I didn't say kill, I said shoot, I think getting a bullet in the arm / leg/ can-be-treated-chest will teach him the lesson.
Never shoot someone in the leg unless there's more than one person after you! If you hit them in the femoral artery they'll probably die before the police and ambulence can arrive.
Never shoot someone in the leg unless there's more than one person after you! If you hit them in the femoral artery they'll probably die before the police and ambulence can arrive.
We live in a country were ~50% of the populace believe public schooling is a socialist conspiracy and that being called Einstein is an insult. We could try and fix it, but unfortunately the other 50% don't believe in euthanasia.
The problem with carrying a gun is that they could take it from you
But this scenario is, to say the lest, unlikely, and not particularly relevant. They could also have a gun and start shooting you. They could have no fear for their lives. They could be a repeat of the VA Tech or any other massacre where some *******s with guns walked around with free reign because no one could stop them because their victims were unarmed. Lots of things could happen. The immediate likelihood is that if you pull a gun on someone self-preservation kicks in and they're going to do what you say, which involves lying on the ground until the police arrive hopefully.
and once someone starts shooting the consequences change I am all for having a gun for home defense but if you are going to go walking at night consider taking a self defense class you gain a lot more from that, self confidence learning to handle yourself, fitness, and no one has to die. anyone’s life is worth more than the money you are carrying around in your wallet.
Escalation matters here, too. It's not just one person that takes your wallet. It's the environment that grows and festers when those kind of actions are allowed to occur. It may seem like an over-reaction to walk the streets at night with guns out cleaning up the neighborhood and making sure nothing bad happens, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bad **** doesn't go down at all when people know they can't get away with it (or that there's a high likelihood of having their asses shot off).
In other words, the pattern of behavior that causes citizens to pull a gun on someone and possibly even shoot them in a struggle saves more lives and leads to a higher overall quality of life and peace for everyone in the long term.
Let's not settle for the bare minimum; let's not appease muggers so we can scrape by. I want an environemnt where people can walk the streets safely at night and where people keep their belongings and don't get mugged or raped or murdered. How do we get there? You have to shut down teenage hoodlums that go around mugging people and attacking them on the street, for one. How do you do that- ask them nicely? No, at some point, you need force and the threat of force.
Also, I have yet to see or hear about a defense class that didn't sound like absolutely ******** designed to get you killed in a real emergency instead of offering any good advice. Real life isn't Xena; muggers aren't going to attack like flaming morons, waving their arms in wide, slow circles and broadcasting every movement from ten feet away. For God's sake, whatever else you do, don't take a self-defense class (unless it's an actual martial art that'll take you years to learn, and even then be careful what school you choose because 2/3 of them are frauds).
TIBA, it presently transpires that I am interested in what you have to say. I shall reverse my comments to the contrary (if you even recall the occasion).
What? Which?
Could you, clarify? I'm not following the subtext... in what way is not having empathy almost an excuse? That is, what is it you were expecting some people to think, which would lead them to figure the apathy is an excuse, but which you mean to reveal as poor reasoning?
The type of person who doesn't regard the lives and feelings of others as real or worthy of respect probably isn't capable of changing his mind, because it's only through a lack of desire to care about others that he or she reached that point.
I had to fill in a lot of holes to read this. My guess is, one should wield a gun, and threaten to use it in these scenarios. Then, thugs may back off, and even though it will be for fear rather than empathy, it matters that you are delaying... the life-wrecking, and giving the thugs the chance to develop empathy before their lives are stained with a criminal act (caught or otherwise). Is that what you meant?
I meant that you won't get the **** beaten out of you and your stuff stolen. See my prior comments.
Well, aside from that I live in Canada, I don't think "packing heat" helps anybody. I'd be dead scared to have that kind of power in my pocket. Dead scared. The terror of killing someone unnecessarily would paralyze me.
Furthermore, I would be mortified if an unarmed opponent found the gun on my person, wrestled it from me, and used it successfully. I could not live with the guilt of the decision to carry the gun. I would be absolutely unable to diffract the blame anyplace other than my head - my foolishness, my cowardice.
So you have irrational hangups about defending yourself, and for this you're willing to live a slave whenever and wherever the police are unable to protect you.
How about this; when you and your neighbors begin carrying guns at night and patrolling your neighborhood and when muggings and attacks aren't tolerated and the attackers are arrested, then you won't be put in that position because people won't act out for fear of suffering the same fate, even if they do have those destructive impulses.
Escalation.. If you carry guns, the muggers will too. And where will that leave everyone?
False dilemma, but you can't be blamed for it because it's a classic one.
However, between escalation and eye-for-an-eye revenge, and between appeasement and lying down to die, lies the happy medium of de-escalation. You don't have to punish people in line with what they did to you. You just have to make it unprofitable.
We're not talking about carrying a gun so you can beat the **** out of them and take their money, but so that you can prevent the attack long enough that they'll get arrested.
i'm also 17 and someone recently tried to rob me, but since it was dark they misjudged my size and strength, and lets just say they didn't succeed. Karma will get them.
Thanks, for the moral support, you guys are always good about that, and you bring up alot odf interesting debatable points, it is good to hear what everyone has to say.
We're not talking about carrying a gun so you can beat the **** out of them and take their money, but so that you can prevent the attack long enough that they'll get arrested.
Do you believe that the people who carry a gun to 'protect' themselves won't give into the use of such a weapon in the face of a mugging? Staying in a large group to prevent being preyed upon is one thing, but carrying a weapon with the intent of just 'making sure they know I have it' is another. I find it hard to believe that anyone can carry a gun and suppress the urge to use it in an emergency.
