chose a KOA "Journey" park, which is an overnight park filled with expensive motorhomes pulling cars (and often trucks).   It cracks us up sometimes, when we see a motorhome pulling a full-sized pickup truck behind it.  Their "tow behind" is our tow vehicle.   But then again, they are probably upside-down on it all, which is why those sort of folks have their own passive-aggressive games.

So Suzie Snowflake feels out of her element.  They are the youngest people in the park by at least a decade or two.  They don't know what to expect and are wary of being "ripped off" somehow, and the nightly cost seems rather high (again, State Parks...).  So her way of "controlling" the situation was to take control of the situation and make everyone else wait until everything was explained to her, at least three or four times - sometimes more.

This is not a millennial thing, it is a human thing.  We all do it, yes, even me, at times.  We feel unsure of a new situation and want to maintain some form of control.  We feel insecure and lash out.  And the end result often is, we end up further behind the 8-ball than we were before.   Spending 20 grand on a Harley when you feel inadequate in life isn't going to make things better, even if you can gun your straight pipes at the "rich guy" at the stoplight and "show him!"    Blowing five bucks on a coffee drink so you can impress the barista isn't going to help your bottom line (and the barista has his own set of passive-aggressive games to play as well - he's even less empowered than you!).

This couple had a nice rig, perfect for an active young couple who want to explore.   A visit to a State Park or other public land would probably have been more fun for them, rather than to camp in the shadow of someone's $500,000 "motorcoach".   We stopped there simply to do laundry - after three days of "dry camping" in State parks with no power or water (other than what was in the tank and what the solar panels provide).

How do you avoid being a special snowflake?  Empower yourself.   Do research and learn about things before jumping into a situation where the balance of knowledge is not in your favor.  A few hours on the Internet could have educated this couple about camping sites - and the KOA pricing and rewards scheme.  Likely, they would have found that bucolic campsite by a bubbling stream in a State Park and been much happier and spent half as much.

That is the great thing about the Internet.  The powers-that-be haven't corrupted it entirely just yet (Google is doing a good job, though, of steering your every inquiry to corporate America).   You can still search online on the greatest database ever produced.   You can learn a lot - about anything.   There is no longer any need to go to a car dealer without knowing in advance how much you expect to pay for a car, under what terms, and what the dealer paid - if, in fact, you didn't negotiate the price before you even went there.

And so on and so forth.  The "cure" for passive-aggression is power, and the way to accumulate power is to accumulate knowledge.

  

Bureau of Specious Statistics, Hurricane Division

Our government and the media are lying to us.

One way to win a debate is to control the vocabulary.   And if you can't control the vocabulary, then change the definition of words.   I noted before how government agencies have produced alarming "child homelessness" statistics by arguing that any child living in a trailer park or with his grandmother is "homeless".   Unless they are a nuclear family in a three-bedroom house, they might as well be orphans!   This is, of course, ridiculous.

And it is interesting that homelessness is deemed a "crises" and gets a lot of press, when the actual numbers are very low - a fraction of a percentage (0.17%) -  of the population.   In terms of breaking into your parked car or pooping on the sidewalk, yes, it is a crises - but a crises often of our own making, by stipulating that bums have "rights" but that taxpayers have none - other than the obligation to pay for the former.  And no, these drug-addicted bums don't want "food" or a "job" but just more money to buy drugs.  Stop feeling sorry for criminals!  But, if you run a non-profit that serves the homeless or feeds the non-existent "starving" in America - or you are an editorial writer for The Guardian, who wants to write another USA-bashing piece - alarming (and false) statistics are handy to use.  They generate clicks and back up government grants!

People use specious statistics to back up specious arguments all the time.  Whether it is their searing indictment of McDonald's as stripping the rain-forest (for the record, no) or "proving" that capitalism has once again failed, you can find numbers to bolster your position - provided you ignore those numbers that detract from it.   For example, the fact that the average student loan balance in America is a measly thirty-seven grand.  Doesn't seem like much of a crises, do it?

