Given that this is the factual forum, cite?
Bad guy was probably under the influence of drugs. I’m under the impression that a lot of burglars/robbers are under the influence of drugs. This has been known to slow reflexes.
I remember reading in Chuck Norris’s autobiography that an interviewer asked what Chuck (with hands registered as deadly weapons) would do if he were confronted with mugger demanding his wallet. He surprised the interviewer by responding simply, “I’d give it to him.” And he went on to explain that no amount of money is worth the risk of ending a person’s life, either your own or the purported Bad Guy’s.
Or, he only brought a knife to a gun fight…
hh
Not necessarily.
A robber with a weapon, and you with none, leaves your life *fully *at the good mercies of a felon.
A robber with a weapon and you with one can help equalize the situation.
Full compliance with the demands of a malefactor led to the WTC coming down.
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Except I don’t want the situation equalized; I want the situation where I don’t get shot.
Most people would avoid murdering someone if they are given what they want, and they are not threatened in the process. The odds of surviving a mugging are pretty high if you give no reason for the criminal to murder you.
I fail to see how having a gun while being mugged, however, would *increase *my chances of survival. It may “equalize” the situation in that my chances of being *mugged *might significantly decrease, but if there’s a gun-fight with 50-50 odds then:
- I’ve reduced my chances of being mugged from 100% down to 50%
- But I’ve increased my chances of being murdered from ~0% up to 50%
That kinda "equalization’ is not something I’d really want.
I’d rather get mugged a dozen times than be murdered once.
I agree. If the general population has much less of an inhibition against violence, then it’s reasonable that criminals will be at least as uninhibited. For that matter, I expect that there would be a lot more murder that has nothing to do with robbery.
And it has also caused the vast majority of hijackings to end with minimal loss of life, which is why it was the advised course of action in hijackings.
The analogy is flawed anyways for the 9/11 attacks because it’s not the same thing. The OP isn’t asking if it’s safer to pull a gun or not when caught in a terrorist attack, they’re talking about getting robbed.
And the passengers in the 9-11 attacks also massively outnumbered their enemies, who only had box cutters. I’m not aware of many mugging scenarios where a man with a small blade tries to mug a hundred plus people at once.
In a small enclosed space, with no useable exits (those doors on the plane require an incredible amount of force to open when the plane is at altitude. Superman could do it, but he’d have to make sure he wasn’t lifting with his back.)
Not necessarily. We’re talking about a Bad Guy who is very distracted trying to simultaneously hold a woman hostage, keep an eye on the man, keep an eye out for anyone else who may enter the house, not worry about anything else that might go wrong, and still get as much loot as possible, and has a lot of adrenaline running through his body that makes complex tasks like all of the above more difficult.
It’s a lot going on in a very short time period and it doesn’t take much time a gun instead of wallet out of a sock drawer, and the Bad Guy clearly thought there was no danger since he had the wife as a hostage.
Once the gun is visible, there’s the “oh shit” moment followed by the flight or fight response.
Bad Guys aren’t always professionals or rational, and sometimes if things happen fast enough, it doesn’t even matter if they are.
That said, in response the OP, pulling a gun on a mugger is likely to disrupt the immediate mugging process, but skip directly to the flight/fight response, which you hope is flight.
I’d say having a gun at minimum gives you options, which is good. If you think your life is in danger, go for the gun or find some other way to resist or run, otherwise give him your wallet. You don’t have to choose the same course of action for each mugging.
The “old guy shooting a robber in the head” story doesn’t sound very believable, and even if its true was incredibly stupid - or psychopathic. After all, what the old man in that scenario is actually doing is seriously risking shooting his wife in order to save some property. Kind of shows his priorities.
When I was robbed, I asked the man if I could have my purse back before I gave it to him. He seemed surprised. I told him that it was my favorite and he said, “okay.” And he did give it back. He kept the wallet but pitched it out not far from where we were. I had it back the same day.
Why escalate something that may be minor? (Yes, he had a gun. I couldn’t tell that it was a BB gun that he had bought earlier after he had robbed someone else.)
I think my teaching experiences helped me to remain reasonably unshaken.
According to my doctor, the gun you own is more likely to kill you or someone in your family than it is an intruder.
slight non GQ hijack…
what if you are a woman, and being robbed is only the first thing the mugger want to do to you…
saying losing your money is okay, but what will the mugger take aswell,
This is one of the websites displaying stories of armed citizens successfully ending robberies and other crimes. There are links to the original story that allw you to click through to the original newspaper or TV report.
I can’t see how decreasing your chances of getting raped is worth an increase in your chances of being murdered.
I would only pull out a gun if it decreased my chances of death, not increased it. Those situations are pretty rare outside of warzones.
Well, there’s an argument to be made that a person who will break into your house while you’re home and hold a knife to your wife’s throat isn’t acting rationally, and may be planning your injury or death. Not that spinning around and shooting him in the head is a good idea, but acting as if all you need to do is follow his instructions to the letter and everything will definitely turn out OK isn’t a great idea either.
This reminds me of the story about the under-car flamethrowers in South Africa. You stop at a light, someone with a gun comes up to the car and says “get out and give me the keys”. Some fellow invented a flame-thrower that would flame-broil anyone standing next to the car doors. IIRC the response was an increase in car thefts where the driver was shot from twenty feet away.
Note to self: Make sure theft-deterrent flamethrower is effective up to 30 feet away.