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Sorry! Here gun ownership is a right. I still say New York is safer than London or Manchester.
I will have to stop in Brannigans next time I am over.:D
The attempt was made twice upon me, while I was in my teens.
At sixteen, the attempt was made to gut me with a switchblade. My left hand got in the way. The scar remains. I pulled the knife from my hand (in on the palm side, and out the back side), and the miscreant got the point...
At seventeen, was accosted in the park around Lake Merritt, in Oakland, California. Person asked for the time, and when I looked at my watch, a .357 was stuck in my belly. I swatted down with my left hand as he pulled the trigger. The scar is still upon my left thigh. We seemed to have had a discussion concerning deportment, and his side came up short.
The point being, although you have yet to be mugged, it only takes once. Believe it or not, there are MANY of the miscreant types roaming this earth, and thrill-kill is a reality. "Nicking" the wallet is just a bonus. Observe your "soccer hooligan" types... trust in their love and kindness to keep you safe? :rolleyes:
While you all might believe in the inate goodness of mankind, I am not so delusional. Will I rejoice at your wake, or say "I told you so?" No... I will mourn that you did not listen, and it cost you your life.
What you call paranoia, I call survived experience...
happened to me when i was 17, walking back from a club [sober i might add as well]. 4 guys jumped me from behind after calling me a fucking faggot, nicked my wallet, kicked me unconscious and then left.
So how would a gun have helped then?
Or might the presence of a gun about my person, after they beat me to the ground before i even had a chance of attacking or even realising i was being attacked, have incited them to use it? after all, if all they are after is a thrill, then that would be the ultimate. or if guns were as readily available as in the US might they not shoot me in the back then rob me? how does your magical gun save you THEN. That is the inevitable result of escalations in the use of force: pre-emptivity. Like in SA where the use of car flamethrowers has increased the number of carjackings where the person is shot first from a distance. result = loss of life rather than loss of car.
they were after my wallet. simple. most muggers, at least in the UK, are. if you happen to have so many psychos in the US that all they are after is to kill someone, then well done, what a fine society you have created for yourselves. just don't try to drag us down to your level.
The hot magma will also cover the whole of america at a level of 5 inches.
Use your guns to stop that :rolleyes:
This topic is sad, very sad indeed
Where I live, I haven't experienced the crime I hear on the news at night but its there, nonetheless.
And I'm not worried about my wallet, I'm worried about my life or the life of the person that accompanies me.
Nope, a firearm wouldn't have done you any good. Situational awareness is also required.
Again, you fail to recognise the point, if would be muggers decide there is a possibilty a victim is carrying a gun, would it not make sense to take a cheap shot on the blindside for them ? Just wipe out the victim in fear of his own life ? Whereas now he would just settle for a few punches/kicks to the victim. Muggers do what they do for reasons, its not a hobby, they will mug regardless, what arming the public does is make them got to more extreme lengths to secure their money, possibly switch their attentions to the elderly, weak, vulnerable ?
So, you figure that muggings are inevitable? Cynical, aren't you?
Yes, like i say people don't do it through boredom or as a hobby.
Operative issue.
What others refer to as "weapons"? Are merely the tools.
The weapon is between your ears.
Have not been snuck up upon in a loooong time. Even in my sleep. Perhaps that is one of the defining charracteristics between preditor and prey. As a friend calls it: "Some wander around admiring the clouds in the sky, and some are watching for the mines in the ground: some are taken by surprise, and some expect the 'unexpected'..."
Are you suggesting that they aren't?
Inevitable? Yes, I'd say they aren't. I'm a native of New York City. Never been mugged. Not even during the years when gangs and crime were at their worst. Of course, I've spent only 7 years in the last 20 in NYC, but a lot of the other time has been in Detroit, Miami, Rio, Bangkok, Hong Kong....all places that have muggings. The "New Yawkers" that I know who have been mugged invariably will tell you that they failed to pay attention to their surroundings. Situational Awareness.
But not since. Will agree in total with Greenhat, on this issue...
Comport yourself as prey, and you will be preyed upon. Comport yourself as a potential combatant, and AWARE of your surroundings, and you will generally be passed by for preferential easier pickings. Not always, however... and in those cases, you had better be armed, trained, and willing, or those at your wake may question the cause of your demise...
