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Violent Crime and Self Defense

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Hektore, Feb 18, 2012.

  1. Hektore

    Hektore Slightly Tilted

    So, I was reading at Sam Harris's blog: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence

    And in the blog he is discussing an interesting bit of statistics which, for me at least was a bit jarring.
    Which, in the context he provides, makes sense. What I mean is, I understand how he arrives at the number. It just flies in the face of everything I think we hear about likelihood of being the victim of violent crime. I think about my family, two parents and two siblings and the odds that not one of us will be the victim of violent crime over the next three decades is barely above 50/50.

    I thought the perspective was interesting and in reflection it makes the concealed carry folks, who are so often painted as gun nuts, appear much more reasonable in their assessment of risk, especially considering the investment. $1000 and a couple hours per week training time (probably less time that some of us spend in the bathroom) seems like a small investment against a 1 in 9 chance of being assaulted (or possibly worse still, murdered).

    Obviously some details are glossed over, particularly about the intricacies of an encounter with violence, but it at least got me thinking.

    What do you think?
    Is this a case of that old pearl, lies, damned lies, and statistics?
    Have you ever thought about being the victim of violence in this way, does thinking about it in this way impact your assessment?
    Does it change your view of carrying weapons for personal defense?
     
  2. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    I think it makes for an interesting discussion for sure. But I don't think the statistics are measured accurately if you are just going to condition by geography.

    Physical size, health, race, sex, etc. all come into play, as well as lifestyle choices, such as the hours you keep, the amount of time you spend in public, where you go, etc.

    Common sense says that a physically small person, maybe someone that appears to have a handicap, a woman, someone that appears to be of foreign descent, etc. is at a higher risk than a large, healthy male, doesn't it?

    I know that as a good-sized, healthy male who makes it a practice to be aware of my surroundings I would imagine I appear to be a higher risk target for a mugger than a 4'10" 90lb woman who looks like she might not speak English or be a part of the local community. And escalate that by a huge factor if I'm someone who is typically home during late night and early morning hours.
     
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  3. KirStang

    KirStang Something Patriotic.

    Also keep in mind, that for most jurisdictions, all I have to do to "assault" or "batter" you is to yell, "Boogalooga loo!" or tap your shoulder to commit the aforementioned crimes.

    I like guns. It gives me a wildcard to play should I ever be in a predicament. But in my humble opinion, there's too much 'grey' in law to accurately interpret statistics.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  4. Hektore

    Hektore Slightly Tilted

    In order to clarify what was meant by violent crime I suppose I should share the source of those statistics: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime/violent-crime

    I understand what you meant, but I think it takes quite a bit more than a tap on the shoulder for an aggravated assault conviction. The other thing to keep in mind is the nature of 'reporting'. As was stated in the bit I quoted, assault and rape in particular are very likely under-reported.
     
  5. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    Maybe I'm confused on the semantics, but wouldn't mugging be robbery? And if any physical attack were part of it it would be robbery with aggravated assault?

    I'm guessing (and feel free to correct me if you have proof otherwise) that robbery and aggravated assault occur far, far more often than forcible rape and murder.

    Either way, even with random murders (I say that because most people who are murdered aren't randomly murdered) and rapes, wouldn't the factors I mentioned still come into play a fair amount of the time?

    As far as the reporting factor, wouldn't most people who didn't report it do so because they knew their attacker and didn't want to get them in trouble? I'd think the occurences of date rape going unreported would be far higher than a random brutal forced rape by a stranger. The same with physical assaults.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. Hektore

    Hektore Slightly Tilted

    It's my understanding that a mugging would be a robbery. If there an actual attack with it, rather than simply the threat of an attack as coercion, that would also be aggravated assault however the statistics count only the most severe crime that occurs as a part of a single incident. At least that's the way it reads to me:
    The data for individual crimes doesn't want to load for me right now, but whenever it does I'll put the 30-year odds up for completeness' sake. Though, even if it shakes out that only 1 out of the 1000 victims end up murdered, as opposed to only mugged, that still doesn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Ya know?

    As for not reporting, there are a variety of reasons for failing to report a crime and while personally knowing the perpetrator might make up a significant portion of it there are other reasons - refusal to confront an attacker, lack of faith in the system or that you can win, not wanting to deal with or be seen as being a 'victim'. The psychology of violence and victim-hood is quite the mixed bag.
     
  7. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    To answer your original questions more clearly, I try to think positively (hey, I have a 90% chance of never being mugged where I live! :p ) and improve my odds however I can. I pay attention to my surroundings and don't go in unfamiliar or deserted areas at the prime hours for crime. I think the statistics, as I stated earlier, are very broad and can be interpreted based on the story you want to tell. There isn't enough detail, or enough conditions and variables tested, for me to feel it applies directly to me in a specific sense.

    As far as carrying a weapon for personal protection, I don't, though I own several. Living in IL it's basically impossible to legally carry a loaded firearm for protection.
     
  8. KirStang

    KirStang Something Patriotic.