I find it hard to believe that anyone can carry a gun and suppress the urge to use it in an emergency.
well said Ace
Once you bring a gun into the mix and pull that gun out you have to be ready to take that persons life not to wound them or scare them off that means firing the gun until it is empty so that when the police show up you can demonstrate that you were scared for your life. If you are not prepared to take this persons life then carrying a gun just gives a mugger something else to steal and use in there next crime. Are a few bucks in your wallet and some cuts and bruises worth taking that chance?
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Scott Adams... Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion
@the prospect of carrying a gun: Honestly, this would be a bad idea, for many of the above reasons. I personally would find myself more at ease and actually safer with just a small pocket knife, if even that. Even though it was a joke, I had 2 friends 'attack' me and I actually suprised them. just because I am skinny and tall doesn't mean I can't defend myself; Jon hurt his back and bryce got kicked good in the shins. it was, as I said, just for 'fun', but they still couldn't keep me down.
basically, if 'thugs' learn that everyone is carrying guns, they'll simply carry guns themselves. If they're in it for the money, then they usually need the money for something, probably a drug addiction? It would just make them more desparate(sp?) and need to adapt in order to 'survive'.
Uhh, errr... well, it was in that thread that asked what you would do if you had proof of the true status of God's existence. . . and some people called me a fascist. . . and I said I wasn't interested in what you had to say because I had things to do, and left you to continue talking about it while I acted on my morals.
The type of person who doesn't regard the lives and feelings of others as real or worthy of respect probably isn't capable of changing his mind, because it's only through a lack of desire to care about others that he or she reached that point.
Now I'm even more confused. I thought what you said, was that those without empathy can't make excuses for their crimes. I asked, in what way could they possibly make an excuse? Now I understand what I've quoted here, but I have no idea what it has to do with your first statement or my question.
I'd love to simplify this by saying "I agree with what you said but the trouble is I can't see what the case of its negation would even be, so I don't know what point you're making," but that wouldn't be entirely accurate because my view on "excuses" extends into dimensions that don't exist in what I find to be common morality theory, so it wouldn't do to say I agree or disagree with you.
Also, when I'm done sorting this out, I'll have to come back to this point because I wholeheartedly disagree with it as it stands alone.
So you have irrational hangups about defending yourself, and for this you're willing to live a slave whenever and wherever the police are unable to protect you.
Maybe. Do you mean irrational in that my behaviour comes from some emotion, or do you mean that I have failed to reason correctly? That is, in the purview of which world is this scenario - rational or irrational?
How about this; when you and your neighbors begin carrying guns at night and patrolling your neighborhood and when muggings and attacks aren't tolerated and the attackers are arrested, then you won't be put in that position because people won't act out for fear of suffering the same fate, even if they do have those destructive impulses.
I just can't trust that this course would work without a highly sophisticated psychology that can predict events occurring between large numbers of people over great lengths of time.
You know, like predicting the weather using earth sciences.
Except it would work (har har).
However, between escalation and eye-for-an-eye revenge, and between appeasement and lying down to die, lies the happy medium of de-escalation. You don't have to punish people in line with what they did to you. You just have to make it unprofitable.
A great solution in theory. But how do you do it? Because this happy medium doesn't necessarily exist.
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From reports on the local news, it hasn't gotten much better. My old hometown (I now live about a half hour's freeway drive away) is being plagued by attacks by a group calling themselves The Wolf Pack. Which is a name so lame it hurts me. They started off with the standard jumpings but now they're up to home invasion. So I guess they're climbing the deviant totem pole.
Not far from my hometown, a guy got attacked by actual wolf pack. He didn't make it. Those occassions are rare though, like once in 10 year or so.
My hometown's safe, luckily. There isn't much going on here, at best i've seen a drunken guy try to steal my wallet, and even he failed at that. And that's one time, ever. Even pickpockets are rare.
If you fear that it would happen again, go to self defence course, Kempo or something. If not else, it will help you feel more self-confident and get over it easier.
But yeah, people can get pretty damn low.
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
My Brother's friend since he was like 8 was killed a couple weeks ago and his brother seriously injured. 5 blocks from me a couple weeks ago someone was shot and killed for his nice sneakers. A couple weeks before that the same thing. So your solution of "carry a gun to protect yourself" is not a very good idea.
If you draw a gun here, one of two things will happen. They will have more guns, or should they get away or be arrested, if you you ever return to that neighborhood (or God forbid live there) the next time you are saw will be the last time you are seen alive.)
Its mildly amusing that people think the simple solution of get a gun will make all the thugs suddenly stop wanting to hurt people. There are shuttles leaving for Earth every 15 minutes, and down here that solution just won't work. At least not in this city.
i'm also 17 and someone recently tried to rob me, but since it was dark they misjudged my size and strength, and lets just say they didn't succeed. Karma will get them.
WHY'D HE PULL OUT HIS WALLET?! You were just gonna hand over the money even though you knew you've done nothing wrong? You should have at least ran since you weren't willing to fight back or anything.
basically, if 'thugs' learn that everyone is carrying guns, they'll simply carry guns themselves. If they're in it for the money, then they usually need the money for something, probably a drug addiction? It would just make them more desparate(sp?) and need to adapt in order to 'survive'.
Mugging is a business transaction. It needs to be profitable. They're not going to "just carry a gun themselves" because at the point at which you're flipping a coin to see if your head gets blown off, it's infinitely easier to just get a job flipping burgers. You have to take the survival instinct into account.
Are a few bucks in your wallet and some cuts and bruises worth taking that chance?
