See: 18th and 21st for an example of this.

18th: No booze!
21st: JK LOL

Today:

Today also:

Yeah, will, but that response is sort of callous, don't ya think? Sort of "Hey, fuck 'em, it wasn't me or someone I care about".

I understand your point, which is that not everyone needs to worry or take action to defend themselves every day. Still, some folks do. Some folks should, and don't, and pay dearly for it. So... too bad?

And JinKai, I didn't realize it until I saw this thread, but you live in my old 'hood. I graduated from Mitchell, and my momma still lives just a few blocks over. Small world.



As for the topic, you can probably guess where I come down in this debate, but I'm going to go mull it over some more and re-read the thread before posting.

I never said fuck them. I simply explained that while one person was victimized, 300 million were not. It was about trying to maintain perspective, something often missing from gun threads.

i lived in Chicago for 12 years (by which i mean the city proper,not the burbs) and I was never mugged, attacked, or otherwise put into a bad situation. I don't recall doing anything specific besides just "blending in" and looking like I belong wherever I was. I often had to walk from work to the EL at late hours (1, 2am) in some not so great areas. I guess I just made sure to not tune the city out as I walked; no iPod, no cell phone calls....just walked with a purpose, didn't screw around, didn't draw attention to myself, and was always aware of my surroundings.

Saturday afternoon (1:00 PM, bright daylight..)

This isn't a gun thread. I asked people how they will defend themselves. While part of my plan for defense involves a handgun, it doesn't have to be right for everyone.

Yes. Crime can happen. Anytime. Any place.

Why dwell on it? Why sensationalize it? You can take precautions without dwelling on statistics; you can be prepared without being paralyzed by fear.

What are you trying to "say" with these quotes about statistics?

When everyone becomes a vigilante are you prepared for the criminals to shoot first with no warning? Or are you just going to "defend" yourself against everyone who "looks like a criminal?"

Just asking. Trying to get a better understanding of what this thread is really about. First you ask for people to explain how they will defend themselves and now every reply from you contains some statistic about how 1 person in 6,000,000,000 who is mugged.

Yes, violent crime can happen (and has happened) to me--that still doesn't make it the epidemic that the media portrays it to be. Even if it DOES happen to me again it WAS STILL UNLIKELY. In the vernacular this attitude is called "perspective." It means "an understanding of the relative proportion of things."

Again, I'm not saying that people should not be cautious; but for some reason the reaction is way overboard.

Do you live in Irvine?


For home defense, all I need is my paintball gun loaded with OC shells, and my tazer to fry their testicles when they're [hopefully] blind.

Irvine has less than 150k people. Large city, I believe, means over 1,000,000. Statistically speaking, you're the safest from murder in San Jose, of all the large cities in the country, including New York.

To defend myself, I stay aware of my surroundings. If I go into a new place, I make a mental note of where primary and emergency exits are in case I have to find one quickly, possibly through smoke. I can stay calm in emergencies (I read a few years ago that a personality trait commonly observed in ADD/ADHD individuals is a tendency to skip the panic/shock reflex and go right to action, and I definitely am one of them.) I don't drive through bad areas when I can avoid it, don't walk in bad areas at all, and when I can't avoid driving through an area where I wouldn't walk, I keep my foot on the gas.

I look at people and keep an eye out for habits or actions that indicate they might be a risk to my safety, and keep myself and others in my company away from anyone I think might be a threat to our safety. If I don't need to be there, I leave. If I have to be there, I keep myself between any potential threats and an exit.

If I'm armed, I understand that I have a way to turn an "I'm going to die" situation into a "him or me" situation. I'd never try to be a hero and pull a gun on someone robbing a bank or other business unless I felt that it was a matter of me using a gun or people being shot. At home, same thing goes. Using a gun means I'm more likely to leave in a police car or ambulance a body bag.

