bclarkie wrote:I understand thats what you believe, but again doing so is a lot easier said than done. Just because people say that they can do it without hesitation, does not mean that they actually can.  People say that they can do things all the time that they can't actually do, but until they are actually faced with the circumstance is the time that really matters.  How many people do you know that have actually killed someone that wasn't in military combat?  

You also say that you taught a self-defense class, but isn't the goal of that class to teach people how to defend themselves so that they are able to escape the situation and not actually kill the person attacking them?

BC;

I don't disagree with your premise.  But the alternative is just to give up....why learn self defense at all?  I'll just freeze up.  Why get a gun permit?  I'll just shoot someone innocent.  Why fight back?  I'll be too scared.

I've read plenty of stories where people who were legally armed DIDNT freeze up or run away or hurt someone innocent.  Sure it's a possibility.  I actually think 9/11 changed a LOT of people's minds about the way the average person sees and approaches a fight or flight situation. Do you really think there is ANY chance if some nutjob stands up in a crowded airplane and starts heading for the cockpit, knife in hand, he won't get the absolute shit beat out of him?  It's actually happened in EVERY similar situation since 9/11 (the shoe bomber, various people trying to break into the cockpit or open the cabin doors, etc)  Your average person jumps up (en masse most likely), immobilizes the guy, ties his or her hands, and sits on the creep until the plane lands.  Perhaps 10 years ago this same person would have stood by waiting for someone else to make a move.

I think there's a possiblity that along with people's heightened awareness about such situations there is a better chance of reacting to an emergency situation (fight) rather than running or being confused (flight) post 9/11.

Having taken ju-jitsu many years ago I can say that repetition and training, while not assuring you will react properly in a stress situation, greatly increases success.

Mike B.

JasonZavoda wrote:Killing someone in self-defense (actual self-defense without premeditation) isn't something that you think about. A real fight, a life and death fight, is quick. I've been shot at, and I've been stabbed three times, the last time the guy left it in my upper arm because it stuck into the bone. When your life is threatened you react, period. You can run, cower or fight, but you don't have much choice in that first fraction of a second reaction time. But if your intsinct is to fight, which most people have, then learn how to fight, which means learning how to kill.

I have been in plenty of real fights to know that they happen quickly, although only once where I would consider it "life and death". That happened when I was just 18 years old and a guy started a fight with me and my buddy while driving home from one of our hockey games. The guy got out of his car with a knife in the middle of the highway and proceeded to come after me with it. Even though I actually had a hockey stick in my hands, I did my best just to try and get away form the guy as it was my first instinct and this was despite the fact that I had been in plenty of fights in school and whatnot growing up and I know how to fight pretty well. Wghen someone turns the situation into a life threatening situation, everything changes in your mind.  The first instinct for most people is almost always to survive and get away, then it is to kill the other person threatening you.  It takes a lot more to kill someone than just being put in that situation, if you are not already predisposed to it.

JasonZavoda wrote:Self-defense is about defending yourself, not making sure you don't hurt someone. I taught what actually works. Not how close you can come with a punch or kick without actually hitting someone. I taught women how to fight in street clothes. This wasn't an exercise class with padded floors and good lighting, and no shoes and loose clothing. You need to know how to fight with your street clothes on, after eating a big meal and having three or four beers, needing to piss and getting jumped in some dark back alley with slickground and loose crap all over the place. You need to learn how to fight around the corner of bar with 300 lb beer guzzlers taking up one side (ready to crack you over the head with a bottle), tile floor and no space to maneuver.