Better question; Is the possibility of killing a scumbag who would prey and terrorize his fellow human beings worth creating an environment where others don't have to fear for their safety and welfare after dark or in stairwells or even in broad daylight, because such human predators have learned that their prey can fight back? Yes.
A mugging doesn't stand alone. Depending on how it's answered it can lead to more and worse crimes. The environment that condones and fosters muggings leads to rapes and murders. You have to take a stand and man up every once in a while.
Now I'm even more confused. I thought what you said, was that those without empathy can't make excuses for their crimes. I asked, in what way could they possibly make an excuse? Now I understand what I've quoted here, but I have no idea what it has to do with your first statement or my question.
I said that they committed these crimes because they lack empathy (i.e., they do not view other human beings as real and important), but that that wasn't an excuse. In other words, it's not like these people would just one day realize that other people have feelings and repent of their ways and become good people.
Maybe. Do you mean irrational in that my behaviour comes from some emotion, or do you mean that I have failed to reason correctly?
Both. Letting emotions dictate the means of your actions (rather than just the ends) is irrational. Desires and emotions are the only thing we have to tell us where we want to go, but they're not very good for figuring out how to get there. In this situation, you also fail to act correctly by not being willing to take the steps that ensure the long term safety and liberty of the community. Instead, you subsist on individual acts of appeasement that will both cost more lives than potentially could be lost here, and you've drastically lowered the quality of life.
I just can't trust that this course would work without a highly sophisticated psychology that can predict events occurring between large numbers of people over great lengths of time.
You know, like predicting the weather using earth sciences.
Except it would work (har har).
Neighborhood Watches and the Black Panthers both discovered that this does indeed work at preventing street crime. It's not 100% failsafe, but an improvement is an improvement.
A great solution in theory. But how do you do it? Because this happy medium doesn't necessarily exist.
You ease up rather than hitting back harder. Say a member of a teenage gang rapes and murders someone. Instead of killing half the gang, just arrest the person responsible and throw him in jail. He's not punished as severely as his victim was victimized, but no one else in his group wants to rot in a jail cell until they're old enough to get a senior citizen's discount.
My Brother's friend since he was like 8 was killed a couple weeks ago and his brother seriously injured. 5 blocks from me a couple weeks ago someone was shot and killed for his nice sneakers. A couple weeks before that the same thing. So your solution of "carry a gun to protect yourself" is not a very good idea.
Non sequitor. It does not follow. It doesn't sound like any of these victims had guns. It sounds, therefore, like your solution of going about unarmed and hoping for the best is not a very good idea.
If you draw a gun here, one of two things will happen. They will have more guns, or should they get away or be arrested, if you you ever return to that neighborhood (or God forbid live there) the next time you are saw will be the last time you are seen alive.)
Why? Are the next group of *******s going to be bulletproof?
Its mildly amusing that people think the simple solution of get a gun will make all the thugs suddenly stop wanting to hurt people. There are shuttles leaving for Earth every 15 minutes, and down here that solution just won't work. At least not in this city.
Oh, it's not a cure all, but the survival instinct is something you can reliably count on to at least reduce crime. Other factors come into play as well; a high enough degree of poverty and hunger can cause someone to take high risks, so other social factors need to be addressed. But you need to start with breathing room, and you can't have an influx of wealth into a community where someone can take your wealth from you with impunity, so the first step needs to be creating a healthy fear of the law.
My Brother's friend since he was like 8 was killed a couple weeks ago and his brother seriously injured. 5 blocks from me a couple weeks ago someone was shot and killed for his nice sneakers. A couple weeks before that the same thing. So your solution of "carry a gun to protect yourself" is not a very good idea.
sounds like if they had had guns, they might not've died. Your helping me, not yourself by bringing this up.
We live in a country were ~50% of the populace believe public schooling is a socialist conspiracy and that being called Einstein is an insult. We could try and fix it, but unfortunately the other 50% don't believe in euthanasia.
This is unfortunately all around for all these cases of "gang" violence (whether it be a true gang or just a group of individuals that happen to start ****). It's nothing THAT new where I come from but ours are more random one-time occurances when it happens than the same group of individuals causing these incidents over and over again. Part of why I think that happens is because a lot of people has a lot of other people's backs here - the "if you **** with my friend, you've ****ed with the whole group" rule, if you will - so when numbers are equal its a bit more not worth the prospects of it.
Regarding guns: I can't say that's going to work with any certainty. There's certainly reason to both sides but because so many of these criminals don't follow logic of any sort, should the assaulter possess a gun, the chances of the gun protecting you are just as much as the chances of that same gun getting you shot/stabbed. That's enough of a reason for me not to carry one. The only guaranteed thign to work is to drive a tank around - hard to get stabbed driving one of those...
Should the assaulter NOT carry a gun though - well there's a high likelihood you could get arrested instead where I come from. The police don't really care WHY you fired here just that you fired... Even more reason not to carry it in my eyes...
All this sounds remarkably like bringing a flame-thrower to a forest fire. If the objective is too end the violence why bring a weapon. And why wouldn't they bring a weapon. If two of them have guns and you have one, I may not be the best at math but I am pretty sure 2 guns beat 1.
A healthy fear of the law? What exactly is that, is that like a fear of God? Since most of these people, if they did get arrested, would be spend a night in the county jail and then let back out, that is really not much to fear. When my cousin was shot and killed, he was killed by a man who was in prison for shooting someone but was released cause the prisoners were packed in like sardines. So if you want people to fear the law, you have a long way to go. Those revolving doors prisons have nowadays are not very dreadful, but then you'd have a gun...yea that'll work.
