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Give Them Nothing

zoom6zoom

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Found this great blog post, really says it well:
http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/10/give-them-nothing.html

A long time ago, I had a discussion with my former mother-in-law about my desire to carry a gun for protection. She was very much opposed to the concept, to put it mildly. When I asked her what her plans were if she ever got robbed at gun- or knifepoint, she replied that she'd try and talk it out with her attacker, or just give them what they want.

"Everybody wants to be respected," she said. "We're all just human beings."

I told her that she was nurturing a very dangerous misconception, one that could very well get her hurt or killed someday.

There are people in this world to whom you're not a human being. They don't want to be respected by you. They don't care about you--they're not even really aware of you. They only care about the food you represent, the money that's in your pocket. You're not a person to them, but an obstacle. You're just in the way of the reward, like a wrapper around a candy bar, and these people are willing to discard you just like that wrapper in order to get what they want.

If you don't believe that, if you are one of the people who think that "everyone wants to be valued and respected", you are deluding yourself, to put it mildly. There are literally hundreds of surveillance camera videos out on the Internet that show criminals injuring or killing people for the transgression of not handing over the money or opening the safe fast enough. For those of you who think that "if you give them what they want, they'll go away", there are almost as many videos out there of people getting hurt or killed after handing over the goods, simply because they're now witnesses to a crime that allows for a lengthy jail term. Leaving you alive greatly increases the chance of getting caught, you see, and the extra ten years for shooting you don't enter the thug's mind. Besides, few people ever commit a crime expecting to get caught.

Whenever I see the camera footage of some poor convenience store clerk getting shot at point-blank range just because the robber is angry at the lack of cash in the drawer, or the fast food manager being shot as he is lying prone in front of his safe after the robbers have already removed the cash, I get angry. I feel anger at the thought of these low-lifes, people who have never known another way of making a living than to take what they want from others by force. I feel anger at the sight of someone casually taking another's life over a few hundred bucks--taking a husband from his wife, a son from his parents, or a father from his children, just because they're in the way. Can you imagine your life ending tonight, with you taking your last breaths on the dingy linoleum floor of some convenience store, just because you had the bad luck of drawing third shift? Can you imagine what it would be like to have everything taken from you in a few moments--your history, your knowledge, your hopes, your dreams, your consciousness--all over a few pieces of paper? If you can, don't you, too, feel white hot anger when you think of the person who would do such a thing to you without a second thought just so they can get a fix, pay the rent, and get a new game for the Playstation?

It's mind-boggling to me that there are people who perpetuate the dangerous myth that you can rely on the humanity and reason of a person who is already threatening to kill you over the contents of your wallet, an entirely inhumane and unreasonable act in itself.

"Violence begets violence", they say, as if that's somehow a bad thing. In the words of the late Jeff Cooper, I would certainly hope that it does. That's the whole point of self-defense: when reason doesn't work anymore, then naked force is the only thing that's left other than abject surrender. It would be a great and awesome world where the majority of criminals are the ones who end up in the body bag, and not their victims. Appeasement doesn't stop the bully or the thug, and neither does submission. What stops them is the knowledge that they're likely to bite off more than they can chew, which is why they invariably pick their targets among those who are perceived as meek or soft.

Think about it for a second, and pretend you're someone who makes a living by sticking guns in people's faces. Which kind of society would encourage you to keep doing what you're doing--one where you know people are being told to "give them what they want and don't resist", or one where people refuse to go quietly into that good night, and where they will fight back with anything that comes to hand?

No, the appropriate response to violence is not submission. Submission encourages the thugs, and it gives them absolutely no incentive to consider a career change. When you preach submission, you only guarantee more of the behavior that takes advantage of that submission. The only appropriate response to violence is white-hot anger. When someone sticks a gun in your face and threatens to kill you over the contents of your wallet or your register, your response ought to be rage. The very thought of some low-life thug threatening to snuff you out and make your children orphans for no reason other than the money you carry ought to make you furious.

And then you need to put that fury to good use. Yield nothing, not an inch, not a penny, not a hair on your head, without fighting for it tooth and nail. Do your level best to ensure that if someone has to end up in a body bag this hour, it won't be your body in that bag. And even if it should happen to be your turn to take your seat in Valhalla, you might as well put your best effort into making sure that you arrive there with your attacker in a firm headlock.
 

imperialism2024

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Good article. What people tend to forget is that while that robber is a human being, oneself is also a human being as well, and someone who assigns more value to life of the robber than their own life doesn't deserve that life.
 

Tomahawk

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Wow. I think I might memorize that word for word. It's a ready-made canned rant, just waiting to be unleashed the next time someone gives me that surrender BS argument.
 