Sure run away if you can. Throw things. But that's doesn't have to be taught. Getting women to realize that a finger just touching an eyeball can temprarily blind an assailant is the first step, that a 100lb women trying fast-food exercise class karate on a 165lb man who's been in lotsa fights is going to get her beaten, raped and/or killed.  A finger against the base of a nose can push a head back. a jab to the armpit can paralyze the entire arm. A thumb jammed into a kidney can paralyze the upper body, you can fit your hand around an esophogus and it crushes like squeezing an apple.(and a vacuum cleaner hose, an odd combination)

Which again, as I noted to Mike above, self-defense is a great thing to be taught, however it's really not the same thing as teaching them to kill someone even in self defense.  The premise of the class is to escape the situation, not to kill your attacker. Everything you are teaching these people is ways of hurting their attacker badly enough to make a getaway. You may end up killing someone in the process as a result if things all happen a certain way, but again the goal isnt to kill the person, its simply to get away from them.  That is an entirely different psychological dynamic as it to be thinking, "I have to kill this person".

JasonZavoda wrote:I couldn't tell you how many people I know who had to kill someone outside of the military. Some, the ones in the police, the ones doing time, the ones who stood trial, sure. but people kill people. I wonder how many you have met but just don't know about.

I know of two kids that I went to high school with that have killed people.  Both were police officers who killed people in the line of duty. I really don't think that I am that much in the minority.

JasonZavoda wrote:How many people do I know who came close?

Coming close doesn't count.

JasonZavoda wrote:Probably every bouncer I ever met, a lot of women, the thing is almost everyone is capable of killing someone if they need to. This has to be an anglo-american concept, maybe modern day europe, but check with eastern europeans, people from South and Central America, people from Africa, from the Middle-East, ffrom Pakistan, Indonesia, or India. This squeamish decadence maskerading as civilization is ridiculous. Civilized people kill when the need to, they just take responsibility for their actions. Fools pretend that they will never need to and never prepare for when they do. And the people who can't bring themselves to pull a trigger need to wear white robes or placards so that no one will expect them to stand up for themselves.

This is flat out garbage. Maybe we should just stop this conversation, because I can see that this is starting to head downhill badly now.  Resorting to racial stereotypes and this type of over the top inflammatory posting that isn't rooted in facts isn't making your point anymore valid, nor is it productive to a decent conversation.

PaulKM wrote:
Actually I grew up in one of the worst neighbourhoods in Toronto and I study criminology.  I hope this counts as some sort of a qualification.  The simple problem is this:  the US crime rate has been dropping since the early 1970's, but unfortunately the fear of crime has risen disproportionately in the last twenty years and is not stopping.  Despite the declining crime rate (including homicides), one of the fastest growing industries in the US is private security and control.  It is a business which profits from fear and insecurity, and does so by perpetuating both.

It is not sticking one's head in the sand, but merely looking at the evidence supplied by countries with stricter gun control.  

As I wrote before, despite several school shootings in Canada there has never been a discussion of arming teachers.  In fact, after Columbine I remember there was a discussion of training teachers and staff to spot and help disaffected or troubled youth in their early years ( a technique which is being used in the US and has stopped several school attacks already).  It seems listening and talking to their students is effective for preventing an attack because, as shown in study after study, deterrence has a limited, short -term effect for only minor crimes. (Strangely, those charged with DUI's are the most affected by deterrence).  



Basic training would do little for most people.  Shooting a gun is one matter, using it effectively during an emergency is another.  Besides what is more important: getting the children to safety away or shooting back?

What if the nutjob is better armed, a better shot, and better prepared?  What then?  Arm the kid working at McD's ( cause a lot of little kids were massacred there)?  Arm the bus drivers, the cable repair men. Where do you stop?

Agreed: The police are rarely ever there when a crime is being committed.  The police patrol neighbourhoods looking for activity, but as the very famous Kansas City experiment demonstrated, response time, patrol strength, and visibility is meaningless to stop or prevent crime.  Police patrols are analogous to having fire truck patrols, they do very little to alter the overall crime rate (or fire rate, if you will).  People call the police after something has happened, and very rarely do they stumble upon a crime.  That said, people are notoriously awful at preventing or stopping crimes, and quite often make matters worse, such as mass panic or misidentifying innocent bystanders as criminals.

School is one of the few stable institutions in the community...it is a refuge for many.  It is a place of learning, and the message taught by arming teachers and treating all children as potential murderers is just wrong.  