Mugging is a business transaction. It needs to be profitable. They're not going to "just carry a gun themselves" because at the point at which you're flipping a coin to see if your head gets blown off, it's infinitely easier to just get a job flipping burgers. You have to take the survival instinct into account.
Better question; Is the possibility of killing a scumbag who would prey and terrorize his fellow human beings worth creating an environment where others don't have to fear for their safety and welfare after dark or in stairwells or even in broad daylight, because such human predators have learned that their prey can fight back? Yes.
Now I have no problem with carrying a gun and shooting or even possibility of killing a mugger but I simply can not advise others to do so my argument is that unless you are prepared to take a mans life you should not carry a gun and I would feel responsible if I told some one to carry a gun and then they got hurt or killed with that gun
A mugging doesn't stand alone. Depending on how it's answered it can lead to more and worse crimes. The environment that condones and fosters muggings leads to rapes and murders. You have to take a stand and man up every once in a while.
Ok where do I go to join up with the posse? I do agree that from time to time people do need to man up but is carrying a gun the only way to do it?
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Scott Adams... Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion
All this sounds remarkably like bringing a flame-thrower to a forest fire. If the objective is too end the violence why bring a weapon. And why wouldn't they bring a weapon. If two of them have guns and you have one, I may not be the best at math but I am pretty sure 2 guns beat 1.
Because being a helpless victem really stops the violence. The objective is to not get beat up, robbed and generally victemized. It's much better to stop the cyclee of muggings than be a hapless victem continually.
We live in a country were ~50% of the populace believe public schooling is a socialist conspiracy and that being called Einstein is an insult. We could try and fix it, but unfortunately the other 50% don't believe in euthanasia.
But this scenario is, to say the lest, unlikely, and not particularly relevant. They could also have a gun and start shooting you. They could have no fear for their lives. They could be a repeat of the VA Tech or any other massacre where some *******s with guns walked around with free reign because no one could stop them because their victims were unarmed. Lots of things could happen. The immediate likelihood is that if you pull a gun on someone self-preservation kicks in and they're going to do what you say, which involves lying on the ground until the police arrive hopefully.
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Escalation matters here, too. It's not just one person that takes your wallet. It's the environment that grows and festers when those kind of actions are allowed to occur. It may seem like an over-reaction to walk the streets at night with guns out cleaning up the neighborhood and making sure nothing bad happens, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bad **** doesn't go down at all when people know they can't get away with it (or that there's a high likelihood of having their asses shot off).
In other words, the pattern of behavior that causes citizens to pull a gun on someone and possibly even shoot them in a struggle saves more lives and leads to a higher overall quality of life and peace for everyone in the long term.
Let's not settle for the bare minimum; let's not appease muggers so we can scrape by. I want an environemnt where people can walk the streets safely at night and where people keep their belongings and don't get mugged or raped or murdered. How do we get there? You have to shut down teenage hoodlums that go around mugging people and attacking them on the street, for one. How do you do that- ask them nicely? No, at some point, you need force and the threat of force.
Also, I have yet to see or hear about a defense class that didn't sound like absolutely ******** designed to get you killed in a real emergency instead of offering any good advice. Real life isn't Xena; muggers aren't going to attack like flaming morons, waving their arms in wide, slow circles and broadcasting every movement from ten feet away. For God's sake, whatever else you do, don't take a self-defense class (unless it's an actual martial art that'll take you years to learn, and even then be careful what school you choose because 2/3 of them are frauds).
What? Which?
The type of person who doesn't regard the lives and feelings of others as real or worthy of respect probably isn't capable of changing his mind, because it's only through a lack of desire to care about others that he or she reached that point.
I meant that you won't get the **** beaten out of you and your stuff stolen. See my prior comments.
So you have irrational hangups about defending yourself, and for this you're willing to live a slave whenever and wherever the police are unable to protect you.
How about this; when you and your neighbors begin carrying guns at night and patrolling your neighborhood and when muggings and attacks aren't tolerated and the attackers are arrested, then you won't be put in that position because people won't act out for fear of suffering the same fate, even if they do have those destructive impulses.
False dilemma, but you can't be blamed for it because it's a classic one.
However, between escalation and eye-for-an-eye revenge, and between appeasement and lying down to die, lies the happy medium of de-escalation. You don't have to punish people in line with what they did to you. You just have to make it unprofitable.
We're not talking about carrying a gun so you can beat the **** out of them and take their money, but so that you can prevent the attack long enough that they'll get arrested.
TIBA, I have to say I disagree with you on his hangups being irrational. I have been shooting guns ever since I was 12 (now 20) and have been shooting pistols since I was around 15. Despite my ability to hit a close-range target with a .38 reliably under controlled conditions, I would be hesitant to use a gun to protect myself and my friends in a combat situation without lots of training. Putting aside the possibility of the gun being taken from me and used on me, it is quite possible to miss your target and hit one of the very people you are trying to protect. Also, that is assuming you have aquired a license to carry. Further, using a gun on an unarmed opponent is likely to have legal reprecussions unless you can prove they intended to kill you. Now, if you feel you would be perfectly fine using a gun when being mugged, that's your call, but I wouldn't. Home defense is another story, but that's a discussion for another day.
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TIBA, I have to say I disagree with you on his hangups being irrational. I have been shooting guns ever since I was 12 (now 20) and have been shooting pistols since I was around 15. Despite my ability to hit a close-range target with a .38 reliably under controlled conditions, I would be hesitant to use a gun to protect myself and my friends in a combat without lots of training. Putting aside the possibility of the gun being taken from me and used on me, it is quite possible to miss your target and hit one of the very people you are trying to protect. Also, that is assuming you have aquired a license to carry. Further, using a gun on an unarmed opponent is likely to have legal reprecussions unless you can prove they intended to kill you. Now, if you feel you would be perfectly fine using a gun when being mugged, that's your call, but I wouldn't. Home defense is another story, but that's a discussion for another day.
