Trayvon Martin.

This is the self defense test that Zimmerman failed:

He had all of those options and chose to go to gun.

I do not believe he shot Martin in self defense because he purposefully ignored all of this options: avoid, run, deescalate.

...

In mixed martial arts there are basically two defensive lock-ups on the ground: the mount and the guard. The guard is achieved when you, the guy on your back, wraps your legs around the waist of dude that is on top of you, trying to pommel you. This often happens when you're in a stand-up fight and find yourself suddenly on your back. Sometimes you'll fight a guy that goes to the ground and tries to get you into the guard deliberately. I think Zimmerman just rolled onto his back and put Martin in a premature guard. He may not have thrown the first punch but he set himself up for it.

/figurative language for fight fans

 

I would answer no to all of the above as well, but of course we're speaking about carrying a gun on one's person, out in public. A different kettle of fish. It takes a special brand of paranoia or need to feel powerful, to walk around armed in public when the greater majority of citizens are unarmed.

Probably not PC of me to admit it, but I look upon men who conceal and carry as being a bit wimpish. Real men don't carry guns unless they're in a movie and they're Clint Eastwood.

 

I can't stop laughing.

 

I meant to say, pussies.

 

Real men carry swords

Conceal and carry ..

 

Schwing!

 

I feel exactly the same.
Walkin' around in public with a gun as a public citizen, tells me that you fear a potentially deadly confrontation. A man that does that is compensating for something because it is a very unlikely scenario. I've always thought it was it was to compensate for his lacking attributes elsewhere. In my opinion Zimmerman fits this thumbnail profile and he is indeed a pussy.
Also, those Zimmerman head-wound photos are a joke. That's barely an owie that could have gone almost unnoticed if his head were not shaved.

 

I suspect Quentin Tarantino had a hand in the effects.

 

I wish I could figure out what exactly makes middle-aged white people feel so goddamn invincible. Sheltered? Religion? Perhaps all the leftover THC and LSD in their system. I mean, somebody has to know someone who has been assaulted, raped or murdered. Why else would everybody talk about how violent the United States is? Hell, every time some douche tells a rape joke in a group of five or more women, at least one of them has been a victim of sexual assault. Mmm, violent crime, I suspect, is just one of those things that only happens to Other People in Whitey White Land.

...

Ah-ha, yes! The walk-it-off logic of "But sticking a thumb in her ass isn't rape!" Hey, turns out assault and battery is still assault and battery.

Should that be the case with the Trayvon thing, of course. My tired attempts at explaining self defense philosophy have been totally ignored.

TL;DR: The dude with the gun should have run away. Guns are for threats that come to you, not the other way 'round.

 

My daughter lives in Perth, Western Australia. Where she lives is the world capital for shark attacks. It's all pretty nasty.

Yet, you know what? More Australians die because vending machines fall on them than die of shark attacks.

It's all about responding to threat proportionately. I've been in plenty of violent situations, none of which would have had a better outcome if someone had a gun (including me). The real danger comes when there is no warning, in my experience.

 

What are the odds of a dingo eating her baby?

...

You totally just jumped the shark. Literally. We're talking about two Homo sapiens here, sir.

Cars, booze and cigarettes are up next. And please tell us about the violent situations you've handled.

I'm basically waiting for the part where other person had the option to harm you and you had no such option.

Seems that's basically what self defense laws are all about: the lawless having more options than the lawful.

/waits for the part where the_jazz accuses him of shoving evil black handguns down everyone's throat

...

Zimmerman is a horrible example of concealed carry gone wrong. To make him the face of civilian self defense is ridiculous.

 

No need to explain self-defense. Anyone with half a brain or access to cable TV gets that. The need to strap a gun to your chest and walk amongst the 99% who wish you no harm signifies paranoia or a mini-god complex.

Or maybe you all really believe that a gun is going to protect you or propel you to herodom when the bank you're in is being robbed by a 3 masked guys with automatic weapons. More likely it will be taken from you and used to shoot the pregnant woman next to you who won't stop screaming. Either way, I guess we can add delusions of saving the day to the list of unhealthy reasons to carry a weapon on you.

Carrying a gun doesn't offer the average citizen a means of self-defense (as the need rarely arises) as often as it causes unintentional death and injury as in the case of Trayvon Martin.

Because we are afforded the right to, by law, is an equally poor reason.

 

I think you missed the point. Or maybe not, you're a sharp guy.

I'm not going to swap csb stories, and don't have huge numbers to tell. A few would involve trying to break up fights in night clubs - nothing like looking down the barrel of a gun. However, in any confrontation, there is an option to kill. The question is whether that option will be taken. For example, say someone has a knife to your throat and wants your wallet - is it worth escalating that to a point where someone dies (whichever party)? Why not just hand over the wallet? As it happens, I've never had to do that - but I hope I would, rather than let ego get in the way. In most confrontations, there comes a point at which you choose to escalate or calm things. I've been lucky in that I can usually calm things.

I've witnessed (but not experienced) situations where that choice doesn't arise. These are the times when a guy walks up to another and - without a word - bottles him. That's the really dangerous stuff.

I'm fully with you on this Zimmerman guy. He had options. We all do. The chances that something will happen in which carrying a gun will turn out well for me are, to say the least, remote. Too remote, in my view. It may make me feel safe, but I doubt very much that it will make me safer.