 

I understand and agree with your your statements--it is our job to help society function safely and our duty to prevent harm to another, but most people freeze, run, or ignore situations entirely.  

However, what I was trying to point out was this:  if a disaffected nutjob wants to do something, hard targeting any location simply shifts the target for the nutjob.  This inherent failure to understand criminal adaptation  has been shown time and time again--from the post 9/11 attack in London--the "characteristics" of the terrorists and the type of target selected--the Tylenol poisonings, to the drug courier criminal profile, etc.  The same would and does happen with the youth who wants to kill ( the Washington snipers are a good example).   Arming teachers would accomplish little and would send the wrong message:  fear, not security.

Okay I'm all done

Edit:  Man, I sound way over the top and snarky as hell, no harm meant.  Just tell me to shud'it and I will

Hmmm, bacon cheeseburgers....omelette bacon cheese burgers...tell us more...

Sorry is this is a little awkward quoting but I had to cut and paste. There shouldn't be any of your comments cut out.

The reported crime rate may be dropping overall but the large influx of illeagal aliens makes the unreported crime rate higher, from what I have been told by east coast law enforcement. The crime rate in urban environments is also up and the number of violent crimes is up. The amount of violent crimes outside of urban environments is down. I proof read a lot of criminal justice papers for my students.

I could give you a sampling of todays Wilmington DE crime sheets, there were at least two homicides last night. I am an hour from Baltimore, an hour from Philly, across the river from Camden NJ. Murder and violence aplenty around here. Security firms aren't trying to raise peoples fears, they don't have to in the city. This is like blaming police for crime, soldiers for war, and firemen for fires. I blame doctors for disease and my dentist for toothaches too.

I believe the number one weapon of choice in Rhodesia was the machette. Countries with strict gun control laws make slaves of the population. People shouldn't have to trust the government to protect them, they shouldn't trust the government at all seeing that it is run by bureaucrats and, worse, politicians. People need to trust in themselves, and their neighbors. That is society. The evidence is that a well armed and organized society has little or no gun violence ( I offer switzerland as an example, they've had no war in centuries but they are prepared for it.)

While discovering disaffected students is part of the solution it is better to offer real security as well. And this needs to be done when it doesn't appear neccessary. You need to prepare for the worst before the worst happens, and you need to teach a realistic viewpoint of the world to children, that the world is indeed an extremely dangerous place.

Real basic training would seperate the wheat from the chaff. The men and women who could pull the trigger from the ones who couldn't. It doesn't take you to meet the elephant but it does tell you what the elephant looks like, and methods of riding the damn thing or at least not getting trampled by it. Instead people are left in the dark till they are suddenly confronted by the elephant and grabbing hold of what they think is its tail find themselves holding onto a very angry and uncontrollable beast and get stomped flat.

Doesn't matter if the nutjob is better armed, such as the two bankrobbers with double kevlar and full auto AKs with 300 round magazines (and more in the car). If it were a child they were going for, they'd waste some ammo on me as well, and if I had a gun, and the bus driver had one, and the mailman, and the women trying to protect her kids, well huddling behind a car wasn't going to stop those guys. They took down twelve unarmored and ill-armed police officers before they killed them. But I'd still try. If it were some guy in a construction vehicle running down people on the street, what would protect you? I know in Israel what stopped it were armed civilians.

I want children growing up knowing how to use a gun, what to do in an attack, how to defend themselves, the same way I want them to learn to use a condem. I want them to grow up knowing not to trust strangers, and not to screw around with some poor kid that is outside of their society. I want them to be scared of fire, and people at the door, and walking alone down a street, and being scared I want them to know how to be brave, and what to do, instead of paralyzed and frozen. Being brave is about being scared and still living your life and doing the right thing. It isn't about trying to wrap kids or adults in cotton and have the government take care of them, and make them sweet little lambs, perfect for shearing and tasty with mint jelly.