Of course, alarmist statistics have been used with major storms in recent years.   We are told that each hurricane or even snowstorm produces piles of dead bodies and other "victims" (the nature of their victimhood often unstated - many look rather healthy).   We are told that more than a decade after hurricane Katrina, that some people are still "victims" of that storm.   Of course, this all plays into the victimhood mentality that permeates America today - on both sides of the political spectrum.  There are real victims of the storm, of course.  Then again, there are idiots who drive into flooded rivers and people who refuse to evacuate and morons who run generators in closed garages.

It looks like hurricane Dorian, after flattening the Bahamas once again, gave Florida a light touch and seem to avoid our little island entirely.  The outer banks looks like it will get hit, which should come as no surprise to residents there - it is a hurricane magnet.  We monitored the track of the hurricane on the NOAA site and also looked at the live webcams for nearby St Simons Island.   It didn't appear the waves were all that high and people were milling about downtown St Simons and even driving their cars - during the height of the storm.   We got lucky - there was literally no damage and very light damage in Florida.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control has already recorded the first three deaths of the mainland United States from Hurricane Dorian.  "Wait a minute," you say, "How can there be deaths from a hurricane that barely touched the US so far?"  And the answer is, when a hurricane or other major storm occurs, government officials count almost every death that occurs as being "related to" to the storm.

So if you get in a car wreck, you are a statistic in terms of automobile fatalities.  But if you got into a car wreck during a snowstorm, then you are a fatality as result of the snowstorm.  The government can then claim the storm killed so many people, when many of these people might have just died anyway.

In the article cited above, three recent deaths which were totally unrelated to the storm are being counted as such.  One fellow evacuated to the Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is a pretty comfortable place to wait out a hurricane.  Some people call that a vacation.  He died from unknown causes but the corner is calling it a "hurricane-related death" for some reason.   I guess it's not a Disneyworld-related death and the people at Disney are probably happy about that.

Another fellow was cutting limbs off his tree with a chainsaw and fell out of the tree and died.  This is just a sad accident and an example of why you should hire a tree service to do your tree trimming. You could argue that it was related to the storm because he was trimming the limbs in anticipation of the storm, but on the other hand, he probably would have trimmed those limbs eventually, storm or not. This is not a storm-related death.

Yet another person was reported dead as a result of a heart attack that occurred while he was "preparing for the hurricane" which makes it a hurricane-related death.  Chances are, he had a weak heart or was overweight or had clogged arteries or whatever, that lead to the heart attack. Eventually he would have had a heart attack, hurricane or not. For some reason again, this is being called a hurricane-related death.  I don't see it.  It's just a guy who died while a hurricane was 100 miles offshore.

This gets me to thinking that our government is lying to us. We are told about these horrific death tolls from various storms in recent years, and some of the numbers are astronomical.  When I was a kid growing up, our snowstorms didn't kill anybody, even though the 1970s were very cold.  And we did get some major snowstorms in central New York back then.  However, today, each snowstorm is listed is having a number of fatalities associated with it. What is going on here?

Simply stated, back in 1975 or so, we'd get a major blizzard and think nothing of it.  Blizzards were a way of life back then. Somebody cracked up their car into a light pole, and that wasn't considered a "blizzard related death" but an automobile accident by a careless driver.

Somewhere along the way - and I blame cable television, in particular The Weather Channel for this - we became paranoid about storms.  When I moved to Washington DC, whenever there was even a forecast of snow, government employees would raid all the local grocery stores and buy every last loaf of bread, carton of eggs, and carton of milk. It was almost comical how people would strip the store shelves bare, as if the end times were coming instead of just two inches of snow.

Sensationalism sells.  And the News industry has become an entertainment industry and wants ratings.  So if you can get people paranoid about a storm, it will boost your ratings as people will watch for hours, non-stop.  For example, as I noted before, newscasters would say, during the "teaser" at 8 o'clock, "Snow in the forecast? Stay tuned for news at 11!"  In the time it took them to tease you about the snow storm, they could have just said there's no snow or there's going to be snow and gotten real information to you.