That's curious, because I have never felt more uncertain about my ways than when TIBA has just now confronted me.
I do see how, logically - evidently, rather - carrying a gun is helpful; may in fact be the only good course. But it remains that the fear paralyzes me. I will strive to overcome it.
EDIT: In the following, I address TheInfamousBearAssassin as "you."
I will also borrow your words, "individual acts of appeasement," for I too have long scorned the faults of a morality that cannot see beyond present acts. It's strange now, to think I had failed to apply that to life.
Jesus, man, everything you have ever written here about debate, particularly how passion is a fine motivator of it, is recalling to me with such truth. I wonder where you have come upon your wisdom, that I might get some for myself.
I never said anything about having to be helpless or powerless. Believe it or not, there are ways to protect yourself without carrying a gun or need to shoot people. Of course learning to defends yourself with your hands (and feet and prolly a headbutt or two) takes effort and we all know that some people just don't like effort. You could just take a classes of a martial art that is actually useful in combat. Since most muggers use wild swings and sheer numbers to win a fight any person with a little strategy and training would have no problem dealing with them.
I never said anything about having to be helpless or powerless. Believe it or not, there are ways to protect yourself without carrying a gun or need to shoot people. Of course learning to defends yourself with your hands (and feet and prolly a headbutt or two) takes effort and we all know that some people just don't like effort. You could just take a classes of a martial art that is actually useful in combat. Since most muggers use wild swings and sheer numbers to win a fight any person with a little strategy and training would have no problem dealing with them.
It boggles my mind that the same people who think that a mugger could easily wrestle a gun away from you without getting shot will pretend that you can kung-fu multiple assailants at once with little effort or risk after listening to some jackass with a phony blackbelt lecture for half an hour a week. What reality do you live in, and how are you communicating with ours?
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It boggles my mind that the same people who think that a mugger could easily wrestle a gun away from you without getting shot will pretend that you can kung-fu multiple assailants at once with little effort or risk after listening to some jackass with a phony blackbelt lecture for half an hour a week. What reality do you live in, and how are you communicating with ours?
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This from someone who's answer to violence is to carry a weapon. Yea that'll work we'll just give everyone a gun, cause 64,000 handgun deaths a year is just not enough. You really that everyone on this forum could pull a gun on someone and be perfectly fine with using it? Cause if you are not the gun is utterly worthless. Kung Fu is technically not a verb. You don't need to "Kung-fu" multiple assailaints, just take out the leader, you know the guy standing in front, the rest will just back off. After all you said yourself the point of the gun is to scare people. So find some other way to scare them. Unless you think that just shooting every mugger will make them suddenly go away.
"Wow everyone has a gun now, might as well get that job at McDonald's now."
Is your reality, in my reality you know this one its, "Damn everyone has a gun, I should get one two." Well there goes your plan, do you have a plan B?
This from someone who's answer to violence is to carry a weapon. Yea that'll work we'll just give everyone a gun, cause 64,000 handgun deaths a year is just not enough.
Do I think that people that use violence and superior force to exercise unjust power over others and wallow in their own artificial sense of power and superiority will cease doing so when the field is leveled and they're at the same position as everyone else? Why yes, yes I do.
You really that everyone on this forum could pull a gun on someone and be perfectly fine with using it? Cause if you are not the gun is utterly worthless.
********. First of all, I'm confused as to what you think muggers are. For some reason that I can't even begin to fathom, you think they flail their arms wildly while attacking in slow, awkward movements, but you also think that they're incapable of fear and easily able to steal guns away from our theoretical victims. How? Why? Where did you conjure up these boogeymen so perfectly suited to your otherwise worthless argument? All I can conjecture is that it's the result of watching too much Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I know of nowhere else where you could have recruited such impressively incompetent villians for your argument.
But in reality, when someone points a gun at them, most people simply aren't going to risk it- and far more people than you probably suspect are going to be able to pull the trigger. The average person is more intelligent and more vicious than they're given credit for.
Kung Fu is technically not a verb.
Technicalities in language are a fiction.
You don't need to "Kung-fu" multiple assailaints, just take out the leader, you know the guy standing in front, the rest will just back off.
I'm slamming my head against the desk right now.
Look. Don't give anyone advice on how to react to muggings, and for God's sake, if you ever get mugged, don't listen to your own. You're going to wind up sending someone to the hospital or worse.
Muggers are not idiotic henchmen from a children's television program. They do not attack one at a time, in flailing, painfully slow movements, fall over from one hit, and run away when you take out the "leader". If you are facing multiple assailants without a gun, you run the **** away, and that's all you try to do. Never try to do anything as idiotically suicidal as what you're suggesting right now.
After all you said yourself the point of the gun is to scare people. So find some other way to scare them. Unless you think that just shooting every mugger will make them suddenly go away.
Okay. I want you to actually try thinking about the scenario now.
Scenario 1: You're with some friends, conducting business. Someone punches your friend. What are you going to do? Odds are about a hundred to one you're going to gang up and kick his ass. It's one guy, he's going to be still recovering from his own attack while you begin yours, and he punched your friend. Sure, you were mugging him at the time, but is that a good reason not to beat the **** out of this *******? No, it's not.
Scenario 2: You have a gun in your face that can end your existence with frightening ease. What do you do? Whatever the **** the guy with the gun in your face says because you don't want to ****ing die!
"Wow everyone has a gun now, might as well get that job at McDonald's now."
