Only if you allow yourself to blow your cool. And it’s actually pretty easy to avoid that.
I don’t have as much experience as most of the other posters ITT - at 23 years old, I might be the youngest one so far - but I think that what I have to say is broadly true for most men anyway.
As has already been said, I’d say that most adult men don’t want to ever get into a physical confrontation, period. To that end, they’ll typically achieve this by (a) not associating themselves with violent situations & people, (b) talking themselves out of potential conflicts, & © exiting the situation altogether if a fight seems imminent. Keep in mind that civilized society also dictates that fighting itself is effectively illegal outside of sanctioned events (eg. boxing, MMA, UFC, etc.), so those social rules are likely strong deterrents as well.
On some level, this aversion to confrontations probably extends to young boys as well, at least in terms of my own experiences. I was bullied viciously until I reached my high school years, & even then the bullying seldom devolved into an actual fight. Ironically enough, the last time it did result in a confrontation was also the last time I was in a fight, now more than 10 years ago when I was still in middle school.
That said, I do think that every guy should have at least some basic knowledge of how to defend himself. My own skills aren’t the best in the world, mind you, but I at least know enough to not be totally out of my element in these situations.
Yeah, but they’re easily confused if you just wave an iPod at them.
Sorry, but I don’t feel a need to pick the poster with the most outlandish rant and then proceed to engage them logical debate on their position, point by point. However, I will concede the point that if a fight is not “kill or be killed”, it’s probably not a fight worth having in the first place.
Which leads to the whole problem with the internet-tough “kill or be killed” argument. Unless you were born psychotic, that level of fighting skill and aggression takes years of training and experience to develop (like anything else in life). Either through military or serious martial arts training or having grown up surviving dozens of street brawls. The average man growing up in suburban America whose last fight was in Hebrew school where someone got their yarmulke knocked off is at a disadvantage.
Every now and then, someone posts a “what would you do in this combat scenario” thread. The correct answer is “run away or get your ass kicked”. You wouldn’t expect to beat a Division I basketball player with a few tricks in a pickup game if you barely ever picked up a ball. Why would you expect to win a fight against a skilled or experienced fighter if you didn’t fight or train regularly?
Hell, you can probably “win” a fight against an average man by dancing around him until he exhausts himself.
The person you were arguing with had a wobbly Jenga tower of an position you could have attacked in numerous ways. Your bitchy little “you’re like this psych profile” sissy slap fight response was weak and silly and you should be embarrassed. It let him come in like the adult chastising you as a tantruming child.
You need to own that.
Who is silly enough to get into physical contact fights anymore?
Like I said, from behind with two guns. No real long intensive training needed.
Morally, legally, human, does not apply to all situation for me as I do not subscribe to the notion that a human live is a scared thing that must trump all other life forms.
Lots of folks don’t think that is a good outlook.
It has gotten me to 71+
I was not looking for a debate, I was just trying to warn folks that their vision of human behavior did not cover everybody, not even in the good old US of A.
Also that I am one of those that looks at it different. Fair warning and all that.
Be Happy,
If you can’t be Happy, be Good,
If you can’t be Good, be Careful,
If you can’t be Careful, at least be Sanitary. 
Astro slipped in on me. I have to go look up ‘Jenga tower’ now.
So that is what everybody is building…
Ignorance fought.
Thanks
I think the only ones getting owned in this thread are you and Spot! Have fun playing Jenga together.
Exactly how many “behind with two guns” gunfights have you actually been in?
Yet another illustration of how poor we humans are at understanding risks.
The risk of an elderly White male of being killed either by hand or with a weapon in this country is pretty dang close to zero. Not zero but about as close as one can get. (The risk that an elderly White male will commit suicide with a gun OTOH? Fairly high.) Still that is a perceived risk that some here feel it is necessary to defend against, either with concealed carry or absent that with a pre-emptive attack with intent to kill against someone who seemed to try to pick a fight and then walked away calling you chicken when you would not … because you know the guy might have a different value system and could lay in wait for you in the parking lot.
175,000 Americans OTOH get pneumococcal pneumonia bad enough to be hospitalized and both the typical case fatality rate of 5 to 7% and the overall incidence is higher in the elderly. What are the odds, you think, that Gus gets a pneumococcal vaccine every 5 years like he should (let alone the current two stage approach with both the PCV13 and PPSV23), something much more likely to save his life? Maybe I’ll be surprised but somehow I doubt it.
Amazingly my great grandfather, who lived to 105, did not conceal carry and I doubt ever attacked or physically fought with anyone. It got him to 105.
Gus, your “It got me to 71+” bit honestly is very much like the guy walking around with a huge gun who is asked why he carries it and answers that it is an elephant gun and that carries it around to scare off the elephants. “But we never have elephants around here.” “See how well it works!”