 

Well, I can see that my list of probable invincibility complex causes is the latter. You've got a vivid imagination, lady.

 

The vast majority of people who live in the places folks on this board live are much more likely to die in a car accident than from not having a gun when they could have used one. Perhaps there is something to the idea that carrying a gun around for self defense purposes is evidence of an oversensitivity to risk relative to the average person. I don't know if I'd call it being a pussy, but then again, I try to avoid talking about vaginas as they were somehow not awesome.

 

That sounds pretty shocking.

 

Hey young sir, I've found myself in agreement with you more often than not in discussing the appropriate use of firearms. However, I prefer to use my wits to avoid situations where I might get seriously harmed. To me, carrying a gun around in public is the dumbed-down way to avoid being 'assaulted, raped or murdered.'
However since you bring up rape, you must know that the majority of rapes are committed by a man the woman is acquainted with--not by a stranger in some dark alley.
Simple awareness of your surroundings, walking with a purpose, when in a dark parking lot carrying your car keys with the biggest one firmly poking through between your forefinger and middle finger, looking in the back seat of your car before getting in--this is simple stuff that could prevent/help defend yourself when a stranger attempts to attack you.
On the other hand, if a stepdad is gonna deflower his 1o-year-old daughter--how is a gun gonna help in any way?
I'm anything but sheltered (as an on-call rape counselor I dealt with the immediate aftermath of that 10-year-old's introduction to 'sex') and I'm not religious. Yeah, I dropped some acid when I was 17 and I still smoke pot. I don't think any of these things affect how I feel about the cowboy attitude that the loudest American gun-toting advocates affect.
(I could get all snotty about why men voluntarily join stupid wars over oil but I keep my lip zipped.)
So if you know 'someone' who has been seriously attacked, does that then mean there are many someones you know who have not been? I'm gonna answer, 'yes.' Here in 'Whitey White Land' more harm is done to things like home break-ins, stolen cars, vandalism of any flavour, rather than murders & aggravated assault. No need to hate on middle-aged white people--you'll be one yourself in 15 years.

 

Man. Guns are so divisive. I'm just waiting for the outcome of Zimmermans motion to dismiss evidentiary hearing.

 

Fangirl,

Don't feed me when I'm trolling.

No, I'm not. But I am here with this bat for this horse and I stole some of Bodkin van Horn's upper middle class, white collar razor wit.

Here's the thing: nobody is a criminal psychic. You're confident in your ability to deescalate. That's great. But if you don't have a Plan B in the form of a way to subdue the threat, then your Plan B basically involves a 50/50 of going in an oblong box. To those that say "Well, I don't have own anything worth dying over," I think the best response is "Your life doesn't count?" If you have a knife on my throat and are asking for my wallet, my wallet is definitely not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about how you have means, motive and opportunity to kill me. It's a stupid 1% situation, kinda like a flat tire or a house fire or any of those other things in life that can end in tragedy. The "fuck it, I guess I'll quit" answer confuses me, though.

And it none of this has anything to do with ego. There isn't time for ego in these types of situations. As you're probably aware from your personal experience in night clubs, the 0-60 nature of a physical confrontation means you don't have a chance to do much except inhale an "Oh, shit!" and some sort of hands-up reaction. If you get a second to take a breath, you're doing pretty well for yourself. Stupid shit happens stupid fast, right?

That's not really what this is about. You can't stop that or a shark attack. You can stop shaking vending machines, however. But, yeah, you can't stop totally-clobbered stuff. It's just Tough Shit. As I've said in numerous other threads: Guns are not magical talismans. Sane folks that carry them do not think of them as such. The idea, however, is that when confronted by another human being, you have options. If the fetal position is your option, fine. If trusting some ballsy hoodlum to not slit your throat after taking your iPhone is your choice, fine. There are other options available to you, though.

Good people don't carry a gun to feel safe. Nothing about having a three pound piece of metal on your hip is going to make you "safer." A shark can still kill your ass. A meteorite can still strike you down. What it does, however, is give you an option should you be confronted by another human being. I like safety options. I value my life. What I don't like is people suggesting that it's crazy to fight back. It seems ridiculous for an intelligent adult to not know how to protect themselves. That's just preventative care. Get your colon cam'd. Take your vitamins. Learn how to defend yourself.

Maybe I'm a naive paranoid pussy. That's gotta be it.

 

Stranger violence necessitating the self-defense of one's life (not personal stuff), for all its media attention, is still pretty rare, as Fangirl has pointed out. Yet it does occur and as Alistair stated, the "no warning" scenario is the most common. My daughter was robbed at gunpoint outside our apartment a year and a half ago. The act was sudden and unexpected - out of nowhere, the culprit appeared and the barrel of gun was placed to her forehead.

What good would a gun have done her? I shudder to think that if she'd had one, what might have ensued if she'd tried to reach for it. She used her head, gave him her cash and her cellphone and as suddenly as he'd appeared, he was gone.

It could have ended horribly, with her dead, but she kept her wits about her which, in both of our estimations, is what kept her alive. Introducing a second gun would have escalated the situation and changed the odds considerably.

Most confrontations of this nature end this way. As crazy as you think those "other people" are, killing is not as easy or as common as you imagine. Most just want the money for a fix.
Confrontations which do end in the death of the victim would rarely have come out in the victim's favor if the victim had a gun.

So why carry?