Is your reality, in my reality you know this one its, "Damn everyone has a gun, I should get one two." Well there goes your plan, do you have a plan B?
It's an interesting thing. Everyone thinks that they're smarter than most people. Of course, we know that 50% of the people that think this are wrong. But the interesting thing is that reality adjusts to the bottom 50%. They begin to think that since they're smarter than most, which they aren't, that others are dumb than them... which, in the case of the bottom 10% or so, makes everyone else really ****ing dumb in their book.
I'm sure that some morons are actually going to think that in the scenario where any given mugging can result in their having their heads blown off, that getting a gun themselves solves the problem. But evolution has to take it's course eventually, and these people are too dumb to be well-suited to survival. They're either going to get shot during a mugging, or accidentally commit murder, get caught, and get thrown in jail.
Most of them, however, will, yes, decide that since it's not easy/safe to prey on their neighbors, they'll have to actually work for money. It's unfortunate, but better than having one's head blown off.
Never shoot someone in the leg unless there's more than one person after you! If you hit them in the femoral artery they'll probably die before the police and ambulence can arrive.
oh. did not knoew that. Thanks for the info.
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But this scenario is, to say the lest, unlikely, and not particularly relevant. They could also have a gun and start shooting you. They could have no fear for their lives. They could be a repeat of the VA Tech or any other massacre where some *******s with guns walked around with free reign because no one could stop them because their victims were unarmed. Lots of things could happen. The immediate likelihood is that if you pull a gun on someone self-preservation kicks in and they're going to do what you say, which involves lying on the ground until the police arrive hopefully.
Escalation matters here, too. It's not just one person that takes your wallet. It's the environment that grows and festers when those kind of actions are allowed to occur. It may seem like an over-reaction to walk the streets at night with guns out cleaning up the neighborhood and making sure nothing bad happens, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bad **** doesn't go down at all when people know they can't get away with it (or that there's a high likelihood of having their asses shot off).
In other words, the pattern of behavior that causes citizens to pull a gun on someone and possibly even shoot them in a struggle saves more lives and leads to a higher overall quality of life and peace for everyone in the long term.
Let's not settle for the bare minimum; let's not appease muggers so we can scrape by. I want an environemnt where people can walk the streets safely at night and where people keep their belongings and don't get mugged or raped or murdered. How do we get there? You have to shut down teenage hoodlums that go around mugging people and attacking them on the street, for one. How do you do that- ask them nicely? No, at some point, you need force and the threat of force.
Also, I have yet to see or hear about a defense class that didn't sound like absolutely ******** designed to get you killed in a real emergency instead of offering any good advice. Real life isn't Xena; muggers aren't going to attack like flaming morons, waving their arms in wide, slow circles and broadcasting every movement from ten feet away. For God's sake, whatever else you do, don't take a self-defense class (unless it's an actual martial art that'll take you years to learn, and even then be careful what school you choose because 2/3 of them are frauds).
What? Which?
The type of person who doesn't regard the lives and feelings of others as real or worthy of respect probably isn't capable of changing his mind, because it's only through a lack of desire to care about others that he or she reached that point.
I meant that you won't get the **** beaten out of you and your stuff stolen. See my prior comments.
So you have irrational hangups about defending yourself, and for this you're willing to live a slave whenever and wherever the police are unable to protect you.
How about this; when you and your neighbors begin carrying guns at night and patrolling your neighborhood and when muggings and attacks aren't tolerated and the attackers are arrested, then you won't be put in that position because people won't act out for fear of suffering the same fate, even if they do have those destructive impulses.
False dilemma, but you can't be blamed for it because it's a classic one.
However, between escalation and eye-for-an-eye revenge, and between appeasement and lying down to die, lies the happy medium of de-escalation. You don't have to punish people in line with what they did to you. You just have to make it unprofitable.
We're not talking about carrying a gun so you can beat the **** out of them and take their money, but so that you can prevent the attack long enough that they'll get arrested.
i'm also 17 and someone recently tried to rob me, but since it was dark they misjudged my size and strength, and lets just say they didn't succeed. Karma will get them.
Do you believe that the people who carry a gun to 'protect' themselves won't give into the use of such a weapon in the face of a mugging? Staying in a large group to prevent being preyed upon is one thing, but carrying a weapon with the intent of just 'making sure they know I have it' is another. I find it hard to believe that anyone can carry a gun and suppress the urge to use it in an emergency.
well said Ace
Once you bring a gun into the mix and pull that gun out you have to be ready to take that persons life not to wound them or scare them off that means firing the gun until it is empty so that when the police show up you can demonstrate that you were scared for your life. If you are not prepared to take this persons life then carrying a gun just gives a mugger something else to steal and use in there next crime. Are a few bucks in your wallet and some cuts and bruises worth taking that chance?
basically, if 'thugs' learn that everyone is carrying guns, they'll simply carry guns themselves. If they're in it for the money, then they usually need the money for something, probably a drug addiction? It would just make them more desparate(sp?) and need to adapt in order to 'survive'.
Uhh, errr... well, it was in that thread that asked what you would do if you had proof of the true status of God's existence. . . and some people called me a fascist. . . and I said I wasn't interested in what you had to say because I had things to do, and left you to continue talking about it while I acted on my morals.
Now I'm even more confused. I thought what you said, was that those without empathy can't make excuses for their crimes. I asked, in what way could they possibly make an excuse? Now I understand what I've quoted here, but I have no idea what it has to do with your first statement or my question.
I'd love to simplify this by saying "I agree with what you said but the trouble is I can't see what the case of its negation would even be, so I don't know what point you're making," but that wouldn't be entirely accurate because my view on "excuses" extends into dimensions that don't exist in what I find to be common morality theory, so it wouldn't do to say I agree or disagree with you.