Never said I killed anyone with 2 guns from behind, it just would be my preference.
In 1960 or there about, a crazy man kicked in the front door of our home. Mom & Dad and us 7 kids. I was almost 17 as the second oldest. My Dad went straight at him to stop him from getting to the rest and he yelled for me to go get the shotgun.
No one died because my Dad got control and did not tell me to put him down. Had he said to, I would have, I think.
In 1959, a girlfriend and I kept ourselves from being car jacked and maybe worse by an young male with a gun because I had one on him already.
In 1991, I can tell you with 100% certainty that not having a gun did not keep my 18 year old daughter from being murdered in her first apartment.
In 1992 or there about, a sister did not have a weapon available and so she suffered an home invasion & a horrendous rape. It gets even worse with the flubbing by the cops & court. But the point is she really needed a weapon as she knew how to use one but had drank the Koolaid from her collage professors.
The places I went where I knew better I don’t count, nor a lot of my time on nasty old motorcycles. Other than the beer bottle indecent, I don’t count combat time. But from your post I assume you nor your grandad were ever in combat. Did you ever serve in the military?
Not a big deal but like your assumption on how well I take care of my health, you are talking from zero knowledge about my health & life. Since a fella can’t die of old age anymore, I just may die from what you described. I have other things these day that are more likely to worry about than that one.
As pilot with a bit of time in small aircraft, I know what happens when a takeoff goes sideways. You have to be ready on 100% of the takeoffs and already know what you are going to do at each point or you & your passengers will likely die. I practiced for something that was not likely to ever happen to me. Oops, did several times and if I had not been prepared, people including me would have died if I had done the wrong thing.
Do you tell young kids to never test their brakes, the air in their tires etc. because it almost never happens anymore, cars are too well made. But you tell them & they die and you are OK with telling them it can’t happen to then because the numbers say so? I don’t really think you do but as to your numbers you are throwing around, where you are… maybe, but there are a lot of places & people you know nothing about.
I may chose to die for you but damned if I’ll die because of you. 
I’ve got 30 years of martial arts training under my belt. I speak from experience when I tell you that the best fighter is the one who can control his environment and not get into a fight in the first place.
Me, no never been in war. Great grandpa? At that age he was in a shtetl; he was a tailor. But yes I was excluding fighting in wars. My father, who as stated earlier was a tough guy and a boxer, never killed or shot anyone outside of wartime, even though I am sure he was in many many fights in his teens. He didn’t own or see the need to own a gun, not being a hunter. Didn’t fight I think even once once he returned from the war. Became a salesman and a family man.
Excuse my incredulity, but violent home invasions are very uncommon events. (Nationwide there are about 100 home-invasion homicides per year compared to 18,000 suicides and among rapes 2/3 are by a person known to the victim, not strangers. Rape by a stranger breaking into the house while feared is much less likely to happen than a family member being the rapist.) Your claims of such having occurred multiple times in your family? If true then you and yours have lived in different sorts of neighborhoods than do most of us who post here. If lightening has indeed struck your family multiple times, then you have my condolences, but hearing of someone having been struck by lightening several times still won’t make me believe that I need to cower whenever it starts to rain.
And correct that I have not taught my kids to test their brakes. Air pressure yes because mpg concerns. OTOH I am a fanatic about seat belts, proper use of car seats and boosters, bike helmets, pool safety, immunizations for vaccine preventable diseases, decent nutritional habits and exercise.
BTW I made no assumptions about how you take care of your health; I made an educated guess. But your response pretty much confirms the guess. You have “other things these day that are more likely to worry about than that one” … “that one” is the fifth biggest killer of those over 65. Not violent assault. Not by a very long shot. And if you’ve already got reason to worry about one of the top four (heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, and COPD) then all the more reason to “worry about that one” as one likely to either kill you or harm you greatly.
Amazingly enough protecting yourself there does not risk harming other people.
What I do think of when I hear about that person who gets hit by lightening over and over again though is … “boy, I don’t want to stand near that guy and whatever he is doing I don’t want to do that!”
Again, 71 really is not as old as you make it out to be. My MIL and the guy she shacks up with (they hate the word “partner” and aren’t married and “friend” does not cut it :)) are 77 and 79 and just got back from Machu Pichu. Amazingly they’ve each gotten that far without sharing your views too!
It is embarrassing how little most people know about defending themselves.
Compared to even our grandparents modern males are clueless. Roughhousing was a part of childhood. Wrestling was common not that long ago. Abe Lincoln was known for his abilities. Kids today cry and go running to the teacher if somebody shoves them down.
I’m not sure our ancestors did much boxer style punching. Too easy to break fingers or a hand. You’d be screwed in 1850 without modern surgery. They knew how to fight without hurting themselves. Striking with elbows, the side of the hand, head butts etc.