So make all the targets, hard targets, make each member of society responsible and, for god sake, dangerous. I'm fine with the world seeing the USA as a dangerous enemy, not a bunch of people too afraid to pull the trigger and worried about hurting someone who is attacking them. So arm the teachers and teach the children and prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best. Not preparing is sticking your head in the sand, and giving away your right to bear arms is putting your head on the block, waiting for the day when that nice sweet government decides to change to something less than user friendly.

JasonZavoda wrote:So make all the targets, hard targets, make each member of society responsible and, for god sake, dangerous. I'm fine with the world seeing the USA as a dangerous enemy, not a bunch of people too afraid to pull the trigger and worried about hurting someone who is attacking them. So arm the teachers and teach the children and prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best. Not preparing is sticking your head in the sand, and giving away your right to bear arms is putting your head on the block, waiting for the day when that nice sweet government decides to change to something less than user friendly.

Putting you head in the sand is refusing to acknowledge that the Second Amendment was written into the US Constitution over 200 years ago as a means of allowing "the people" to protect themselves against the government.  Unfortunately, the real story is that nowadays the government can pretty much do as it pleases, because it has the technology to now do so. Your self-owned handgun or hunting rifle is not going to do shit against a well armed, well trained and well defended military force that has the will to do something. If you think otherwise, you are pretty deluded.

The only thing that stands in the way of the government taking over now is that it would have to get a vast majority of the current military to go along with the process.  Thankfully, that is not a likely to happen as there would likely be far more people in the military who would refuse those orders fully knowing they would be throwing away their own freedoms if they did so.  With that said,  That's what really protects us all now from the government, not the Second Amendment, but I digress.

Edited to add: Mike is 100% right in previous statements though, as the genie is out of the bottle on the gun issue now and it will never change because people are far to used them and it would be an effort in futility for it to ever change here in the US now.  That's also not say that people should not excercise that right that was given to them, nor should it change, but the Second Ammendment is way overrated in this day and age.

JasonZavoda wrote:
Which comment are you having a problem with?

I would imagine the part of your post that I quoted, but again maybe its best if we dropped this or perhaps at least took it to PMs.

bclarkie wrote:
Putting you head in the sand is refusing to acknowledge that the Second Amendment was written into the US Constitution over 200 years ago as a means of allowing "the people" to protect themselves against the government.  Unfortunately, the real story is that nowadays the government can pretty much do as it pleases, because it has the technology to now do so. Your self-owned handgun or hunting rifle is not going to do shit against a well armed, well trained and well defended military force that has the will to do something. If you think otherwise, you are pretty deluded.

The only thing that stands in the way of the government taking over now is that it would have to get a vast majority of the current military to go along with the process.  Thankfully, that is not a likely to happen as there would likely be far more people in the military who would refuse those orders fully knowing they would be throwing away their own freedoms if they did so.  That's what really protects us all now from the government, not the Second Amendment, but I digress.

I would imagine the part of your post that I quoted, but again maybe its best if we dropped this or perhaps at least took it to PMs.

The best tools of the military would be pretty much useless in a civil war.
Hunting weapons would be one of the most effective tools, and high caliber sniper rifles and scopes are available to the general public. There are more potential snipers outside the military than in. Assault weapons would be handy. You can upgrade the civlian models easily. Kevlar is mostly available. Explosive devices are available.

A civil war would start as scattered small unit fighting. Armor, airpower, artillery would be very ineffective. In city fighting, assault rifles,  shotguns and sniper rifles, and small explosives.  Hand guns for assissination, and then hey, you have the weapons of a professional soldier for the taking.  

An armed population is a constant threat to the government.

Then of course the composition of the military is still made up (for the most part) of citizen's, though like Rome during the empire, we now have a sizeable number of non-citizens doing our fighting for us. It all depends on the small unit commanders, which way their loyalty tends. Soldiers don't follow a general's orders, they follow the orders given to them by a unit commander, and their own conscience.

Feel free to stop posting anytime you like. America seems dominated by Anglo culture, not a racial thing at all, genetics have nothing to do with it except as a remnant of cultures connected to them. This whining guilt and impotence of action seems to be part and parcel of that culture, embraced by the leftwing in the USA. I just don't see it as part of any other world cutltures except for modern western european.