I don't like the idea of deflecting the problem to those less capable of dealing with it, you may as well say to the mugger leave me alone, go find an old weak man to batter instead.
My Great Uncle died a few weeks ago. He was 103. He had also never been mugged. And I would have felt sorry for any fool who thought that weak old man was a good target.
Maybe the better solution is to educate people to be better capable of dealing with it.
That would be an accurate portrayal of reality... the preditors seek out the weak and infirm, or who they think are "weak and infirm"...
btw... most lethal man I have ever known (as in, lethal to them that might suppose him to be prey), was an ffl gun dealer that I befriended back in the 1980's. George was this shrunken old man, pushing around his oxygen bottle when he went for his evening walks. What most would not know is that George was a survivor of three beaches in the Pacific during WW2, and all of his questions of "morality" had been quite settled decades before.
No qualms, no constraints, and no hesitations.
Under George's old pea coat, there was a a fully automatic Mac10, and he used to both work on it and practice with it in his basement...
Surprise, surprise.
You haven't but that wasn't the question. The question wasn't "do you think it is inevitable that you will be mugged", it was "are muggings inevitable"
And they are, they have been going on for centuries, even when we had the death penalty (or the ships to Australia) and nothing will eradicate them.
Did you read the story about South Africa? There is a lesson there. If the crims get the impression that everyone is likely to be armed, they will shoot first and mug later. As it stands now, they will mug first - and death is unusual, a rarity.
I still say, I would rather give up the meagre contents of my wallet, than take a life (or give mine up)...
Muggings were close to non-existent in a number of countries when the population was effectively entirely armed (colonial/revolutionary America is an example). Even in England it isn't very hard to find a period in which there were very, very few highwaymen. Your example of S. Africa may be true there, but there are always cultural issues that apply. What is true in South Africa is unlikely to be true in England, and even more unlikely to be true in the United States.
Muggings are only inevitable as long as there are idiots walking around who can't pay attention to their surroundings, and criminals who will take advantage of their idiocy.
:rolleyes: If only
Precisely.
I disagree. Most muggers do what they do for a hobby, a cheap thrill, like an addiction. They got to have their fix.
I'm sure if you look up police records, they will show that most do it for a hobby.
An easy target, makes for an even easier fix.
Make that a second agreement with Greenhat and situational awareness.
What complete and utter shit, people mug people becasue they are desperate for money in the first instance, perhaps beyond that they may go on as an easy way to earn cash, but either way they are going to continue to do it, the word addiction in your statment just goes to prove they'll do it regardless. As MoK says if they believe people to be armed they'll shoot first, mug second, rather than mug first.
Greenhat, if your walking alone at night in a strange area and suddenly a gang appears, exactley what as paying attention to your surroundings got to do with anything ? If they've all got guns, then what ?
You imply that people who get mugged have only got themselves to blame, an absurd suggestion.
A gang "appears"?
What is this? Star Trek?
You've been watching too many movies. People do not suddenly appear. As for "all got guns", so what? I deal with that type of situation on a regular basis, generally in the jungle instead of a city though (they don't suddenly appear in the jungle either). I'm still here.
I wasn't going to comment on that, even I could see the folly in the statement.
That said, if you can predict what people are going to do then you really could make a fortune...
Sorry I forgot people wandered around with sirens on their heads in America, here in UK its not beyond the realms of sci-fi to be walking along street late at night, turn a corner and suddenly be faced with a gang of pricks, or have them turn up behind you in a park, or leap from an alley way, or pull up in a car.................
Nah, but their check trousers are so loud you can hear them a block away
Equally absurd would be the suggestion that an individual bears ANY responsibility for the consequences of his choices, his beliefs, his ignorance, his ineptness, his lack of awareness as to what he is blindly walking into...
Let us HEAR the cheer!
RHETORIC OVER REALITY!
Feels ever so much better now, doesn't it?
I'm sorry, but despite all the army training you've had and all the guns you've played with, there will of been a set of circumstances in which a mugging has occured that you could of doing sweet fuck all about had you been the victim and the older you get and more incapable you get the variety of circumstances will increase.
Males in the prime of their physical exsistence have never been traditional targets for muggers, they know better than to take on someone who may get the better of them, I really wouldn't be so naive as to believe anyone who is mugged had it coming to them, one day that may well be you, despite all your big talk.