One of the indicators ...

.
... that we are losing:

Gavan told a court on Tuesday that she took desperate measures to get her son, Clayton, now 19, clean. She slept next to him as he shook and sweated through withdrawals. She enrolled him in a new school to keep him away from a bad crowd. She sent him off to live with relatives and even took him to work with her.

But a jury decided she went too far when she struck the 22-year-old man who helped supply heroin to her son with a baseball bat.

The penalty is not that bad, and I don't see the government having Gavan serve time (though I have been wrong before!).

But in rural GA where I live, I can't see charges being brought, let alone a conviction, against a 54 yr old who hit a drug dealer a couple of times with a baseball bat, especially when the thug would have been shot and killed by police had he reached in his car and brought out a 'brick-like' object.

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