But that's not the point.  The point is they want you to watch the newscast at 11 o'clock, through its entirety, including all the advertisements, with the weather report, of course, being at the very end. Only at that point do they tell you there's not going to be any snow.

So the media loves these "deadly storm" narratives, even though many of the people logged as "victims" of the storm would have died even without the storm present, or the storm was only tangentially-related to their death.  This serves the media interest by cranking up anxiety about the weather, which in turn leads to depression, and depressed people make excellent consumers - nice and pliable, and willing to watch hours and hours of television.

Why the government is doing this is less clear.   Some government agencies no doubt can bolster their budgets if they can make the weather seem more alarming than it is.  Politicians - of all parties - make hay by flying in helicopters over the disaster area and declaring that relief is imminent (even if it isn't really - borrowing money, which is all a lot of disaster aid amounts to, isn't really making you whole, but just digging a hole even deeper.)

And of course, there is the issue of global warming.   I've worked with a number of NOAA scientists on Patent Applications and they are smart folks.  Global warming isn't a hoax - let's be clear about that.  But some folks have overstated it a wee bit - claiming that islands in the Pacific are already underwater and that Miami will be below sea level within a decade.   The reality is, sea levels are rising, but it is a slow process.   I am not sure that hyping each weather event as "more proof of global warming" is a good idea.   We will have snowstorms and hurricanes, regardless.

The danger is, if you cry "wolf" often enough, people stop listening.  When Florida fails to sink below the waves in 10 years (as the media breathlessly reports) people will start to think that global warming is a hoax - and that is the real danger.

In any war, truth is the first causality.   And it seems we are at war these days, with words, with each other, and with the truth.   We are told truth is subjective and that what you perceive is truth and there is no underlying truth.  Such talk usually ends us up in a bad place later on, as the reality of reality collides with "perceived reality".

We need to stop making up data to suit our preconceptions.  We need to stop generating specious statistics!

Hurricane Nooze

Turns out the best place to get "news" is from source data.

It is hurricane season again, and we are near Ketchum, Idaho.   It is an interesting place, sort of like Whistler, BC - a ski resort town with lots of boutiques and sports equipment shops, expensive restaurants, and boutique grocery stores.   Like Whistler, it is not a "real" town, but an artificial construct designed for the tourist business.   We didn't stay long.

Fortunately, since we are in Idaho, we don't have to evacuate from Jekyll Island.   A hurricane is once again threatening the island, but once again, the Gulf stream and the shape of Georgia (which bends inland) might protect us.  While parts of Florida and the entire South Carolina coast are under a Hurricane warning, the Georgia coast is left with only a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch.

All of this information is available from NOAA.gov, free of charge, updated several times a day.   But what about the news, you say?

Nothing could be more worthless.   We click on news stories about the hurricane, and they could have been written years ago.  Breathless talk about lines at Home Depot for plywood. Interviews with people filling sandbags at a free government sandbag dispensary.  In one story, they show two young women in a Toyota Corolla, filling sandbags.  Even assuming you could fill the trunk of that car with sandbags without breaking the springs, what on earth are you going to do with three or four sandbags, anyway?   What is this going to save?

And moreover, if you live in Florida, you should be prepared for hurricanes every year.  It is not a once-in-a-lifetime thing.   What do people do with all this plywood after the storm is over, throw it away?   If you live there, you should have these things ready at all times.  Mark's grandfather cut pieces of plywood to put over the windows of their bungalow on Ft. Meyers Beach.   Every year, he would put them up when he left, and take them down when he came back for the winter.   They stacked into a rack in the garage that he made for that purpose.  Every other year, he painted these with leftover house paint.

He set this up in the 1950's, and these pieces of plywood survived three generations of family. No running off to Home Depot every year to buy new pieces. They were still there when the house was bulldozed.

Of course, the other alternative is to buy roll-up storm shutters that attach permanently to your home, or shell out the money for hurricane-proof windows.   But no one seems to do this - at least not the people they interview on television.

