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Maybe I'm stupid

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by papa_bill

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by papa_bill

to discourage robbery, theft, rape, kidnapping...name your poison.

There is a school of thought out there that assumes if you don't attempt to defend yourself, no harm will come to you. This school doesn't offer degrees, nor are it's credits likely to transfer. However, a certain class of persons is very familiar with this philosophy, and it gives them a great sense of security at the most challenging moments of their chosen profession: Mayhem and other crimes against persons. We wouldn't want to interfere with their lifestyle, would we?

by ansugisalas

Namely the perversion that one needs a firearm to protect oneself.
A firearm is not a necessary condition for successfully keeping oneself safe.
Sadly, a firearm is also not a sufficient condition for keeping oneself safe.

The measures used to keep oneself safe WITHOUT firearms apply to all situations, including ones where one has a firearm.
The measures used to keep oneself safe DEPENDANT on a firearm have little application outside of such a situation.

So many people talk about grizzlies. Learn to move in the forest so that grizzlies don't bother you. It will aid you in all your woodland pursuits.

Learn to move in the city so that bad guys don't bother you, and you will have an edge even if someone comes looking for you specifically.

The NRA sometimes stumble into predicating the firearm as a crutch. Let me tell you, you use it as a crutch and you'll fall on your ass.
Which is not good in the middle of a bad situation.

by santeewelding

You let on to the stick you hold behind your back all this while: necessity/sufficiency.

Can't go too far (wrong) with that.

The artifice has another use beyond, "safety".

by papa_bill

without having to continuously concern ourselves with avoiding potential danger. You can't do that in practice, of course, but you can minimize the lethality (to yourself) with a tool as an aid in your defense. A gun is a tool, much like any other. Properly applied.it will do the job better than any other. The secret is in wise application of the tool. You don't use it unless you must, but if it's not readily accessible, it can be almost useless. Your assailant needs to be aware that you have it and of your ability to use it. That is usually deterrent enough.
In this matter, even having a prop gun of some sort can be sufficient.

On to a pet peeve of mine: in some communities even showing your armament ("brandishing"), even if you are permitted to carry it, is illegal and and can get you time in the hoosegow. This does not include cocking, aiming or any actual threatening move. Simply making it recognizable is a violation. Somebody thinks this will deter robberies. Oh, yeah, sure it will. The robbery itself is an activity reserved for professionals!

by av .

I want to have the means to protect myself if that doesn't work. My first reactions will always be non-violent.

Where I live in NJ, the criminal walks free and the victim is prosecuted if you defend yourself with a gun. The gun laws here are the worst. They'll send your a$$ to hell on technicalities. Regardless of my philosophy, thats a big consideration in thwarting a criminal.

AV

by ansugisalas

Best look for a third option, then.
"Don't be there" is best.
"Get out of there" is second best.

by papa_bill

I loathe violence, I'm a victim, I've had friends victimized, I've seen way too many dead, mutilated and wish-they-were-dying. I've had friends killed by cars, motorcycles, aircraft, fire, and of course the ultimate violence and use of guns, war and insurrection. I've also been face-to-face with persons who would gut you because you didn't move out of their way fast enough.
We don't have to resort to violence, it will readily enough come to us. We simply do what we can to survive, whether that be talking, running, a well executed pericardial punch or by shooting. We hope to be successful. Too often we aren't. But we don't just throw our hands up and surrender in the name of non-violence.

by robo_dev

Here your car is considered to be an extension of your house, therefore you can use deadly force defending yourself in your car.

Also, here your glove box, or center console compartment, is not considered to be a concealed location, as everybody keeps their gun there.

A Kennesaw, GA city ordinance requires that all homeowners own a firearm and ammunition (Sec 34-1a). No one has ever been charged with violating this ordinance.

by draco vulgaris

It *sounds* good but where does one go to learn this?

I think a .44 magnum might be more useful. Failing this, a bullet proof vest might be of some use if you need to visit New York City, Trenton, NJ or many other cities.

The town in which I live has had ONE first degree murder in the last ten years. We pay high taxes but the kids can actually read, write, and do simple arithmetic! Some of them even go on to college.

by ansugisalas

Sure there are risks, but most people to visit NYC do not get killed, otherwise the place would flow with rivers of blood you know. Don't let the media succeed in their sensationalist scare tactics, they sell more papers if they can get you to eat up the latest gory details - it can make you feel like you need to know this stuff to be safe, even as it makes you feel all the less safe.

There are several places that offer advice on how not to make a victim of oneself. Where to link up to them differs, but you can probably find one if you look. If nothing else some bodyguard companies give instruction, or can point the way. Some community centers have self-defense classes that focus on this kind of stuff.

Simple tips on where not to go, how to keep from being an obvious tourist, how to physically position oneself so as to not be vulnerable to attack. And things like training awareness of one's surroundings helps immensely.

