Fair point.
Of course in some states the salesman could legally have pulled out a gun and shot you stating that they felt physically threatened by you.
Wow.
I’m in Arkansas. I have a concealed carry lisc.
I think I understand ‘stand your ground’ stuff.
Of course, as I’m in a medical facility and my guns are home.
But in theory (not gonna really do it) I could go right to the nurses desk and scream at her for not letting me keep the TV on?
Raising a big ruckus. Waving fists and cursing. And she could call LE and have me carted to jail.
Man, that’s concerning.
Alas, I’m a Karen McKarenson. I’ll never test this theory.
It doesn’t seem to be about conveying assertiveness, which could have been achieved simply by speaking unambiguously and with a clear voice (and most importantly, by refusing to reward the salesman with his and his wife’s business). @Odesio has stated that his intention was to make the salesman uncomfortable. That sounds more like revenge.
Can someone find an example of a person convicted of assault for yelling at a person (but not shouting explicit threats)? I’m having a hard time googling it.
Weird thread. Where I come from, getting into someone’s face and raising your voice isn’t assault, it’s just forthright conversation.
Please read more carefully. This isn’t about simply yelling at a person, it’s about deliberately invading someone’s personal space, getting “right in their face”, and then raising your voice or yelling. a reasonable person on the receiving end of such treatment might fear imminent violence, meaning that such actions, taken together, might rise to the level of assault.
Assault is often defined as any intentional act that causes another person to fear an attack or imminent physical harm. This definition recognizes that placing another person in fear of bodily harm is itself an act deserving of punishment, even if the victim of the assault is not physically harmed. This definition also allows police officers to intervene and make an arrest without waiting for the assaulter to actually strike the victim.
Even if it doesn’t meet the legal standard of assault, if the intent is to make the recipient “uncomfortable” - whether this means embarrassed, fearful, or both - then it’s schoolyard bully antics.
As a culture, we tend to avoid direct confrontation where possible. It induces feelings of anxiety, and, as evidence in this thread, there is often a fear of violence that accompanies direct confrontation.
OK, an example of a conviction for that then.
I did manage to find a bunch of web pages claiming that yelling at a person could be assault, but I didn’t see any specific (non-hypothetical) examples.
In Arkansas (the state the OP is in) assault in the third degree is a class C misdemeanor, which is the least serious misdemeanor. Not really headline-splashing news, you know?
But put yourself, for a moment, into the shoes of the salesman. The following events occur:
- You’re being a grade-A jerk and doing the “talking to the man” thing.
- The man gets pissed off, steps right into your face, raises his voice, and makes it very clear exactly how you are to act going forward.
- The man steps away. No violence occurs.
Would it be reasonable or unreasonable, in the moment of step #2, to think “holy crap, this dude is about to punch me?” Would it be reasonable or unreasonable for a bystander to think that some shit is about to go down?
If it would be reasonable then, in Arkansas, that could be assault in the third degree.
If it went to court, I suppose it would hinge on whether the jury or judge believes that the OP only intended to create general apprehension, but not specifically an apprehension of physical violence.
I realize I’m opening myself up to being yet again corrected by actual lawyers, but there ya go.
Conversely, in cultures where people shout a lot, people are less concerned about violence, because shouting is acceptable behavior.
Apropos of nothing …
When we went to buy my wife’s car, the male salesman was doing the exact same thing to us (well, to my wife, really).
After a couple of times of this, I simply said to my wife – while looking at the salesman – “Honey, he’s looking at me, but he’s talking to you.”
Which fixed the situation immediately.
I sold cars decades ago. The practice was to quickly size up who the decision-maker was. The practice was not to automatically default to the patriarchal option.
It must be a discretionary decision on the part of the afore mentioned LE.
Or, else why would so many officers leave the home of a civil disturbance only to be recalled to the house and someone is very injured or dead.
That Gabby Petito case shows a officer talking to her and her murderer on a road side and he murders her soon after.
I think there is a rampant infestation of these things happening.
And, like some one said, Car salesman have most likely heard it all. I doubt very sincerely LE would be called to an irate potential customer.
It should also be mentioned that depending on jurisdiction and circumstances, even if the assault isn’t a crime, you can claim damages in a civil suit. Here is a web site for a California lawyer discussing it, and explaining the difference between assault and battery (in terms of California law).