I had a few fights in school. A lot of schoolyard wrestling with schoolmates. But I’m dead meat if a mugger wants to hurt me.
Point of fact my grandfather received a Purple Heart and Silver Star during World War II fighting the Japanese (on Okinawa I think, based on what I’ve been able to piece together). I hadn’t been born yet so most of my experience is beating the crap out of Navy SEALS in my local bar. My dad also never served (having decided at the time that General Electric paid better and had a better health plan than General Westmoreland).
I’m not sure how you would make any determination of my military experience from my posts. Are there no smart-asses in the military?
New York City. I think we had a murder hear a few years back but they never found out who did it.
Anyhow, you’re talking about keeping a weapon for self defense while the OP is talking about the average Joe’s ability to actually hold his own in a fist fight.
I feel like fistfighting was a acceptable form of communication for older generations. But I’m mostly going by old movies where characters would punch each other seemingly over a disagreement over which restaurant to go out to and then be back to being best friends a minute later.
These days it seems like people either have no idea how to fight, or it’s the other extreme where the slightest altercation will turn into either weapons drawn or some sort of psycho MMA beat down.
We don’t get to chose how we die. Although the gypsy told me I would be killed by a 71 year old man in a bar fight.
Technically that’s not true. That would make them a better “not getting into a fight contest” winner. I get what you’re saying, but you don’t need 30 years of martial arts training to not fight someone.
That’s so true. We knew how far to go in school yard fights. It was about dominance and making it clear you wouldn’t be pushed around. Kids tested each other to see who would stand up for themselves. I never tried to hurt anybody seriously in a fight. I was always aware of how hard I punched and if the other kid was in serious trouble. It always ended on the ground with somebody submitting.
These days if fights break out people get badly hurt. Like they never consider the consequences of injuring somebody.
Historically, the males average life span in my blood line is 66. Genetics ya know you being a Doctor and all.
As I have posted here several times, I have been hit by lightning twice. 1960 working in a hay field and 1977 on a sailboat on Savanna Bay.
Only the crazy guy breaking in happened in the neighborhood that I was living in.
There are lies, damn lies & statistics. He he he.
So, since the numbers say it is so unlikely, you are just blowing off what happened to my daughter & my sister?
In my extended family, which is quite large, good old Texas Catholics of German decent ya know. To be an orphan, I would need to nuke North Central Texas and many places around the world just to get all the cousins & closer relatives.
Drunk teenagers sure have taken a toll on us but as that particular type of driver is statically insignificant, it ain’t worth worrying about. Seat belts & air bags cover all the stuff worth worrying about. I just did not realize that. I do get a lot of practice in going to funerals. Add in that I am 23+ years sober, I get to go to a lot of those too. I wonder if you are one of the Doctors that still thinks it is just a will power problem??? If not, accept my apology for even thinking it of you…
Yeah, you are more of a god send to the human race as a doctor & I am as me. Glad you are being very careful.
Never get a pilots license, the numbers are real bad for doctors & airplanes. Also open water sailing. We need you just as you are, unless you have that question about owning a gun on your intake forms.
Then not so much. Different discussion. 
Agreed, you live in a different situation than I do but since the whole world has not got there to being that nice a place, going into some of the other parts of even this country is not recommend for you IMO.
Since in my current condition physically where a trained 12 year old girl or an untrained 16 year old male can quite easily kill me if I do not have some sort of distance weapon to use before they get to me. So any show of aggression I consider myself in real fear for my life. So when / if-- I see a young person or persons going down the street on the university campus sucker punching everyone as they pass, I should just stand there, I can’t run anymore. Try to call 911 or pull a 1911 and put them down? Both would be best I think but if someone has not already called & I don’t hear sirens, that’ just calling thing’ might be a waste of time ya think?
The question about average guys & their fighting ability or lack thereof has been pretty well covered. The opinions of their ability to take on this guy or that girl has been presented with no apparent changing of any minds. You haven’t changed yours & I seem to have not drank your Koolade so I am quitting this particular thread. OK, OK, nuff with the cheering everybody. ::: sheesh :::: :rolleyes:
Despite the efforts of many people and the good & thoughtful posts, ( Not mine of course, I’m not that egotistical. ) no ignorance has been decreased… It was a good fight but… 
See ya around the boards. 
Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
Do you like movies about gladiators?
Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
Excellent post!
You gave me one of the best laughs I have had in a very long time. Thank you, Leaffan!
Another response might be that since so many private citizens in the USA possess firearms, maybe pulling a trigger might also be a decent skill.
If I was an American and owned a gun, I would not feel the need to invest many years learning some martial arts. I would just sleep with my gun at arm’s length.
Here is a link that supports the contention that most martial arts are a giant waste of time and money.