As far as defending property, securing my stuff is the first step. I don't flaunt things that I have and I'm not going to make it easy for someone who wants to take my stuff. If someone is in the act of taking my stuff and not a threat to me, the police get a call and I might tackle the guy if he starts running away. It's just stuff, I have insurance for it.

For defending my family and friends, see the section on defending myself. You fuck with them, you fuck with me.

Unfortunately, on a mission to assassinate someone, you were shot and lost your memory. Now you have to outrun assassins and discover: who is Jason Bourne?

Tuesday.

Another 1/6,000,000,000 statistic! EVERYONE RUN!!! :eek:

When you're a victim, the "odds" of it happening to you seem relatively pointless. I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by minimizing the fact that things like this actually do happen.

Are the incredibly slim odds of her being kidnapped and assaulted supposed to bring her comfort? It might bring you comfort, but I doubt it brings her any.

unless it's you

Both of these happened in my neighborhood and one in a section in my building.

While it isn't the norm, it is important to be aware and ready when other people are around.

This is a truly meaningless statement.

no it's not. i don't mean YOU as in willravel, I mean, you to everyone as an individual.

everything happens to someone else. that's what the statistics are, until you become one.

you aren't the teen that's pregenant, until you are.

you aren't the one with the DUI/DWI, until you are.

you aren't the one with an STD, until you are.

you aren't the one with cancer, until you are.

you aren't the one with involved in an altercation that results in an assault, until you are.

you aren't the one that is raped, until you are.

you aren't the one that is mugged, until you are.

you aren't the one that is robbed, until you are.

The odds of being hit by lightning are 576000 to 1. If I am hit by lightning, the odds of being hit by lightning are still 576000 to 1. Nothing changes. It's not about it happening to "someone else", it's about a reasonable response to probability of danger.

Have you ever swam in the ocean? Then you were needlessly risking your life because there's a 1 in 300,000,000 chance of being attacked by a shark. How could you needlessly endanger yourself like that? Simple: it's so unlikely to happen that planning for it makes no sense.

Wear a seatbelt because auto accidents aren't rare. Eat low fat foods and exercise because heart disease isn't rare. Don't pretend like statistically improbable dangers are a big deal. You're just wasting your time.

From the What are the odds of THIS happening ... thread:

How soon we forget, remember, then forget again our college math....

The odds of that man being hit by a helicopter are (after the event) 100%, but the odds of anyone being hit by a helicopter are decidedly less. It's the latter odds I describe here, the former I describe in the other thread.

Had that other thread said: "a man was killed by a fiery helicopter crash yesterday, are you in danger?", the answer would have been, "nope".

Applying that to Cynth and Jinn's incorrect arguments, just because something happens to you does not mean it's any more likely to happen to someone else. Jinn randomly posting articles about Joe Shmo being a statistic doesn't phase me because it's still a very, very low probability of me being a victim of that crime. That's the bottom line.

I'll defend my person and family with the most violent and deadliest force i'm capable of. I'll defend my property with the appropriate amount of force as the loss of that property would affect my life. Whether that's with my glock23, broadsword, pocket knife, hammer, bottle of bleach, or my fathers day lightsabre, is irrelevant.

In whatever way they see fit. I don't have the right to tell others how to defend their lives and family just like no other person or entity has the right to tell me how to defend mine.

something i've always had a difficult time understanding is the mentality of 'since there is so little chance of X or Y happening to me, i'll just not worry about it'. But I have to ask, would that change your thinking if it DID happen to you?

Willravel, the point is that the odds only matter when it hasn't happened.

Let's randomly assume the odds of a woman being sexually assaulted by a stranger are 1 in 1,500,000. By your logic, a woman shouldn't be concerned about it, because it's not a "reasonable response to probability of danger."

If that same woman, who thought the odds were so low that she needn't prepare for it, is kidnapped and sexually assaulted by three men, do you think that her perception of the "likelihood" would change? It's still 1 in 1,500,000, but I doubt you could convince her that it was 'unlikely'. Do you think she might prepare herself differently in the future, despite the "unlikely" chance that it will happen again?