Yes there are cultural norms, including about personal space, volume, and what is considered aggressive behavior.
In most of the US with well publicized crazies taking out a gun and shooting people over trivial things violations of local norms by a stranger will frighten many, who will reasonably conclude that they are under imminent physical threat.
The behavior in question was intended to be intimidating, not normal forthright conversation. It was outside of norms enough to draw attention to it by onlookers.
Maybe where you come from, a lot of people feel uncomfortable.
The proper distance to stand from somebody when talking to them, whether or not to wave one’s arms, how loudly to speak, how fast to speak, if and when interrupting is permissible, which person looks directly at the other and for how long, all vary from culture to culture. Conversations between/among people from different cultures often run into trouble over this, especially if one or more participants don’t understand that these things are cultural and therefore thinks another person is being deliberately rude, and/or is being aggressive or evasive. But these variances won’t generally make people from the same culture uncomfortable – it’s behavior from a different culture that’s likely to do that.
It reads to me as if the OP was being deliberately rude and/or aggressive, though; and I wonder whether the tactic was really as effective as they think, or whether a decisive but calm voice saying the same thing from standard speaking distance wouldn’t have had the same result without a side of the salesman’s quite possibly thinking it was the OP rather than himself who was being a jerk.
As I’ve traveled around my general area. (Granted that’s not far out of my area or very often)
The rudest folks I have ever seen are customers in a Walmart.
Go stand in line at the service desk you’ll see plenty.
It’s true, I was deliberately offensive and impolite towards the salesman who treated my wife as if she wasn’t a person. Given the situation, being rude was an appropriate response. Was it effective? I would say so. It was quite clear to the salesman that we weren’t going to help him make his sales goals that month. If he was so myopic as to not consider his own actions, well, so what? At the time helping him see the light wasn’t my primary goal.
It wasn’t planned, it didn’t make me feel any better, it didn’t make me feel like a tough guy, and do wish I had remained my normal calm, cool, and collected self so I might have had a more rational conversation with the floor manager. Maybe that would have been a teachable moment for the salesperson. The truth is he really pissed me off and I behaved in a manner that was very atypical for me. I brought it up in the other thread as a response to those who thought this demonstrated Will Smith must have a propensity for such violence with one Doper even referring to him as a psychopath. (No, I don’t think slapping Chris Rock was an appropriate response.)
Did you even consider……you know….NOT buying a car from him?
Why didn’t you just leave? It might not have made him uncomfortable, but he wouldn’t have got the sale, and his coworkers and boss would’ve seen him not get the sale, and that probably hurts him on many levels.
Besides, it’s a civilized response. It’s not clear from your post, but it sounds like you intended to continue to deal with him after you discomfited him.
I’m a big believer in civilized responses. Plus, I find that aggressive behavior really comes back at me psychologically. If I were to make someone uncomfortable in the way you described, I would make myself at least equally uncomfortable. I don’t find it the least bit pleasurable to hurt, humiliate or discomfit another person. I might find it pleasurable to fantasize about doing those things, but the reality is quite different. In plain language, it fucks up my head.
I think it might have to do with mirror neurons, which is briefly described as a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and the animal observes the same action being performed by another.. In other words, violence and aggression are contagious.
Frankly, a lot of us would be happier if we toughened up our thin skins a little bit. This isn’t about invalidating or ignoring your emotions, it’s about not letting them control you or get the better of you.
Yes, maybe people shouldn’t make mean jokes about other people’s hair. If you have a medical problem that limits what you can do with your hair, it might strike a nerve. But if you are also fabulously wealthy and married to a handsome show business icon and have a million followers on different platforms affirming and cheering on all your thoughts and feelings, mundane and deep……you should be able to get the fuck over it. And if you can’t, you should consider working on it, because it may make you a happier person. And while you are doing that, you should avoid hanging out in places where they hire comedians to make mean jokes about people, because it won’t end well.
It’s not like Chris Rock was punching down.
Yes, maybe in a perfect world no one would make mean jokes and we would not have to work on ourselves in order to be happy. I think the fact that we shouldn’t have to work on modulating our emotions doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it or view it as some sort of capitulation. If we can control our emotional overreactions we can respond strategically to the situation.
ETA: I posted this before I read what you posted directly above. You addressed some of what I was talking about, and I apologize if I seemed harsh.