Television and the media is all about telling you half what you want to know, so you come back to the well, again and again, hoping for more information, but never getting more than tidbits of real data, interspersed with "man on the street" interviews with people waiting in line for gas, plywood, sand bags, ice, or bread.   Cut away to the boarded-up 7-11 with "Hurricane [insert name here] go away!" spray-painted on the virgin plywood.  Much chuckles, much chuckles.   Back to you in the studio, Ted!

Of course, with the Internet, we can go to live webcams, and see what is actually going on, on the ground.  And often, what I see is less alarming than the news suggests.  Despite a "mandatory evacuation", there are cars and people milling about on nearby St. Simons island.   I'm not saying you shouldn't evacuate, of course.  It is just the storm has yet to hit.   When it does, we will check those cameras again.

There are other sources of data, including the local tide charts.   If the hurricane is scheduled to go through your area (or merely pass by) during high tide, you may be in for a world of woe.  At low tide, you may dodge a bullet.   It looks like, so far, that we may have low tide when the hurricane is scheduled to pass by.

But I guess that is the point - there really isn't any good information you can get, other than the computer models from NOAA, unless you have a direct line to God.  So the local "nooze" has nothing to report, other than a reporter "on the scene" in a slicker, acting as if he is going to be blow away any moment - or the "human interest" story of waiting in line for ice.  There is no point in being glued to the weather channel during a hurricane - you won't learn a damn thing!

This is not to say the news overblows things (no, never that!) only that it often presents data that is irrelevant or useless.  I recounted before how my neighbors, after a hurricane, got in line for ice in Miami, when the radio said ice was available for free.   Four hours later, they came back with a half-melted bag of ice they really didn't need.   But the radio said!   So they went.  People need normative cues, even in a hurricane, as to how to behave.

As I noted before, the worst part of a storm like this is going back.   Some jackass Sheriff on a power trip will not let anyone back on the island until electricity is restored.  "It's not safe to live there without power!"   Oh, how did our ancestors ever survive?   Fortunately, if you show up with a brand-new camper with filled water tanks, they might let you in, as they realize you are self-supporting.  They also claim they want to stop "looters" but I doubt many residents on Old People Island will engage in looting.

My only fear is that we will be forced to wait for days and days while mold and mildew set in, if there is indeed flooding.   And with flooding, an inch of water inside your house is almost as bad as three feet.  Either way, you've got to tear out a lot of sheetrock and start over, lest you end up with a mildew nightmare on your hands.

We keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.  A hurricane hasn't washed over the island in over 100 years.   Maybe it won't happen again - or we are overdue!

And if it does occur, we'll find out how good our insurance really is....

Should You Use A Debit Card?

Debit cards can be useful, but they do have their pitfalls.

Back when I started this blog, I switched to using a debit card in order to avoid adding any more balance to my credit card. I was experiencing a credit card crisis in my life and adding charges to a credit card really makes that worse.  Since it is "revolving credit" when you make more charges to a card (for daily living expenses) the interest keeps piling on, and you never pay off the balance.

The debit card is really just like writing a check, in that you were taking money out of your checking account to pay for something.  In fact, under Check-21, writing a check is no different than using a debit card - you are merely authorizing the bank to make a debit from your account, in both cases.

There are some pitfalls to using a debit card, however.  As I noted earlier postings, companies often put holds on your debit card when making charges.  A couple of decades ago, I ran into this with my local Chinese restaurant, where the lady who ran the restaurant, who's a very sweet person, kept swiping my card and didn't understand why it didn't go through.  She ended up putting five holds for $25 on my card, which at the time meant that my mortgage payment bounced.