If her perception changes from before the attack and after the attack, then this your equation of "what're the odds? should I prepare for something so unlikely to happen" isn't the only thing that we should consider. Not only should we consider the likelihood, but we should consider the consequences, in the event that that probability is realized. What are the CONSEQUENCES to my physical and mental being if I'm that "1" in the probability? People prepare for unlikely things just because they recognize that in the unlikely chance it does happen, the time spend preparing would be pay dividends compared to the consequence.

While I recognize that the odds of me (a upper middle class white male) being involved in a physical confrontation with deadly force is quite unlikely, the potential consequences of being unprepared (death or sexual assault) far outweigh the relatively minuscule amount of time I can spend now to "prepare" for my defense. In things where the odds are 1 in a million and the only consequence would be minor pain, I'm OK not preparing for it. But when I think about something that's 1 in less than a million with potential consequences including permanent death, I prepare differently.

Look at it this way: I've been shot with a gun before, but I still don't take what I believe to be unnecessary steps to avoid being shot again. I don't feel the need to be armed. I don't avoid walking through areas that have "gang activity" (something relative in San Jose, despite what the media might have you believe) and I even leave my house unlocked often, though I'm usually home.

I do have double pane windows with that wonderfully strong seal, which makes them quite difficult to break, and I have security doors (thought they came with the house). I also would avoid someone with a gun if I saw them. I'd not get into a physical confrontation with them.

I just don't see any reason to live in fear of what probably won't happen to me. If it happens, then shit. It probably won't though. And that's fine.
This means that either:
1) You weren't aware of the danger before it happened or
2) You're unreasonably afraid after the incident.

I don't think I fit into either of these. I'm basically aware of what's going on around me. I know that I could get in a car accident or even be shot again, but the odds still remain the odds.

The bottom line:
There is a point when preparedness crosses the line into paranoia. It would be unreasonable and paranoid for me to be afraid of a shark attack, for example. Yes, it could happen, but the odds are so slim that constant fear about it is unreasonable. When I was a victim of gun crime, I could have become paranoid, but I didn't. I'm not afraid of being shot again, as it's not likely to happen.

well, I personally think that you're playing the odds with your life. For most people, getting shot would be a wakeup call to let you know it can happen anywhere, anytime.

I think the back and forth is easily solved.

Some people, like Will and I (i'm assuming), believe there is more risk in arming ourselves to the teeth, or over preparing, then there is in having nothing at all to "defend" ourselves with.

Others believe that because it is possible, it can be prevented. In this case, preventing is owning a firearm, or safe guarding your homes.

Where I come from I have never been assaulted, looked at badly, mugged, sexually offended, or spit on. The worse thing that happened to me is someone cut me off, I flipped them the finger, and they followed me home to tell me I was rude. Last year there were a few isolated cases where there were a gang of three or four boys who were beating the shit out of assumed gay men and straight women. This happened four times. I saw this as what it was, an isolated incident, one that has never happened in Fredericton, and probably never will again. Others saw it as a reason to never leave their homes after dark, to have five people with you when walking down Queen, and to take pepper spray with you.

I was never attacked. Someone I knew was arrested for attacking a harmless homeless man thinking he was one of the "downtown attackers".

Understand?

It can happen anywhere at any time, if you're one in a hundred thousand, yes.

You, dksuddeth, are playing the odds with your life every day. Every time you eat spinach, you seriously risk getting e. coli. Every time you get in your car or onto any kind of transportation, you're seriously risking getting in a fatal accident (even with seat belts and airbags). Every time you go to a fair, you run a 1 in 300,000,000 chance of being in an accident. Every time you walk under a coconut tree, you run a 1 in 250,000,000 chance of being struck by a coconut (they kill 150 each year, which means that 5 times the people murdered in San Jose every year are killed by coconuts). A gun won't protect you from, delicious death from above. Yes, you're playing roulette with your life. We all are.

and all that taken in to account, I can arm myself with tools that can HELP, notice I say help and not guarantee, my odds of surviving some encounters than if I didn't have said tools.

