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Katygunnut wrote:Death threats after shooting someone that is burglarizing your house? I am having trouble comprehending how any thinking person could come to the conclusion that someone should be killed because they used deadly force to protect themself. After all, if you are against the use of violence, then surely you wouldn't condone killing anyone.

Are these threats coming from people in general, or from members of the BG's gang / friends? If the latter, then this somewhat makes sense, although I am still having trouble figuring out why criminals would find it offensive that someone defended themselves. Wouldn't this just be considered an occupational hazard?

Maybe I am too sheltered.

The reason this doesn't make any sense to you is because you've apparently never had the "pleasure" of spending quality time with the type of folks to whom both the threats and following through on those threats makes perfect sense. Their values and thought processes are far different from yours, and can't be understood using your own values and thought processes.

If it's any consolation, your values and decisions are just as foreign to them as theirs are to yours. The difference is that they have acquired a working knowledge of what to expect from folks like you and adapt their tactics to get what they want with those expectations in mind.

A similar accurate working knowledge of what to expect from them is necessary in order to manage encounters with these folks successfully.

Excaliber wrote:The difference is that they have acquired a working knowledge of what to expect from folks like you and adapt their tactics to get what they want with those expectations in mind.

That, is a very scary thought.

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:The difference is that they have acquired a working knowledge of what to expect from folks like you and adapt their tactics to get what they want with those expectations in mind.

That, is a very scary thought.

I don't have any plan of trying to spend "quality time" with folks who think like that. How does one prepare to deal with them, other than just being armed to the teeth?

chasfm11 wrote:

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:The difference is that they have acquired a working knowledge of what to expect from folks like you and adapt their tactics to get what they want with those expectations in mind.

That, is a very scary thought.

I don't have any plan of trying to spend "quality time" with folks who think like that. How does one prepare to deal with them, other than just being armed to the teeth?

There are resources out there that can help explain in words how these folks think, make decisions, and move in for the attack. One good example is the No Nonsense Self Defense web site which has some excellent info on how criminal "specialists" who commit different types of major crimes think, pick targets, set up the incident, and act. This is not a replacement for "quality time" because it's almost impossible to internalize the information to the point of instinctive usefulness without seeing these folks in action. It has value, though, because it'll get you a good deal further than guessing will.

The "armed to the teeth" solution focuses on weapons and is a misplaced emphasis. The focus needs to be on seeing the elements of an incident as they first start to come together, and taking action to keep them from "gelling" so to speak. This is because the only encounter you're sure to come out of well is the one that never reaches the confrontation and conflict stage.

Certainly guns and other weapons have their place as last ditch defensive options, but real safety comes from being able to recognize when a bad guy first starts thinking about you as a potential victim. This happens when he first takes a closer look at you to the exclusion of all the other folks in the background. At that point there's distance and time between you, and those factors translate into a whole bunch of viable options for you.

The closer he comes and the more sure he gets that you're gonna be a good score, the more dangerous the situation becomes and the fewer viable options you have. By the time he gets to bad breath range, even if you're "armed to the teeth," all your good options are gone and you're left only with choices range from bad to worse.

Excaliber wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:The difference is that they have acquired a working knowledge of what to expect from folks like you and adapt their tactics to get what they want with those expectations in mind.

That, is a very scary thought.

I don't have any plan of trying to spend "quality time" with folks who think like that. How does one prepare to deal with them, other than just being armed to the teeth?

There are resources out there that can help explain in words how these folks think, make decisions, and move in for the attack. One good example is the No Nonsense Self Defense web site which has some excellent info on how criminal "specialists" who commit different types of major crimes think, pick targets, set up the incident, and act. This is not a replacement for "quality time" because it's almost impossible to internalize the information to the point of instinctive usefulness without seeing these folks in action. It has value, though, because it'll get you a good deal further than guessing will.

The "armed to the teeth" solution focuses on weapons and is a misplaced emphasis. The focus needs to be on seeing the elements of an incident as they first start to come together, and taking action to keep them from "gelling" so to speak. This is because the only encounter you're sure to come out of well is the one that never reaches the confrontation and conflict stage.

Certainly guns and other weapons have their place as last ditch defensive options, but real safety comes from being able to recognize when a bad guy first starts thinking about you as a potential victim. This happens when he first takes a closer look at you to the exclusion of all the other folks in the background. At that point there's distance and time between you, and those factors translate into a whole bunch of viable options for you.

The closer he comes and the more sure he gets that you're gonna be a good score, the more dangerous the situation becomes and the fewer viable options you have. By the time he gets to bad breath range, even if you're "armed to the teeth," all your good options are gone and you're left only with choices range from bad to worse.

Thanks for the link. I guess that I was putting my post into the context of the original story. The BGs came to visit her and it wasn't like she saw them coming. The same for the death threats. It is no longer much of a matter of avoidance unless their escape from their house worked. Even then, how long could she and her family stay away from the house? Weeks? Months? Would it ever be over? Maybe the only choice after a shooting like that and the following death threats is to sell the place.

chasfm11 wrote: Thanks for the link. I guess that I was putting my post into the context of the original story. The BGs came to visit her and it wasn't like she saw them coming. The same for the death threats. It is no longer much of a matter of avoidance unless their escape from their house worked. Even then, how long could she and her family stay away from the house? Weeks? Months? Would it ever be over? Maybe the only choice after a shooting like that and the following death threats is to sell the place.

I understand, and I apologize for taking that part of the discussion in a different direction. Understanding mind set is really important because the sheer brutality many criminals are capable of is completely outside of what many folks have ever encountered, and it is shocking enough to be mentally paralyzing to a degree. You can't afford to have that happen during an incident. However, there isn't always an opportunity to pick up on a developing situation because sometimes it develops out of sight of the defender.

In the case of what's sometimes called a "blitz" attack (an explosive close up attack that comes as a total surprise) the best that can be done is to have a well thought out plan and defensive tools always at the ready, and execute that plan with speed and total commitment on "autopilot" with hardly any conscious thought. The bad news is that even that is not always enough, even for the well prepared. Surprise is an enormous tactical advantage.

The window of opportunity to manage that type of situation successfully is usually in the range of a very few seconds, if that. An unprepared person will waste nearly all of it overcoming the urge to deny it's really happening. The shock that what they thought couldn't happen really is happening to them, and the fact that there's so much that needs to be done at the same time and there are so many conflicting choices, create a situation where they can't bring themselves to actually do anything. This mental and physical "lockup" is due to a combination of OODA loop overload and the neuropsychological effects of being in a life threatening situation. The attacker simply forges ahead with his plan (which usually doesn't have any pleasant parts for the defender), and he wins. That's the way he envisioned it would go when he first decided to act, and unless something unusual happens, that's the way these things end, more often than not.

The attacker comes in all wound up and ready for battle. The defender has a major challenge to overcome to reach the same stage of arousal and take effective action in time. If he's practiced at what some experienced fighters speak of as "flipping the switch" he's got a chance. His chances greatly improve if he can momentarily postpone the confrontation by moving to an area where he can't be immediately overrun so he has a few more seconds to spin up his battle plan and get to his tools. If not, it's a better than even bet that he'll be overwhelmed before he can take effective action.

Unlike in the movies, the good guys don't always win.