    Yea, aggravated assault doesn't involve shoulder tapping at all. It involves someone waving around a weapon and putting someone else in fear. There's no touching involved in an assault.

    Also keep in mind that the UCR tallies data based on "arrests" or things "brought to the attention of law enforcement." I've seen enough unwarranted and frankly, bullshit 'arrests' to equate 'arrest' with 'crime.'
     
  9. Bodkin van Horn

    Bodkin van Horn One of the Four Horsewomyn of the Fempocalypse

    What do you think?

    I think that he makes some good point about self defense.


    Is this a case of that old pearl, lies, damned lies, and statistics?

    No. Statistics don't lie. One important fact to remember when someone mentions what you should expect to happen to an average person: average people are very rare. In most contexts, the average person doesn't exist.


    Have you ever thought about being the victim of violence in this way, does thinking about it in this way impact your assessment?

    On some level I'm always thinking about being the victim of violence. I do it less consciously nowadays than I used to when I was younger.

    Does it change your view of carrying weapons for personal defense?

    No. Carrying a weapon can be just as much a liability as not carrying one. Honestly, the thing that gives me the most pause about the idea of carrying a gun for self defense would be trying to figure out how to not get shot by the cops after using the gun for self defense.
     
  10. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    College basically taught me that the UCR and NCVS are some fun blobs of numbers used to determine whether we, as Average White People, are going to be accosted by minorities. Any mention of these in a thread automatically throws the spin flag. Variable reporting practices, half-ass participation, ridiculous crime stacking, etc. Statistics have shown that 90% of crime statistics are layers of spin one way or the other.

    Man, I was totally Tilted Politics'd there for a minute. Had like three whole "gun nut" paragraphs typed out on how to do this but then I decided that Irrational Whitey is Actually Okay with Getting Mugged. It's okay to admit that you're at the mercy of a high school dropout with a Hi-Point.

    Being afraid of the LE response to you defending yourself with a firearm is straight dummy-retarded. It's like being afraid of the doctor response to a gunshot wound. Doctors accidentally kill a ton of people every year and somehow we still find the balls to hop up on that crinkly paper in a blue gown.

    Protip: Put the fucking gun away so you don't scare the cops. That's it.​

    If you're the one left standing after an incident that involves a shooting (typically 50/50 odds given how much people actually train with their pistols), you've got plenty of time to drop the mag, lock the slide to the rear, reholster, get your ID/permit out and sit down to call 911 and report the incident yourself (since you'll probably be the first person to do such depending on where you live). It's best to accomplish all this before you pass out from the adrenalin dump, but, y'know, do what you can. Don't tell the cops a lick more than the info they already have based on their recovery of your ID/permit and expect to be treated like a hoodlum until you can lawyer up and begin the process of clearing your good college cracker name.

    It takes seconds for a shooting to occur. It's utterly disgusting how fast things happen once that whole "fight or flight" rush kicks in and you go on autopilot. Rumor has it the average police response time feels like a beard-growing eternity. I'm sure statistics are out there to support that feeling.
     
  11. KirStang

    KirStang Something Patriotic.

    Keep your hands off your weapon and you'll be okay. This is from first hand experience with cops while carrying. You'll really have to act like an idiot to get lead-sledded by the cops.
     
  12. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    As far as the cost thing: if you shoot a 50 round box of cheapo 9mm every weekend, it'll end up being about $650 a year.
     
  13. Bodkin van Horn

    Bodkin van Horn One of the Four Horsewomyn of the Fempocalypse

    Slow down, planny. I know you're passionate about this issue, but I think you've got me wrong. I'm not trying to take away your guns. If I had more time to get and maintain the proper training, I might have a C&C permit myself. Plus, I think you're probably whiter than me. And you're the one suffering from dummy-retartedness if you don't think it's rational to wonder about how not to get shot by cops who may be responding blind to a shots-fired call. I don't know how cops are in your neck of the woods, but around here, they occasionally tend towards shoot first, ask questions later. We've even had situations where cops have jumped the gun and shot other cops and gotten away with it. There are few individuals more dangerous (and insulated from any sort of real consequence) than a cop who's hopped up on adrenalin and convinced you're a threat to his/her life.

    Plus, the idea that apprehension about gracefully handling a post-shooting situation is equivalent to a lack of concern about being robbed is dumb.
     
  14. Zen

    Zen Very Tilted

    Location:
    London
    Thanks for posting that, Hektore. I think it's a fantastic article. The statistic bit does not touch me deeply, because my general sense of distrust makes me a hard core avoider of times and location with potential for danger. Cf @Borla's point.

    I have often thought about victimhood given that much of my job involved me in protecting the victims and taking care of the assholes themselves. Also, I have been victim and witness to violence, and defender of self and/or others against violence. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I am geared to see the world as an unsafe place.