Also, when I'm done sorting this out, I'll have to come back to this point because I wholeheartedly disagree with it as it stands alone.
Maybe. Do you mean irrational in that my behaviour comes from some emotion, or do you mean that I have failed to reason correctly? That is, in the purview of which world is this scenario - rational or irrational?
I just can't trust that this course would work without a highly sophisticated psychology that can predict events occurring between large numbers of people over great lengths of time.
You know, like predicting the weather using earth sciences.
Except it would work (har har).
A great solution in theory. But how do you do it? Because this happy medium doesn't necessarily exist.
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Not far from my hometown, a guy got attacked by actual wolf pack. He didn't make it. Those occassions are rare though, like once in 10 year or so.
My hometown's safe, luckily. There isn't much going on here, at best i've seen a drunken guy try to steal my wallet, and even he failed at that. And that's one time, ever. Even pickpockets are rare.
If you fear that it would happen again, go to self defence course, Kempo or something. If not else, it will help you feel more self-confident and get over it easier.
But yeah, people can get pretty damn low.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
If you draw a gun here, one of two things will happen. They will have more guns, or should they get away or be arrested, if you you ever return to that neighborhood (or God forbid live there) the next time you are saw will be the last time you are seen alive.)
Its mildly amusing that people think the simple solution of get a gun will make all the thugs suddenly stop wanting to hurt people. There are shuttles leaving for Earth every 15 minutes, and down here that solution just won't work. At least not in this city.
Control is the ultimate expression of power.
Karma's a magic card... How would that help?
WHY'D HE PULL OUT HIS WALLET?! You were just gonna hand over the money even though you knew you've done nothing wrong? You should have at least ran since you weren't willing to fight back or anything.
Mugging is a business transaction. It needs to be profitable. They're not going to "just carry a gun themselves" because at the point at which you're flipping a coin to see if your head gets blown off, it's infinitely easier to just get a job flipping burgers. You have to take the survival instinct into account.
Better question; Is the possibility of killing a scumbag who would prey and terrorize his fellow human beings worth creating an environment where others don't have to fear for their safety and welfare after dark or in stairwells or even in broad daylight, because such human predators have learned that their prey can fight back? Yes.
A mugging doesn't stand alone. Depending on how it's answered it can lead to more and worse crimes. The environment that condones and fosters muggings leads to rapes and murders. You have to take a stand and man up every once in a while.
I said that they committed these crimes because they lack empathy (i.e., they do not view other human beings as real and important), but that that wasn't an excuse. In other words, it's not like these people would just one day realize that other people have feelings and repent of their ways and become good people.
Both. Letting emotions dictate the means of your actions (rather than just the ends) is irrational. Desires and emotions are the only thing we have to tell us where we want to go, but they're not very good for figuring out how to get there. In this situation, you also fail to act correctly by not being willing to take the steps that ensure the long term safety and liberty of the community. Instead, you subsist on individual acts of appeasement that will both cost more lives than potentially could be lost here, and you've drastically lowered the quality of life.
Neighborhood Watches and the Black Panthers both discovered that this does indeed work at preventing street crime. It's not 100% failsafe, but an improvement is an improvement.
You ease up rather than hitting back harder. Say a member of a teenage gang rapes and murders someone. Instead of killing half the gang, just arrest the person responsible and throw him in jail. He's not punished as severely as his victim was victimized, but no one else in his group wants to rot in a jail cell until they're old enough to get a senior citizen's discount.
Non sequitor. It does not follow. It doesn't sound like any of these victims had guns. It sounds, therefore, like your solution of going about unarmed and hoping for the best is not a very good idea.
Why? Are the next group of *******s going to be bulletproof?
Oh, it's not a cure all, but the survival instinct is something you can reliably count on to at least reduce crime. Other factors come into play as well; a high enough degree of poverty and hunger can cause someone to take high risks, so other social factors need to be addressed. But you need to start with breathing room, and you can't have an influx of wealth into a community where someone can take your wealth from you with impunity, so the first step needs to be creating a healthy fear of the law.
Nice limp you got there, gangsta.
I'm thankful I live in a conceal-carry state. I have no worries about stupid b.s. like this.
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sounds like if they had had guns, they might not've died. Your helping me, not yourself by bringing this up.
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Regarding guns: I can't say that's going to work with any certainty. There's certainly reason to both sides but because so many of these criminals don't follow logic of any sort, should the assaulter possess a gun, the chances of the gun protecting you are just as much as the chances of that same gun getting you shot/stabbed. That's enough of a reason for me not to carry one. The only guaranteed thign to work is to drive a tank around - hard to get stabbed driving one of those...
Should the assaulter NOT carry a gun though - well there's a high likelihood you could get arrested instead where I come from. The police don't really care WHY you fired here just that you fired... Even more reason not to carry it in my eyes...
A healthy fear of the law? What exactly is that, is that like a fear of God? Since most of these people, if they did get arrested, would be spend a night in the county jail and then let back out, that is really not much to fear. When my cousin was shot and killed, he was killed by a man who was in prison for shooting someone but was released cause the prisoners were packed in like sardines. So if you want people to fear the law, you have a long way to go. Those revolving doors prisons have nowadays are not very dreadful, but then you'd have a gun...yea that'll work.
Control is the ultimate expression of power.
Now I have no problem with carrying a gun and shooting or even possibility of killing a mugger but I simply can not advise others to do so my argument is that unless you are prepared to take a mans life you should not carry a gun and I would feel responsible if I told some one to carry a gun and then they got hurt or killed with that gun
Ok where do I go to join up with the posse? I do agree that from time to time people do need to man up but is carrying a gun the only way to do it?
