When things get really weird...

Status
Not open for further replies.
... The one thing that really still sticks with me is that to this day, I always take a glance at my surroundings to see what I could pick up to defend myself with if needed.
Same here ... a leftover from an earlier age (in my case, at least :)).

I still miss the ubiquitous glass ashtrays that used to grace almost every public-area horizontal surface. I always thought of those a handy non-lethal sudden-focused-violence accessories. :evil:
 
I'll chime in one last time... I've often said that your tactics are more important than whatever armaments you have at hand - and that still holds - with some explanation.. When someone trips your triggers as a possible problem that might lead to action... Your best course - if you can't simply withdraw... is to set the stage to give yourself the best advantage possible if it's needed. On foot in a parking lot - any vehicle between you and trouble (as well as maintaining your distance if possible) is a good first step. Inside a structure moving to whatever place or position gives you an advantage so that a potential attacker can't come at you without declaring their intentions is a similar strategy. The next step is to prepare physically so that whatever weapon you have with you is easily available but not obvious or easily taken from you. Remember there are a few folks around that never carry a weapon - since they're planning on taking yours...

Lastly, if sudden trouble is possible and you're not armed, identifying any improvised weapons that might be easily obtained is a sound strategy in extremis... A quick example is any object that can be used to attack or defend either in hand or as a missile.... Every grocery store has on their shelves a full range of possible weapons - from the aisle that holds the chemical cleaning sprays (and brooms or mops) to the aisle that holds the hardware... I once went into a 24 hour big grocery store to back up two of my officers that were looking for a professional violent shoplifter... What they didn't know was that her previous history showed that her first action in any store was to go to the hardware section and take a nice new butcher knife from the package and place it under her coat to use in assaulting anyone that tried to stop her (very serious bad lady at close quarters....). Sure enough they'd found her with a shopping cart full of high end cuts of meat at 2Am while her accomplices were outside in a vehicle waiting to receive them...When they found her in the store she was wearing a big overcoat in August... I startled my officers by drawing down on her at close range and stating clearly that if she didn't open her coat I was going to shoot her... They were really shocked when she complied and they could see the big brand new butcher knife in her waist... It all ended without incident but it could have gone the other way since who would expect a middle aged woman to be willing to carve someone up to prevent an arrest...

Armed or unarmed - ordinary citizen or trained police officer your tactics in any possible confrontation will go a long way to deciding how it all plays out. Me, I like the problems that don't involve violence since there's just no telling how it will work out...
 
Lemaymiami's post is worth reading more than once and contemplating for a while afterwards.

It is important to understand that when one does improvise by using some implement as a weapon--and that idea is programmed into my head as a defensive strategy--one should not assume that such a thing is necessarily "less lethal", or more accurately, that it's use would not constitute the use of deadly force.

We threaten or use deadly force only as a last resort, when it is immediately necessary.
 
-You've heard the 'You should have a plan to kill...' statement over and over by now.

My version reads 'Any person that you meet may have a plan to kill you and everyone near you. Pay attention and plan accordingly'..

I run a public library on the Mexican border.

I have to deal with more crazies than most sanitariums.
Your version makes sense.

The possession of literature containing the former has been used effectively in court in the prosecution of persons who have defended themselves.
 
I run a public library on the Mexican border.

I have to deal with more crazies than most sanitariums.

Fascinating! Are you sayting that Mexican people have a higher rate of mental illness than American people or am I misunderstanding you?

EDIT: To fix quote coding.
 
Last edited:
Fascinating! Are you sayting that Mexican people have a higher rate of mental illness than American people or am I misunderstanding you?

Libraries are open to the public. Homeless people tend to hang out in them. Homeless people tend to be weird. So yes you're going to see more crazies in a public library.
 
Libraries are open to the public. Homeless people tend to hang out in them. Homeless people tend to be weird. So yes you're going to see more crazies in a public library.

That's one thing that I think has been very challenging for those folks on the fringes of society since the pandemic. There are a few places you'd reliably see the homeless 'regulars' around town; places like McDonald's, the library, Walmart, etc. A guy could come into McD's and get coffee, read the paper, warm up and maybe even catch the news or weather. But as more and more places closed due to the pandemic they no longer had even those meager resources to use.
 
That's one thing that I think has been very challenging for those folks on the fringes of society since the pandemic. There are a few places you'd reliably see the homeless 'regulars' around town; places like McDonald's, the library, Walmart, etc. A guy could come into McD's and get coffee, read the paper, warm up and maybe even catch the news or weather. But as more and more places closed due to the pandemic they no longer had even those meager resources to use.

I have no use for street rats. I deal with them every night at work. I see what they're like when they're not standing on the street corner trying to get you to give them money.

Around here they kill each other frequently. It never makes the news because they're homeless. I've had a few friends that were murdered by homeless people. I don't turn my back on them
 
When the creep said "tonight" he probably shielded himself from any claim of deadly threat so you would have been in a touchy situation legally if you had used deadly force, etc. "Tonight" hasn't happened yet so there was no threat. Street crazies, communist rioters, and others know how to manipulate the legal system to set people up. Thanks for the heads up, if anybody asks me if I want to die "tonight" I will tell him "Sure, as long as I can take somebody down with me--tonight".

None-the-less, the comment was enough to get you off condition white and think about your alternatives. As somebody said, making some distance and just saying "back off" like you meant it would probably have worked as well as anything else.
If you are not familiar with condition white, google Col. Cooper.

Sometimes you go with your gut. Once I was with my wife and step-daughter in a so-so urban area just after dark. The street we had just turned off of was full of normal people. Unbeknownst to me, the city had just cleaned up a park a block away, thus chasing all the street crazies 1 block downhill. This is probably why the ice cream parlor that used to light up the street was no longer open. Anyway, a long-haired creepy looking fellow carrying what looked like a wedding flower arrangement in a cardboard box crossed the street saying he wanted to show me his "baby" motioning to the box. Well, I had no desire to see what was in that box nor to let him close the distance to us so I stepped forward into the street, raised my fist, and told him I was going to break his *****head. Mission accomplished, he got a terrified look on his face, ran down the block into a store and was not seen again. Sorry, maybe not to the letter of the law, but me and my family got out OK. And, of course, I found another street to walk down at night since this one had gone bad.
 
I realize on this site we like to stick our heads in the sand as to whats actually going on in the world so Ill not comment on all of that.

But if a fool comes up to me in public and asks "How'd you like to die today?" , in the current state of affairs and my own, I'm going to tell them "Say when" whilst putting distance between myself and them (aka retreating).

What happens after that is on them, not me.
 
If you don't like strangers walking up on you, just use social distancing as a polite way to ask them to step back. If they don't comply, tell them you work at a hospital and you really don't want to risk infecting them if you're an asymptomatic carrier, then grab your cart and back up.

It's always easier to gain compliance from people -- especially those who are off a bit -- if you don't act like you suspect them of anything. People in altered mental states can very quickly become paranoid and defensive, and that can lead to violent.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top