I was victim of an assault once. A guy who was probably unhinged in some way attacked me, apparently thinking that old meme about ‘driving the nose up into the brain kills the person’ was true - he didn’t hit me with a fist, but instead with the flat of his hand as if he were trying to give me a permanent pig-nose, then he ran away when that didn’t work.
A gun would not have improved the situation at all for me had I been carrying one, I can’t think of any way it would have been a useful thing to have that day. Naturally, not everyone’s experience is mine, but there’s the anecdote anyway.
As an adult, no. Almost did a few years back when I was buckling my son into his car seat, and some asshole started honking his horn and cussing at me to shut the door and get out of “his” parking space. Told him “Fuck off, asshole.”, which had him getting out of his car to presumably fight with me, but I got in my truck and drove away before he could actually do anything.
Zero. (A Texan in a bar punched me once, but I won’t count that — it hardly hurt and I sorta had it coming.) I’ve been a victim of street crime a few times but never was a weapon brandished. (I’m sometimes hot-headed so my NOT packing heat was probably a good thing on those occasions. The cash losses to these minor street crimes were orders of magnitude less than my losses to frauds.)
I think so. And many or most of the violent crimes may not be random, but rather by an attacker who has a specific grudge against his victim.
Yeah, this. You’re not going to get an accurate view since people who have a story to tell are more likely to read the thread and vote. People with nothing to add are more likely to skip the thread.
Three times. Fortunately, I know how to get very very angry and use self-defense.
And yet, the poll is way balanced to “0”. 70% report none. Like me.
And it wasn’t like I did anything special.
It’s the random assaults (or in my case near assaults) that freak me out. I remember when I was out in California in what I’d call a nice, quiet, safe neighborhood. I was walking to a neighborhood McDonald’s when this middle age guy came charging out of his house, like he was lying in wait. Just as soon as he came out I think he must have realized that he had the wrong idea about who I was because he stopped and said nothing - I just tried to keep walking like I wasn’t startled (my heart was pumping for sure). My guess was that someone had been vandalizing his truck at night and I suspect he must have assumed I was said vandal.
I voted none. But realized I’ve been punched before in a bar fight or two back in my 20s. I don’t supposed those are really violent crimes, though. Just idiots being drunk idiots.
Is the majority of zeroes only showing on my screen? I think it will go more like what I did - I input my response, but didn’t post because nothing happened. Unless you assume I’m lying, which many people do (a Kentucky thing).
On a cross country team practice in the woods: A pervert grabbed me and probably would have raped me if a teammate hadn’t heard me screaming and ran to find me. I was by far the slowest member of the team, and if my teammate hadn’t been sick and running slowly that day, no one would have heard me.
Police cannot prevent every crime; they can only investigate and hopefully prevent further crimes by the same person by getting that person out of society. To say that few Americans are victims of crimes and therefore Americans don’t need guns for self defense would suggest that violent crimes up to a certain, as yet unnamed number, are acceptable. Victims of violent crimes, or family members of those lost to violent crime would probably tell you that they didn’t want to be part of that number.
That doesn’t prove much, though, as far as which way this poll may skew. In a controlled survey the “Yes” votes may make up 99% of the total, there is no way to know.
Just once. As a teenager another teenager punched me in the face for absolutely no reason. It was completely a sucker punch. Even if I had a gun, I wouldn’t have had time to pull it out. After he hit me, he left.
Unless I count a fight in the sixth grade with Timmy Plummer, never. I’ve lived in large and small cities, six states and six countries, and visited at least 25 countries. Never a problem.
Missed edit window:
That doesn’t prove much, though, as far as which way this poll may skew. In a controlled survey the “Yes” votes may make up 99% of the total, there is no way to know.
ETA - these stats show that about 1.5-2% of people in the US were victims of violent crime in 2017.
Mugged twice in New York City in the 1970s. Once three teens jumped me, knocked me down, and went through my pockets. Once a guy pulled a gun on me on the subway.
That’s not counting a few fist fights in grade school. I’m also not counting being mugged once in Panama, again by several teens who jumped me.
Not counting stupid, blink-and-it’s-over fights in grade school and high school, I’ve never personally been a victim of a violent crime.
I’ve had my wallet stolen out of my room once (when I had housemates, and one of them had a friend staying overnight, who turned out to be a thief), I’ve had my car broken into once (while it was parked at the train station), and I’ve had someone steal the gate from my back fence, but I classify none of those as violent crimes (and, in all three cases, I wasn’t physically present when it happened).
Hmm - I put zero, but I didn’t count the kids who threatened me with a knife in middle school, or the guy who slapped me in the face while I was crossing a crowded street (I’m fairly certain that was unintentional - he was probably just flinging his arm out).
I had the same reaction to that thread. I worry about heart disease, cancer, and getting run over by a vehicle, since I’m a frequent pedestrian. Home invasion never enters my mind, unless I happen to see a particularly brutal example in a T.V. show.
Only real example was when I was about 16. Without providing specifics, I did something stupid and reckless while driving and angered at least one person in the process. A few minutes later, I was parked and chatting with a friend through my open passenger window when the person I angered walked up to my open driver’s window and delivered two quick punches to my face. I was basically to stunned to react and barely registered the 30 seconds of verbal assault that followed.
American – once. But it was in Honduras. I was jumped by 4 youths late at night, trying to rob me. They were armed with beer bottles and rocks. But they were skinny, and I am large (I’m a big guy for an American, which generally means a giant in Honduras) and was at the nigh-perfect level of inebriation to feel absolutely no fear (and no pain from their attacks) while retaining necessary physical coordination, and I successfully fought them off.
They did (I assume it was them – I was gone at the time) break into the place I was staying at a few weeks later and stole my laptop, though. That sucked.
I didn’t count most of the bar fights I’ve been in. But once I had a guy pull a knife on my I talked him out of stabbing me but took my eyes off of him just long enough to get knocked out and then him and his three friends started kicking me when I was on the ground unconscious. Luckily it took long enough to get him to put the knife away a couple of friends notices and jumped into the fight before they could do any damage. We ended up calling the cops due to the knife but apparently they couldn’t find the guy.