My finances are a little more secure since then, but it illustrates how a debit card can be problematic, particularly if you carry a low balance.  Just like a credit card, you have to watch your debit card like a hawk, make sure that somebody doesn't screw things up by putting unnecessary holds on your card. In that regard, debit card is a really bad idea for renting a car, for example, because they usually put a huge hold on your account which ties up all of your cash.  Even buying gasoline is problematic, as they will put a hold of $100 or more on your card, until you finish pumping.  Don't have $100?  You have to run the transaction inside for a fixed amount.   In Canada, many pumps ask you how much hold you want, first, which is a handy thing.  Saves a trip into the store.

Some credit cards do provide additional protection, for example, if you rent a car.  If you wreck the rental car, they may pay for some or all of the damage.  I would check the fine print on your credit card agreement before relying on this, however - not all cards provide this protection.  Also check the fine print on your car insurance agreement before relying on that to insure a rented car.  Often, if you don't obtain collision and comprehensive coverage on your primary vehicle, they won't extend this coverage to rented cars.

Some folks argue that you should use a credit card instead of a debit card because the use of a credit card will improve your credit score and you'll get all these juicy rewards for using a credit card. These are sort of specious excuses and examples of how the credit card industry tries to lure people into a deadly trap. While both arguments are somewhat true, there are pitfalls to them.  If you are the type of person who has gotten themselves into debt trouble, you're not going to improve your situation by charging more things on your credit card.  Similarly, if you're paying 25% interest on a credit card, the rewards are not going to wipe out that interest charge.

Others, such as famous fraudster Frank Abignale, argue that debit cards are the "worst thing" ever given to consumers.   If someone steals your debit card number (as happened to me) they can drain you bank account overnight!  While that might be possible, your actual exposure isn't as dramatic as Mr. Abignale suggests (and for some reason, his article seems to concentrate more on his bailiwick, check fraud).  The FTC site shows that your actual exposure, in most cases, is $50 - maybe $500 if you forget to tell the bank about it.  His comment about "draining bank accounts" leads me to believe he doesn't know what he is talking about - or is shilling for the credit card companies.

My losses from debit card fraud?  Zero dollars and zero cents.   Bank of America covered even the $50 maximum I was responsible for.  But that doesn't mean debit cards are 100% safe, either.  Nor do I suggest you use them for everything or that everyone use them.  But there may be situations where certain people could benefit from using them for everyday purchases.

NOTE:  One reason I was able to detect fraudulent charges on my account is that I had all notifications turned ON, so I get a text or e-mail (or both) whenever any charge is made to any of my credit cards or any debit from my checking account.  There is no reason NOT to use this free service offered by almost every bank.

There are of course, there are differences between the results of debit card and credit card fraud. And perhaps the credit card industry enjoys this as it forces people to use credit cards over debit cards. When travelling overseas, most merchants will present you with a portable card scanner.  You're supposed to enter your credit card and pin number which secures the transaction.  For some reason, American credit card companies have decided that they don't want to use this technology in the United States. Actually it's not for some reason, but the reason why is money, and lots of it.  They make more money (2-3% on each transaction) on "signature" transactions than they do on PIN transactions (where they are paid a fixed amount per transaction), because PIN transactions are secure.  Thus, they tolerate a huge amount of credit card fraud because they make an awful lot of money on these transactions  If we went to a chip and PIN solution, the credit card companies would be starved for revenue.

Thus, they expect an awful lot of fraud.  And when credit card fraud occurs, it's usually pretty painless for the consumer. The credit card company will absorb the charges (or reverse them), and you are not responsible for any illegal charges to your credit card.  I have discussed this in the past - it is a painless procedure for the credit card holder.  And that's why the credit card companies do this, to encourage you to use credit cards.

If you use a debit card it's a little more difficult. You may have to file a police report regarding the illegal charges. Money may be held in your account for days or even weeks. You are technically liable for the first $50 in fraudulent charges, although most banks will waive this if you catch the problem in time and file a claim along with a copy of their police report.  But it is a lot more hassle than with a credit card, and perhaps this is by design.  Bank of America wants me to use a credit card because they score 3 to 5% on each transaction. Where is with a debit card they get a measly $0.22.