Mainsail

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Things are also different after the ‘three-strikes’ laws came about. If you’re the robber’s potential third strike, which represents life imprisonment, you are a very dangerous loose end. The robber has little incentive to allow the star witness for the prosecution to walk away, regardless of your cooperation.
 

expvideo

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This goes back to my phylosophy of "I don't call the cops". It's not in the "I'm no snitch" sense that rappers use, because I will call the cops to report crime. Rather it is my duty to protect myself, not a police officer's duty to protect me. This has been ruled by the supreme court, and I completely agree. I am not going to concern the police with my personal safety. I believe that a real man doesn't ask others to do a job he should be doing himself. This is true in nature as well. A deer doesn't ask a bear to protect him from a wolf. Instead he evades the wolf, and if cornered will square off with it, antler to tooth. The bear may have a better chance of defeating the wolf, but if you were the deer would you rather to trust your safety and well-being to a bear?

The government is not there to protect me, and I don't want it to be. I'm armed to protect myself and my loved ones. That's the way it should be.
 

dng

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Careful: you're thinking for yourself and protecting yourself; that's dangerous!

(sarcasm)
 

Mtn Jack

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Expvideo that is the best post of the year,where are the men any more, i think the dumbing of america and all the girly men are to blame. Be safe Mtn Jack
 

SouthernBoy

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Excellent post by zoom6zoom. Now go read this article to further augment that which zoom6zoom has written.

http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_cop_killers.asp

I have long written that one of the primary reasons good (armed) people get injured or killed during an extreme encounter is.. they hesitate. This is a perfectly normal behavior simply because good people do not wish to do harm to others. And therein lies the root of the problem. Good people cannot or will not think and act like bad people when they must. It is not in their makeup. However, bad people have no problem doing this because it is in their makeup.. it is part of their personna and reason for being. They have no remorse or compassion for their actions, up to and including killing someone. We do not think like this.

To be really effective from a self-defense position, you must get down in the gutter with the evil doers. You must beat them at their game by doing what they may do, only sooner than they do it.

For the life of me, I do not know how you teach and condition a good and decent person to do this. I do understand doing this in time of war (as in WWII), but in one's normal day-to-day life when faced with a potentially deadly attack, how do you train someone to move to a position of acting in extreme prejudice for that moment?

If all of society's laws and encumberances were removed, this would be a simpler task. But they are not and it is not. So we are left with playing "what if" head games in order to condition ourselves to act in a manner which is not in society's framework.
 

sv_libertarian

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I do not remember where I got this but it sums a lot of things up for me. "I am non violent, and will fight to the death to remain so."

As I tell friends who ask me why I carry guns, I try to be a very nice guy and will go out of my way if possible to avoid a needless confrontation, but if you give me no choice, I will move heaven and earth, and storm the very gates of hell to ensure my safety and well being, or that of those I have chosen to protect.


Steve
 

compmanio365

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SouthernBoy wrote:
Excellent post by zoom6zoom. Now go read this article to further augment that which zoom6zoom has written.

http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_cop_killers.asp

I have long written that one of the primary reasons good (armed) people get injured or killed during an extreme encounter is.. they hesitate. This is a perfectly normal behavior simply because good people do not wish to do harm to others. And therein lies the root of the problem. Good people cannot or will not think and act like bad people when they must. It is not in their makeup. However, bad people have no problem doing this because it is in their makeup.. it is part of their personna and reason for being. They have no remorse or compassion for their actions, up to and including killing someone. We do not think like this.

To be really effective from a self-defense position, you must get down in the gutter with the evil doers. You must beat them at their game by doing what they may do, only sooner than they do it.

For the life of me, I do not know how you teach and condition a good and decent person to do this. I do understand doing this in time of war (as in WWII), but in one's normal day-to-day life when faced with a potentially deadly attack, how do you train someone to move to a position of acting in extreme prejudice for that moment?

If all of society's laws and encumberances were removed, this would be a simpler task. But they are not and it is not. So we are left with playing "what if" head games in order to condition ourselves to act in a manner which is not in society's framework.
I think this is a very important point. You can get training, be the best shot, a superior marksman, know how to clear the nastiest of jams, and be able to pull all this off in the middle of a firefight, but if you are a "nice guy" and freeze in that millisecond of advantage you have before the guy in front of you pulls his trigger instead of pulling yours, because you have a moral dilemma before you, you will end up dead. Period. Too many people strap a gun to their hip and go out the front door, and never think, "I may have to kill someone today. I hope not, but I will pull this trigger when the time comes." I do that every day before I leave the house; it prepares me mentally because in my mind, the decision to pull the trigger is already made before I ever draw the gun. Too many people neglect this and then we hear about a good person getting gunned down in a gunfight because they tried to "draw them down" or "reason with them". You can't reason with the unreasonable, and trying in that situation will make you dead.
 