JasonZavoda wrote:
The best tools of the military would be pretty much useless in a civil war.
Hunting weapons would be one of the most effective tools, and high caliber sniper rifles and scopes are available to the general public. There are more potential snipers outside the military than in. Assault weapons would be handy. You can upgrade the civlian models easily. Kevlar is mostly available. Explosive devices are available.

A civil war would start as scattered small unit fighting. Armor, airpower, artillery would be very ineffective. In city fighting, assault rifles,  shotguns and sniper rifles, and small explosives.  Hand guns for assissination, and then hey, you have the weapons of a professional soldier for the taking.

Have you happened to catch what the US military has done and still does in Iraq by chance?  And those are people that ALL have guns, most have explosives and not many of them have any fear of killing US soldiers.  That does not even take into consideration that for all intents and purposes, most experts agree that the force we used was undermanned and the Iraqis were and are still relatively helpless to anything against them. Do you honestly think that if the US military turned its full force against the citizenship here in the US that the citizens would have a chance? Again, if you do, then you are deluded.

JasonZavoda wrote:An armed population is a constant threat to the government.

Not anywhere close to being what it would need to be against the US military of today.

JasonZavoda wrote:Feel free to stop posting anytime you like. America seems dominated by Anglo culture, not a racial thing at all, genetics have nothing to do with it except as a remnant of cultures connected to them. This whining guilt and impotence of action seems to be part and parcel of that culture, embraced by the leftwing in the USA. I just don't see it as part of any other world cutltures except for modern western european.

Repeating this ridiculous garbage again does not give it any more merit and your attempted spin on it has been noted. It is bigoted and presumptious and again not rooted in way shape or form in reality or facts. Get a grip.

Continue with it if you must, but Foul will just end up deleting it all anyway.

JasonZavoda wrote:The Anglo stuff is culture, such as the UK's which I detest politcally but enjoy the writing and comedy shows. A disarmed population with a monarchy and inbred aristocracy. No racist comments intended, but I do loathe the UK's politics.

No racist comments intended and then you follow it up with comments like this? Inbred? Seriously? And you teach kids as your profession? Scary, scary thought.

I was under the impression that the US was a democracy and that every four years you have a chance to throw the bums out!

That is the real power! There is an existing system so use it! Organize and bombard your politicians with information about what "We the people" want done. Make it clear that if he/she does not represent the best interests of the people in their jurisdiction that they will be out of work come next election.

Unless of course the bulk of the citizenry are content to sit on their behinds watching American Idol instead of becoming engaged in their municipal/state/national politics. If so, then how do you motivate them into "rising up" against an "oppressive government" when you can't get half of them to even vote?

Do I get involved in Canadian politics? You're damned right I do! From firing off questions and comments to federal and provincial politicians to contacting my local city councilor by email whenever I have something that I want to make sure they know about including votes they have made that I don't agree with.

Xaxaxe wrote:Jason, if you get too close to squirrels, do they try to bury your head?

That was uncalled for. Do you enjoy throwing out random insults masked as humor? If you feel my points make no sense, say so or disregard them.

I don't care for talking politics on a friendly site, but I speak my mind. And when someone decides to post politics I will reply if I disagree.

So if you feel your viewpoint is more correct, or better expressed, or mine is wrong, step up and have the courage to say what you think instead of being insulting.

Xaxaxe wrote:You are wrong. You are completely full of shit. Is that "courageous" enough for you?

It certainly shows character.

face to face, that might be couragous, but over the internet it is nothing more than rude and pathetic.

All we have here are words. The squirrel bit was lifted from commonplace gradeschool humor.

Why should anything I have to say bother you if you consider the source to be valueless. How can I consider what you have to say of any value when there isn't any content to it but an insult.

Seriously, put aside the attacks and make a point that isn't just name calling, if you want to have some value to your words, if you want to be courageous.