Of course, one alternative would be to use prepaid credit cards (which are actually prepaid debit cards), but I think those are overpriced.  If you have trouble controlling your spending habits, a prepaid credit card or a gift card might make sense.  It prevents you from spending more money than you have.  The problem with these, is that they are usually fees involved, and the fees are often quite steep.  Even to check the balance often costs money.

UPDATE:  Many online sites which want subscriptions (e.g., negative option) will not accept prepaid debit cards, and/or the prepaid debit card cannot be used for online purchases.  Check this out before you "buy" a prepaid debit card.  I tried to use one for Sirius XM and it was a no-go.  And just because they can't negative-option charge your prepaid debit card doesn't mean you still owe them money (in their minds, at least!).   Using a debit card for online purchases or subscription services (particularly negative option types) is suicide in my opinion.

So what good are debit cards?  Well, I can tell you what they're not good for.  A debit card is a poor choice for renting a car.  A debit card is a very bad choice for use on the internet.  Many, if not most card fraud occurs over the internet. In both instances where I had a credit card and debit card information stolen, it was from a car parts company that I bought BMW parts for over the Internet. They were hiring ex-convicts to pick parts for them and then gave them copies of the order, including credit card information, expiration dates, CVV2 numbers, and complete address and phone numbers. The ex-con then filled the order and photocopied the order forms that sold the information to a friend of theirs, who then committed debit and credit card fraud.

Card fraud can occur in personal transactions. In some restaurants, in particular, when a waitress or waiter walks away with your card and it goes into a back room, you have no idea what's really going on.  But at least in those situations you can sort of control things by not letting them walk off with your card.

For ordinary transactions, like buying gasoline our groceries, where the credit card machine is right in front of you, debit cards are at least somewhat more secure.  It's a lot harder to steal card information from a point-of-purchase machine, despite the scary arguments you've heard.  Yes, it is true that some people have tried to put skimming devices on card readers at gas pumps, but mostly this has been overseas.    Usually skimming devices are attached with velcro and can be easily detected.  In all my years of travelling I've yet to see one.

So when do you use a debit card?  Well if you find yourself in credit card trouble, switching to a debit card can be a way of putting a hold on further credit card charges.  Use the debit card and learn to use it responsibly by checking your balance everyday and keeping track of your purchases.   Work to pay off your credit card debt, entirely.  And don't use the same account for your daily purchases as you do for your rent or mortgage payment.  If you "suck dry" your debit card account, a simple hold or two could cause checks to bounce.   Keep that stuff separate - as I learned the hard way.

Once you get your personal financial situation back in shape, maybe then and only then can you think about going back to using a credit card.

But what about rental cars? What about restaurant meals?  What about airline tickets?  Well, if you are in credit card trouble, maybe you shouldn't be doing these things anyway.

Debit cards could be useful, in certain circumstances.   They are not as wildly dangerous as Mr. Abginale suggests.  But, like a credit card, they need to be watched - like a hawk.   You should check your balance daily which isn't hard to do with a cell phone these days.   A debit card could be a useful crutch for people who have gotten into credit card trouble.   Of course, if you don't have those sort of problems, then maybe a debit card makes less sense for you.

Today, I keep my debit card in the safe.  The only time I use it, is as an ATM card.

UPDATE:  This recent article illustrates why, if you use a debit card, you should not use the same account for paying  your mortgage.  Also, it illustrates why "overdraft protection" is a really, really bad idea.   The fellow was mistakenly charged $68,000 for a beer, and it will take a week to sort out, if not more, and meanwhile, his mortgage payment bounced.

He signed up for "overdraft protection" which is touted as a way of avoiding bounce fees (or having your credit card declined) but in reality, it is a way for the bank to charge you a huge fee for covering an overcharge - in this case, over $1700 in overdraft "protection" fees.   He would have been better off having the charge declined which would have solved the whole problem before it started.

Debit cards can be dangerous - if used carelessly.   Set up a separate account for your beers - separate from your mortgage and other bills.  And never sign up for overdraft protection, unless it is the kind that merely moves money from a small savings account!