Sunday, January 25, 2009

To Protect & Serve....

.... so a blog that I follow recently had a post about being attacked by some junkies while riding his bike. He was lucky in that the would be assailants had to scale a fence before reaching him. The first junky slipped and fell on his head, the second attacker got up to him and tried to strong arm him, but got knocked down due to the momentum of the 24 mph bike. I responded to his post by saying that I was glad he was not injured, and that I didn't see violence as his style, but should he choose to defend himself moving forward I thought a particular fire arm would be a good choice.

Responding back a bit later, a poster gafalled at the notion of protecting ones self and said the poster should have called the police. This made me think for a moment, what would I do? As a younger and single male, I would have given these two a shake down. As a husband and father, would I take a chance like that and go Mano y Mano? Not likely. If I had a weapon would I take their lives?

My argument for yes... In a large City/Urban environment the police are overwhelmed with violent crime, and an attempted "mugging" would be put very low on the priority list. This is why drug attics take advantage of such situations. Also, since the would be robbers failed on this attempt, what if anything did they learn? Certainly not to get off of drugs and to lead worth while lives as productive members of society... more than likely they learned that trying to scale a fence prior to an attack is a bad idea, they also probably learned a little bit about physics. So the next time they decide to attack an unsuspecting bike commuter, they'll hide in the shadows, and will utilize a blunt object as a means to dismount their victim.

My argument against... I'm a father and husband, do I really want to tangle with two dumb ass druggies? Would I be justified had I used a weapon against two men who meant to do me bodily harm and take my property, or would I spend a decade or greater away from my family in jail? Could they take the weapon away from me in a struggle and make my wife a widow and leave my daughter with out a father?

What would you do?

4 comments:

erin said...

duh. you do BOTH. first you kick the shit out of the bastards, then you call the cops and tell them where you've left the soon-to-be corpses.
easy

fatbob29r said...

Erin,

I see, so pull the piece, and just pistol whip them with it... I'm so linear in my thinking (dead/alive).... love the artist types that can shade in the grey areas.

erin said...

a "PIECE"? CLEARLY you live in texas! if you use your HANDS (or your water bottle, or whatever you have on your bike ride), the perps won't be completely dead. COME.ON!
;)

Chris said...

Bob,

I think you do whatever you need to do to make sure that you keep on being a husband and father. At the risk of sounding cold and calloused(but realistic)a couple of dead crackheads aren't going to inspire a manhunt for the unfortunate soul forced into a life or death situation.