Are you sure you aren't Ben Stiller's character from Along Came Polly?

So you always, without fail, wear a helmut when under a coconut tree? Do you wear latex gloves when shaking someone's hand? Or when you go to the bathroom, for that matter? And you wear a micro-filter gas mask when around other people, to avoid sickness?

You gamble with your life every day, and take no steps to avoid it. Why? The risks are highly improbable.
Depends. Can I shag Jennifer Aniston? :oogle:

actually in some places, people would think that you do live in fear, places like Iceland where people can leave their doors unlocked and their windows wide open. they'd wonder why you're so "paranoid" about having all that security especially in such a safe place as San Jose.

Now here's the kicker to all of this, actually will, you have prepared to some degree, not to paranoia, and I'm not accussing you of doing so, nor am I accussing you of having prepared.

You are stating that there isn't a need to prepare, yet there you go, you've stated in this post, and in another that you're actually actively preparing even though your statements are contrary to that.

Jinn nor I are stating to live in fear. We're both advocating preparedness. That's not fear, nor paranoia, in fact the thread you posted about preparedness for the end of the world, maybe we can agree that's paranoia.


actually tho, you do take some reasonable steps, you wash your hands when you go to the bathroom, you may wash your hands prior to eating.

and yes, if you know that they are contagious with some sort of airborne virus, you do wear such protection, but that's again when it makes sense to do so.

some people like that gentleman that decided for himself that his TB strain wasn't going to put people at risk flew overseas. luckily it didn't harm anyone, but it could have caused some major problems for many.

My house is unlocked right now, as I type this from work. I'm not sure where you see a discrepancy between my attitude and theirs. If someone wants to steal my crappy $300 eMac or my LCD, they're welcome to them. My info is backed up, and theft is covered with my umbrella insurance (which is nice and cheap because of San Jose's low crime rate).
I've prepared for things that actually might do me harm, shit yes. I eat healthy, with a diet rich in vitamins and minerals, anti-oxidents, and such, along with vigorous exercise to avoid heart disease and diabetes. I wear sunblock and don't smoke in order to avoid cancer. I wash my hands after using the restroom and before eating to avoid getting sick. I wear a seat belt because car accidents are quite common.

All of these things are done to avoid dangers that are a statistical risk.
That's supposed to be paranoia. The supervolcano in the first post may not blow for tens of thousands of years. There is also mention of zombies. I hope you took that with a grain of salt.

Being prepared for something is only as useful as that which you prepare for is likely.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I never walk under coconut trees, so no need for a helmet, but I do wear one on my motorcycle. I do wash my hands, quite frequently even so I don't get sick. There are always risks in everything, yes, but I see no reason why I shouldn't do some things to improve survival odds when I can.

No coconut trees. That's fine. Do you wear a gas mask outside? Do you have EM reflecting drapes? Do you have a reverse osmosis filter for your water? Do you have a well balanced diet that consists of mostly fruit, veggies, and lean meats? Do you exercise regularly?

The bottom line is that you do, in fact, take no steps to avoid miniscule risks. Which is fine. There's no shame in not preparing for a 1 in 1,000,000,000 danger. It's common sense.

I have a very concealable, 9mm pistol. I plan to purchase hollow-points, which have about 350 lbs. of pressure and go 1450 feet per second.

That is how I defend myself.

In a world where a criminal can murder an innocent person, and the jury says no one has the "right" to put them to death, thereby ignoring the fact that the murderer put someone to death who had done nothing wrong at all, I'm going with the strongest self-defense I can legally carry.

I would rather live with the thought that I killed someone trying to steal money from me for their meth, rather than die at their hands and have a jury decide that my death was less of a crime than executing the murderer. That is the biggest injustice in this country.

If you shoot and kill an unarmed person who is trying to steal money from you, you'd better have a good lawyer. You are only allowed to use lethal force if your LIFE is in danger ... not your money or any other thing.

