Hal, David, Doug,
While murder stats are one way to look at the personal defense issue,
shouldn't the larger issue encompass events worse than death? For example:
the aftermath of violent crime against one's person where some essential
part of one's life has been taken and cannot be restored.
Protecting myself from this variety of suffering has a higher priority than
protecting myself from an instant and painless end. For example, if a
perp's goal were to torture or main or even if he* were to merely threaten
me with the perception of these events, I would be prepared to defend
myself in the extreme. In other words, I would not co-operate, I would
kill. (This is a fairly new way of thinking for me.)
I'd be interested to know how other females regard such threats of
violence. Women who 'fight back' are much more likely to survive / escape.
Co-operating with some psychopath rapist is more likely to get you dead.
Hal asked:
>Would they even go to the point that they would support the death penalty
>for robbery?
If you mean a type of robbery that results in extreme trauma and suffering
with fallout so severe a life impedient that the victim's prior life cannot
be restored, then, yes, let the death penalty be considered.
David comments:
>- - The criminal knows that you are armed, so preys on others instead. The
>altercation >between you is avoided altogether. (See Bastiat, "What Is
>Seen And What Is Not Seen".) >If enough people are armed, the criminal
>finds something else to do for a living.
So, criminals look for victims who won't put up a defensive fuss, that is:
the unwarry, naive, physically weak, defenseless... women and children?
Doug writes:
>Laser sights on a handgun tend to make it a better persuader- seeing the
>spot on one's groin makes even the most aggressive attacker think twice,
>by making the promise "I will maim you" instead of "I will kill you,"
>introducing a shade of gray into the life or death equation. The
>maiming potential of a sword is what gives it its psychological power,
>but Aleta was fortunate the perps did not have firearms.
Exactly the point: It's not the threat of instant death that deters, it's
the very idea of violence against one's person that stops us all in our
tracks.
~ankara
(he* - offensive violent crime is almost exclusively a male domain.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:38:54 MDT