SouthernBoy

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compmanio365 wrote:
SouthernBoy wrote:
Excellent post by zoom6zoom. Now go read this article to further augment that which zoom6zoom has written.

http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_cop_killers.asp

I have long written that one of the primary reasons good (armed) people get injured or killed during an extreme encounter is.. they hesitate. This is a perfectly normal behavior simply because good people do not wish to do harm to others. And therein lies the root of the problem. Good people cannot or will not think and act like bad people when they must. It is not in their makeup. However, bad people have no problem doing this because it is in their makeup.. it is part of their personna and reason for being. They have no remorse or compassion for their actions, up to and including killing someone. We do not think like this.

To be really effective from a self-defense position, you must get down in the gutter with the evil doers. You must beat them at their game by doing what they may do, only sooner than they do it.

For the life of me, I do not know how you teach and condition a good and decent person to do this. I do understand doing this in time of war (as in WWII), but in one's normal day-to-day life when faced with a potentially deadly attack, how do you train someone to move to a position of acting in extreme prejudice for that moment?

If all of society's laws and encumberances were removed, this would be a simpler task. But they are not and it is not. So we are left with playing "what if" head games in order to condition ourselves to act in a manner which is not in society's framework.
I think this is a very important point. You can get training, be the best shot, a superior marksman, know how to clear the nastiest of jams, and be able to pull all this off in the middle of a firefight, but if you are a "nice guy" and freeze in that millisecond of advantage you have before the guy in front of you pulls his trigger instead of pulling yours, because you have a moral dilemma before you, you will end up dead. Period. Too many people strap a gun to their hip and go out the front door, and never think, "I may have to kill someone today. I hope not, but I will pull this trigger when the time comes." I do that every day before I leave the house; it prepares me mentally because in my mind, the decision to pull the trigger is already made before I ever draw the gun. Too many people neglect this and then we hear about a good person getting gunned down in a gunfight because they tried to "draw them down" or "reason with them". You can't reason with the unreasonable, and trying in that situation will make you dead.
Yep, you are so right.

There are maybe a handful of people who have lived over the years who could actually draw and fire against an assailant who already has the drop on them. I know I am certainly not one of them. So the only time I would attempt to retrieve my weapon when facing one pointing at me is if I felt certain that I was going to die.

But the reality is this. Unless you have actually been the same, or a similar, situation, you really don't know what you would do until it is right in front of you staring you in the face like RIGHT NOW. As you mentioned, we try to condition ourselves as best as we can under our individual circumstances and hope that is enough. But until the stuff hits the fan, we really don't know.
 

sv_libertarian

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compmanio365 wrote:
"I may have to kill someone today. I hope not, but I will pull this trigger when the time comes.
I run a similar mantra through my mind when I strap a gun on, and quite frankly it scares the crap out of me, and the day I am not worried that I may have to actually use my gun I need to put it away. There is an awesome and horrible responsibility that comes with wearing that gun, even more when it is out in the open. Not only are you advertising your willingness to defend your self or even someone else, you are also advertising you will kill if needs be. I may be comfortable OCing, and secure in my knowledge of the law and what a "righteous" shooting is, but I will never, ever forget that I may have to kill someone else in order that I may live or be safe from a serious bodily harm, or even that I will have to kill someone to keep another innocent alive or free from serious bodily harm. I hope never to forget that.

The bearing of arms is the highest right and honor, but also comes with the highest responsibilities and duties, and I can only hope to respond to those rights and duties as best as humanly possible.

Steve
 

SouthernBoy

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sv_libertarian wrote:
compmanio365 wrote:
"I may have to kill someone today. I hope not, but I will pull this trigger when the time comes.
I run a similar mantra through my mind when I strap a gun on, and quite frankly it scares the crap out of me, and the day I am not worried that I may have to actually use my gun I need to put it away. There is an awesome and horrible responsibility that comes with wearing that gun, even more when it is out in the open. Not only are you advertising your willingness to defend your self or even someone else, you are also advertising you will kill if needs be. I may be comfortable OCing, and secure in my knowledge of the law and what a "righteous" shooting is, but I will never, ever forget that I may have to kill someone else in order that I may live or be safe from a serious bodily harm, or even that I will have to kill someone to keep another innocent alive or free from serious bodily harm. I hope never to forget that.

The bearing of arms is the highest right and honor, but also comes with the highest responsibilities and duties, and I can only hope to respond to those rights and duties as best as humanly possible.

Steve
Here's one for ya'.