It's interesting that Will and I have both been victims of violent assault; although, I haven't been shot.

I was only attacked by a group of young guys trying to prove their worth to the gang they were in (or trying to join). I had no expectation of the attack. I was walking in Columbia, MO (population at the time about 50,000) on a brightly lit street (Broadway) at around 8PM. There were numerous people around waiting in line to go to a movie(I can't remember the name of the movie or the theater. 8th street maybe?).

As I was walking toward the theater I didn't even notice the group of guys walking toward me through the crowd. Suddenly a guy wearing a green and white striped shirt punched me in the face. When I didn't go down he started to punch me again but a girl screamed and they took off. I had a broken tooth and a lacerated cheek. No one died.

I have no idea what the odds were at the time of anyone being attacked (this was 1988 or 89). It was a completely unprovoked attack. Just a case of wrong place, wrong time. However, it was not a bad neighborhood ... it was a busy, downtown area. There were many people around (none of whom offered to help). I was not armed.

So, let's play this scenario out a little differently:

Assume all of the surroundings were the same ... but let's assume I have a concealed weapon and I'm certified and legal (I don't know what the laws are in Missouri, but let's just assume).

I STILL get punched in the face. Only this time I pull a gun and shoot the mother-fucker dead right there. His buddies start to freak out and there is pandemonium on the streets as the crowd of people waiting to get in to the theater start to panic.

Some of the gang take off and run but one of THEM is armed too, only he hasn't been trained (he is a "criminal" after all) and begins firing wildly at me. He misses, I return fire and hit him in the leg or some such bullshit.

You see where this is going, right?

Eventually, James Cameron makes a movie about it and the little girl that gets shot and dies in her mother's arms is played by unknown child actress Dakota Fanning. Bruce Willis turns down the role and instead a young, up-and-coming actor is nominated for an academy award for his portrayal of me. He doesn't win. The award goes to Kevin Spacey for "American Beauty."

I think I'm going to go stay with kpax.

You think too highly of yourself. The film was optioned by Willard Huyck (of "Howard the Duck" fame) and starred Pauly Shoreas you in his first "serious" role. The little girl was morphed into Tea Leoni, and the entire mess was released straight to video.

Pauly Shore? That's even better ... I could see him playing me. Imagine a James Cameron/Pauly Shore collaboration. I think we'd have a hit. Willard Huyck couldn't option anything by 1999 ...

But hey, since the whole thing is fantasy I figured why not go for the gold?

Originally, I wanted David Duchovny, but he was busy with X-Files at the time and couldn't fit it in his schedule. This was before James Cameron jumped on board and demanded that Bruce Willis be given first dibs. I don't know why exactly ... Bruce had started his descent into "comedy" just after "The Sixth Sense."

But this gave James a great idea to have my story be told as a "dark comedy" and he figured that Bruce would be perfect. Unfortunately, as I said, Bruce couldn't commit either. After a long and drawn-out audition process which included Kevin Spacey, Emo Phillips, Vin Diesel, Wil Wheaton, Carrot Top, and for some reason Micky Rooney, we settled on Pauly Shore. There was something in him that reminded me of me and I demanded that he get the part. James Cameron balked at this idea naturally, so I threatened him with my gun until he saw it my way. Just like Phil Spector.

Anyway, the whole project was shelved after Pauly Shore demanded that I be barred from the set because of creative differences. In reality, I kept referring to him as "the mongoose" and it pissed him off because everyone knows he's "the weasel." I retained the publishing rights to the story and since TriStar couldn't usurp control and the only agreement we could come to was to call Pauly "Mr. ferret" we decided to scrap it.

This lead to TriStar only releasing three films that year.

Keep in mind that this varies drastically state-to-state. In Colorado, for example, you can use deadly force to protect property in your own home:

And your "scenario" demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of a responsible gun owner. In your scenario, I wouldn't even draw a gun, provided I was even carrying it.