Because being a helpless victem really stops the violence. The objective is to not get beat up, robbed and generally victemized. It's much better to stop the cyclee of muggings than be a hapless victem continually.
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TIBA, I have to say I disagree with you on his hangups being irrational. I have been shooting guns ever since I was 12 (now 20) and have been shooting pistols since I was around 15. Despite my ability to hit a close-range target with a .38 reliably under controlled conditions, I would be hesitant to use a gun to protect myself and my friends in a combat situation without lots of training. Putting aside the possibility of the gun being taken from me and used on me, it is quite possible to miss your target and hit one of the very people you are trying to protect. Also, that is assuming you have aquired a license to carry. Further, using a gun on an unarmed opponent is likely to have legal reprecussions unless you can prove they intended to kill you. Now, if you feel you would be perfectly fine using a gun when being mugged, that's your call, but I wouldn't. Home defense is another story, but that's a discussion for another day.
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That's curious, because I have never felt more uncertain about my ways than when TIBA has just now confronted me.
I do see how, logically - evidently, rather - carrying a gun is helpful; may in fact be the only good course. But it remains that the fear paralyzes me. I will strive to overcome it.
EDIT: In the following, I address TheInfamousBearAssassin as "you."
I will also borrow your words, "individual acts of appeasement," for I too have long scorned the faults of a morality that cannot see beyond present acts. It's strange now, to think I had failed to apply that to life.
Jesus, man, everything you have ever written here about debate, particularly how passion is a fine motivator of it, is recalling to me with such truth. I wonder where you have come upon your wisdom, that I might get some for myself.
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Control is the ultimate expression of power.
It boggles my mind that the same people who think that a mugger could easily wrestle a gun away from you without getting shot will pretend that you can kung-fu multiple assailants at once with little effort or risk after listening to some jackass with a phony blackbelt lecture for half an hour a week. What reality do you live in, and how are you communicating with ours?
This from someone who's answer to violence is to carry a weapon. Yea that'll work we'll just give everyone a gun, cause 64,000 handgun deaths a year is just not enough. You really that everyone on this forum could pull a gun on someone and be perfectly fine with using it? Cause if you are not the gun is utterly worthless. Kung Fu is technically not a verb. You don't need to "Kung-fu" multiple assailaints, just take out the leader, you know the guy standing in front, the rest will just back off. After all you said yourself the point of the gun is to scare people. So find some other way to scare them. Unless you think that just shooting every mugger will make them suddenly go away.
"Wow everyone has a gun now, might as well get that job at McDonald's now."
Is your reality, in my reality you know this one its, "Damn everyone has a gun, I should get one two." Well there goes your plan, do you have a plan B?
Control is the ultimate expression of power.
Do I think that people that use violence and superior force to exercise unjust power over others and wallow in their own artificial sense of power and superiority will cease doing so when the field is leveled and they're at the same position as everyone else? Why yes, yes I do.
********. First of all, I'm confused as to what you think muggers are. For some reason that I can't even begin to fathom, you think they flail their arms wildly while attacking in slow, awkward movements, but you also think that they're incapable of fear and easily able to steal guns away from our theoretical victims. How? Why? Where did you conjure up these boogeymen so perfectly suited to your otherwise worthless argument? All I can conjecture is that it's the result of watching too much Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I know of nowhere else where you could have recruited such impressively incompetent villians for your argument.
But in reality, when someone points a gun at them, most people simply aren't going to risk it- and far more people than you probably suspect are going to be able to pull the trigger. The average person is more intelligent and more vicious than they're given credit for.
Technicalities in language are a fiction.
I'm slamming my head against the desk right now.
Look. Don't give anyone advice on how to react to muggings, and for God's sake, if you ever get mugged, don't listen to your own. You're going to wind up sending someone to the hospital or worse.
Muggers are not idiotic henchmen from a children's television program. They do not attack one at a time, in flailing, painfully slow movements, fall over from one hit, and run away when you take out the "leader". If you are facing multiple assailants without a gun, you run the **** away, and that's all you try to do. Never try to do anything as idiotically suicidal as what you're suggesting right now.
Okay. I want you to actually try thinking about the scenario now.
Scenario 1: You're with some friends, conducting business. Someone punches your friend. What are you going to do? Odds are about a hundred to one you're going to gang up and kick his ass. It's one guy, he's going to be still recovering from his own attack while you begin yours, and he punched your friend. Sure, you were mugging him at the time, but is that a good reason not to beat the **** out of this *******? No, it's not.
Scenario 2: You have a gun in your face that can end your existence with frightening ease. What do you do? Whatever the **** the guy with the gun in your face says because you don't want to ****ing die!
It's an interesting thing. Everyone thinks that they're smarter than most people. Of course, we know that 50% of the people that think this are wrong. But the interesting thing is that reality adjusts to the bottom 50%. They begin to think that since they're smarter than most, which they aren't, that others are dumb than them... which, in the case of the bottom 10% or so, makes everyone else really ****ing dumb in their book.
I'm sure that some morons are actually going to think that in the scenario where any given mugging can result in their having their heads blown off, that getting a gun themselves solves the problem. But evolution has to take it's course eventually, and these people are too dumb to be well-suited to survival. They're either going to get shot during a mugging, or accidentally commit murder, get caught, and get thrown in jail.
Most of them, however, will, yes, decide that since it's not easy/safe to prey on their neighbors, they'll have to actually work for money. It's unfortunate, but better than having one's head blown off.