    Concerning my view of carrying weapons: I'm English with a lifetime's experience of citizens not carrying weapons. I sometimes get the feeling that I and my culture are culpably blind: my main contact with Americans has been during the last 12 years, during which I've been beginning to make sense of 'right to bear arms'. Therefore I am only in the early stages of being able to think of arms as something that gets borne by anybody apart from crims, police, or armed forces. The writer's reasoning was compelling, organizing a structure of 'what to do when and why', leading to a clear space to justify, if need be, lethal force. So yes, my view of carrying weapons for personal protection has changed, but I'm not sure how. It's early days, but I'll think about the article and your OP, and come back as my thinking develops.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  15. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    Bodkin van Horn,

    Wigger, please.

    At no point did I suggest that this was a pro/con gun thread. This is more of a realize-threat-do-something/realize-threat-do-nothing thread.

    Kinda like how most people haven't checked the air pressure in their spare tire recently.

    And I agree, I'm super passionate here: Reholstering a gun after shooting it in self-defense is a dynamic, blow-your-mind revelation.

    ...

    Let's do the math here:

    No Gun -> chance of being mugged by guy with a gun with tiny chance of defending self -> chance of being shot by hyped-up a police officer

    Gun -> chance of being mugged by a guy with a gun with a small chance of defending self -> chance of being shot by a hyped-up police officer

    What realistic threat are we trying to mitigate, again?

    ...

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Bodkin van Horn

    Bodkin van Horn One of the Four Horsewomyn of the Fempocalypse

    Look, I'm fully capable of admitting that I've never shot a person and waited for the police to arrive afterward, so I'm clearly speaking from ignorance here. However, when you take "police responding to reports of shots fired" and "a person has been shot" and "the shooter is still in the vicinity" together and try to answer the question of "What's going to happen next?" it seems entirely possible that there is a nontrivial probability that the person still standing when the cops arrive might also end up getting shot down themselves. The math here is not complicated. People have gotten shot to death by the cops over less significant misunderstandings. The fact that you don't think it's an issue doesn't mean it isn't something worthy of consideration.
     
  17. ChrisJericho

    ChrisJericho Careless whisper

    Location:
    Fraggle Rock
    I would have to agree with the sentiment that crime statistics are suspect (they teach you that in sociology class, as well as all major companies are evil and all drugs should be legalized). And where I live 'assault' can basically just mean you make some feel scared.

    Generally though, it seems to me that most people on the news who are getting seriously injured/shot/stabbed are usually hanging out in bars and clubs late on weekend nights. Of course, this is just based on what the news decides to air, but I think in general the more boring your life is the less chance someone wants to harm you.

    However the counter-argument to that is, one day I decided to look on a map of registered sex offenders in my area. While as a somewhat fit adult male my chances of being raped or molested by a stranger are somewhat low, there was quite a bit of level 3 sex offenders in my area, many of which had not checked in for months.

    Anyway, I have a CCW permit and I always carry outside the house. I'm probably not going to be mugged in the costco parking lot, but who knows maybe a former costco employee got fired and he wants to take out a few people that day. Maybe I can tag him with a few good leg shots with my G19 (I assume he'll be wearing body armor) before he gets me with his spray painted WASR-10. Oh the indignity.
     
  18. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    TIL:

    Concealed Carry Handgun
    Fuck it, I'll get shot anyway. Best not to waste the $600.​
     
  19. Hektore

    Hektore Slightly Tilted

    Re: Suspect Statistics or UCR problems ( ChrisJericho, Plan9, KirStang )

    Do any of you have a better source for reliable crime data, perhaps with more reliable methods?

    (Not to be inflammatory but if there are more reliable numbers, then do share)
     
  20. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    First rule of self-defense...don't put yourself in a situation where you may need to defend yourself.
    Repeat.

    Now, that being said...I have trained myself in martial arts, just in case...and we have a handgun and shotgun, but that's mostly the wife's.
    I guess the thing is be prepared...but as I said above, it's avoid the situation.
    Lock your doors, don't make valuables obvious, make sure you're aware of your surroundings, don't just hang-out anywhere, etc...

    Now you could say that I'm 6.2, 270 and built...so no one wants to try, and that may be true a bit.
    But my wife is 5.3...and she doesn't hesitate going places. However, she's aware of her surroundings, moves with intent and confidence.

    Violent crime can happen to anyone...the ones doing it, aren't challenging you to a duel, they are waylaying you, with whatever weapon they can.
    Your size, ability, etc...doesn't matter then...you can't react fast enough and anyone can go down.
    It's about if you're a target or not.
    Any security expert will tell you 9/10th the battle is won if they aren't aware of you.

    And half that battle is if you're in an area that has many who may be potentially violent.
    Beverly Hills does't have many people who are going to attack each other. (at least physically...)
    Compton will have more people who think that's an acceptable action.
    That's a matter of volume.
    You're more likely to get into a fight in a bar or dance club....than a decent mall...or even better, a church.
    Again, volume of likely-hood.

    So, in the end...I don't get into fights or attacked, because I avoid those places that are more likely to have those who will do that.
    It's not about police, or your ability to fight...it's about common sense.
    Isn't that what everything comes down to?