From: [Z--W--f] at [cris.com] (Todd Louis Green)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Dangerous criminals [LONG, of course]
Date: 5 Sep 1996 22:20:41 -0400

On 5 Sep 1996 10:46:59 -0400, [s--d--n] at [azstarnet.com] (RD (The
Sandman)) said to everyone in rec.guns:

#Law enforcement is *not* the folks to worry about.  Carrying a fanny pack in
#certain areas screams "GUN BEARER!!". This means that the folks who really
#don't give a damn about the law (read criminals) just decide that he who is
#wearing a fanny pack is the first to get the bullet in the head.

        No disrespect intended, but in my experience this is not
the case.  Criminals, almost to a man, tend to be cowards.
Raving lunatic cowards.  And while not too many of them have what
you might think of as genius-level IQs, they ARE smart -- "well
trained" might be a better term.

        Your average street criminal has learned to "read" people
very well.  His goal, remember, is to rob you or rape you or
whatever and then run away, without getting caught.  So it
becomes a matter of threat avoidance, and cost-benefit analysis.

        Suppose YOU are a criminal [you're not, we wouldn't let
you read rec.guns if you were].  You see three people walking
down the street:

        *  Guy #1, who is wearing a big, bright silver revolver
reminiscent of Dirty Harry, and carrying a thousand dollar bill
in his hand.  He's very aware of his surroundings, looking around
without staring anyone down or challenging anyone. "Self-
confidence" could be his middle name.

        *  Guy #2, who appears unarmed and also has a $1,000 bill
in his hand.  He, too, is very aware, walking with his head high,
looking at people as they go buy without being threatening.  

        *  Guy #3, who has on a watch and looks like maybe a
wallet in his back pocket.  He's got his head pointed directly at
the ground, and looks like he might faint if you walk up and say
"boo" in a whisper.

        Who ya gonna mug?  If you want to live to be a retired
mugger, you're going after Guy #3.  Why?  The first two guys
might be a threat.  The first guy could kill you.  Who cares if
you have a gun?  You LIKE getting into gunfights?  You think the
average mugger doesn't know the difference between how the police
respond to a mugging and how they respond to a murder?  Either #1
or #2 is likely to resist, draw attention, perhaps waste enough
time to get a cop involved.  Minimum, he's likely to remember
what you look like, see you coming, watch you going.

        Guy #3, he's not going to know you're mugging him until
you ask him the second time for his wallet.  IF he's brave enough
to even call the police [and most aren't] he'll be useless.  He
probably won't even know what block he's on, much more what color
eyes his assailant had.

        But, you ask, what about those two $1,000 bills we let go
by?  Who cares?!?  A mugger isn't in it for one big hit.  He'll
mug half a dozen people in one night, three or four nights a
week.  The trick is not to get caught.  It's quite logical, if
you think about it. We say "it's better to hit with a .22 than
miss with a .44," and muggers might say "it's better to run away
with $25 than go to jail with $1000."  More liquor stores get
robbed in a night than banks in a month ...

        Places where people are known to carry guns suffer from
less crime.  Period.  We KNOW this.  Look at Florida, where the
criminals were attacking FOREIGNERS after the CCW law passed,
because they were the "safest" targets.  You think a well-used
rental car with someone's underwear in the trunk is the most
valuable thing to steal in Miami?  No.  But if all your other
potential victims might be packin' ...  Is it any wonder some car
rental companies in Florida now hand out "NRA" hats to their
customers?

        Washington, D.C. is, as Winnie the Pooh would tell us, a
Bad Place.  But in ten years of growing up, living, learning, and
working in and around D.C., I've never once been mugged.  I've
never once been accosted.  Why?  Lucky, probably.  But I also
don't act like a victim.  And "tough" as most crews ["gangs"]
like to act, they're really just a bunch of over-sized bullies
[and well armed, sadly -- funny, I thought D.C. had such strong
gun control].  As long as you don't challenge them, make them
look bad to their peers in such a way they HAVE to act, they'll
leave you alone unless you look like an easy target.  Two kinds
of people get hassled in "the big city" in my experience: the
timid, and the arrogant.

        Just my $0.02, based on working a couple years at the
D.C. prosecutor's office ...


___________________________________________
Todd Louis Green           [Z--W--f] at [cris.com]
              http://www.cris.com/~Zenwolf/

On your tombstone will be two dates,
                separated by a dash.
That dash was your life.
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