We all know that there are an almost unlimited defensive situations where deadly force may or will be used. Many, I'm sure, are not perfectly clear but. What I mean here is while the shooting may be deemed justifiable, in the victim's mind, he might be thinking something along the lines of, "did I really need to use deadly force against this person?".

And then there are the cases where there is absolutely no question in your mind that you did the right thing at the time. The perp has pointed a gun at you and maybe even opened fire. Perhaps a situation in a convenience store where after the robbery, the perp(s) start shooting people and you manage to get your piece into plan and end the confrontation. These are situations where I would bet most would have no problem living with and would sleep just fine. It's those that, while legally justified, may be viewed by the victim as questionable in his own mind. Those are the cases that could cause someone the most heartache. A prime example of this is a robbery by someone or a group at night where the robbers are using look-a-like firearms and not real ones and the victim turns the tables and takes out a couple of the perps. Then soon after discovers their guns were not real. Of course, he didn't know this at the time, but I would bet this would be hard to live with.
 

sv_libertarian

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SouthernBoy wrote:
Those are the cases that could cause someone the most heartache. A prime example of this is a robbery by someone or a group at night where the robbers are using look-a-like firearms and not real ones and the victim turns the tables and takes out a couple of the perps. Then soon after discovers their guns were not real. Of course, he didn't know this at the time, but I would bet this would be hard to live with.

I have thought about just that situation, and decided that if someone has something that looks so much like a firearm I cannot determine if it is one or not, and I legally open fire to protect myself then I am absolved both in my eyes and the eyes of the law. If someone waves something around that looks like a gun, then the only response to that can be to treat it as a gun. I imagine I would be losing enough sleep at night for a while over a righteous shooting without troubling myself more with the stupidity of the perp.

If it looks like a gun, and I cannot tell if it is a toy, I will treat it as a gun, and am comfortable in my own mind with that.

The thought of someday having to shoot at someone and maybe kill them horrifies me. The thought of being killed or spending the rest of my life crippled, or letting someone else die or be raped due to my inactions horrifies me even more. Life is sacred and can only be ended in the direst of situations. I have accepted that, and pray every day to never have to make that choice, but if I do have to use lethal force, God grant me the strength to act accordingly.



Steve
 

SouthernBoy

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sv_libertarian wrote:
SouthernBoy wrote:
Those are the cases that could cause someone the most heartache. A prime example of this is a robbery by someone or a group at night where the robbers are using look-a-like firearms and not real ones and the victim turns the tables and takes out a couple of the perps. Then soon after discovers their guns were not real. Of course, he didn't know this at the time, but I would bet this would be hard to live with.

I have thought about just that situation, and decided that if someone has something that looks so much like a firearm I cannot determine if it is one or not, and I legally open fire to protect myself then I am absolved both in my eyes and the eyes of the law. If someone waves something around that looks like a gun, then the only response to that can be to treat it as a gun. I imagine I would be losing enough sleep at night for a while over a righteous shooting without troubling myself more with the stupidity of the perp.

If it looks like a gun, and I cannot tell if it is a toy, I will treat it as a gun, and am comfortable in my own mind with that.

The thought of someday having to shoot at someone and maybe kill them horrifies me. The thought of being killed or spending the rest of my life crippled, or letting someone else die or be raped due to my inactions horrifies me even more. Life is sacred and can only be ended in the direst of situations. I have accepted that, and pray every day to never have to make that choice, but if I do have to use lethal force, God grant me the strength to act accordingly.



Steve
Well stated.

A primary criteria for the use of deadly force is the victim's perception of the immediate threat. If you perceive you are in immenent danger or serious bodily harm or death, you have passed one of the criteria. If it turns out later that the object of the threat was a toy or fake gun or knife, that would not make a difference (providing a zealous prosecutor is not trying to grill your butt).

If you successfully deliver several rounds to the chest area of someone and he collapses on the ground to begin the dying process, you are probably going to see this. You will see the perp struggling for air probably with foamy blood beginning to show around the mouth and nose. Most likely, he will display fear.. terror in his eyes as he fights for his ebbing life. No telling what he will try to say during this time, but before long, depending on how effective your shots and rounds were, he will pass into unconsciousness with glazed eyes, then join the ranks of the dead.

This could be hard to watch for a lot of people knowing you were the cause of it.. but were you? No in actuality, you were not the cause but rather the effect. His actions were the cause which brought on the effect. Were he not of a mind to do what he did, he would wake up the next morning. Still, I imagine it would be difficult for someone to have to go through this.

I have seen people die, but I have never taken a life. I would like to think that if I were put in this situation, that I would have acted out of genuine fear for my life which is enough to get me through. However, I still go by what I've said before. You never know until it is staring you in the face, how you will act and what effect your actions will have on you afterwards.
 
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