Sometimes you'll get the feeling that someone is trying to position themselves in relation to you... in those situations taking a position that denies them that position will send a clear message of "_Fuck off, punk!", without being an aggressive move in itself. They'll feel that you read them like a book, and that's never a good position for an attacker. It can make them reconsider even if you don't look like a threat.

The short of the long is that they look for low-hanging fruit. You only need to hoist yourself a few inches to make yourself uninteresting.

by jamesrl

I've lived in parts of Toronto that were ok, but bordered some of the rougher areas, so I had occasion to travel through those areas. You learn to carry yourself. You learn to be observant.

I've been accosted by someone who was so high, they were thrown through a plate glass window and felt no pain from all the cuts they had. I was not agressive at all, nor was I passive. I was on high alert. He yelled something about killing me, but I knew it was just BS. I don't think he feared me or anything, but something in my lack of fear in him made him move on. Eventually the police arrived and took him away for evaluation.

I've been to New York City and didn't feel the need to act any differently than Toronto, at least where we went. We went out late and had a drink, walked just about everywhere, or used the subway. Never felt any issues. I've also been to Watts in LA, and some areas of east LA without an issue.

by charliespencer

From here, these just sound like more reasons to avoid big cities. I'm not going to bother going somewhere that requires me to change the way I carry myself. There's nothing offered that's worth the trouble.

by ansugisalas

Only trying to slash some dangerous ideas coming to light in the discussion.
I do understand that you've all been stuck in that argument for ... 50 years or so? That always leads to distortions on both sides - so I'm just trying to apply my outsider's perspective to help cure some of the distortions.

Even with a gun, you have to keep your wits about you. If you only notice the attack when a sap impacts your skull, you might as well have been unarmed. A gun is hard to use safely and effectively when engaged in a scuffle... so learning to shoot is ok, but should never take precedence over learning to gauge your surroundings and move in a way that let's you govern your own space.
Be a sovereign... or in my wording, be a pope ;)

by ansugisalas

And then you deal with the shittiness of it all any way you can. As you say, that goes for every tool and every option. Gotta do what we can, our ancestral indoctrination requires it.

by papa_bill

to the advantage of thugs. If we simply don't go where we might wish to avoid exposure to these people, they will come to us wherever we are. They enter theaters, malls, college campuses, office buildings, military bases, federal buildings, courthouses, police stations, ERs, homes, apartment buildings, aircraft...
Man, I didn't expect this list to be so long, but the more write, the more places come to mind...
Look, your small upper-middle class community is not safe. Crooks are mobile, too, you know. Our society allows their opinion to be skewed by simple, unadjusted statistics, leading to the false conclusion that smaller, wealthier communities are safer from crime, but crime finds victims wherever it can. Don't let your guard down.

by ansugisalas

I take it this is about "places not to go" in my post above?
You know, there are places where the police don't go on regular patrol... if they need to go to these neighborhoods they handle it like assaulting a stronghold. Not going to places like that is not a matter of bending one's own life out of harms way, it's a matter of not strolling into the lion's den for no reason.
Tourists "taking the wrong turn" and getting killed do crop up in the news from time to time, don't they?

by bluecollarcritic

No one should have to run or move as a solution to how to avoid being a victim. Its one thing to knowningly go into an environemnt (say a drug buy) where you know its shady and so if you come defensless then its on you and its another to find yoursefl in a mess not by your own making but simply by chance. The folks who were killed in various hostage sitautions should not be told that their first choice shodul have been to not be there in the first place. What a jerk.

by ansugisalas

"Don't be there" means - and I am so very sorry for having to twist this into neon lights - MAKE YOURSELF NOT TO BE IN THAT SITUATION.
That covers things like anticipating, pre-emptively denying ingress, leaving the scene before the shit hits the fan... etc. etc.

If you're really saying that people shouldn't run from danger, on a matter of principle no less, then the jerk is you.

Read the piece on "Life lessons learned on 9/11": Running is what we humans do best on an evolutionary level, and it's also one of the best things we humans do.

by tonythetiger

Yes, you have the right to proceed when the light turns green, but the tractor-trailer with the failed brakes on the cross street doesn't give a rat sass about your rights.

by ansugisalas

Nobody has to go where they don't want to.
Or they can go in tourist-safe ways, with a guide and bearers and all that.
If people have to live there though, they'll learn, like James described.
Similar to how people living in the sticks learn how to carry themselves around the wildlife of those parts.
Like, not running away screaming if a black bear comes into view.

by draco vulgaris

I'm curious. How do the crime rates in Kennesaw, GA compare with neighboring towns?

Also, I've read that Florida encourages citizens to go armed. How well is that working?

by santeewelding

What do you mean by, "Florida"?

Do mean the state legislature? The executive? The judiciary? All three? The populace, too?

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