Okay, I need to say something. A lot of you won't like it, but then again you'll all be hypocrits if you judge me for exercising a constitutional right.
You're walking down a sidewalk at night, and a man stops you, demanding money and waving a gun.
You have two options. You can either (A) give him your money, or (A) not give him your money, and defend yourself using force.
In either situation, you have the ability to (a) succeed or (b) fail.
In situation "Aa," you give him your money, and you go home in one piece. In situation "Ab," you give him your money, and you go home in a box.
In situation "Ba," you defend yourself, you go home in one piece, but the robber goes home in a box. In situation "Bb," you still go home in a box.
In three out of the four possible outcomes, someone dies. In two out of the four outcomes,
you die.
The idea behind defending yourself is to defend your life, not the contents of your wallet. You can replacement a wallet, credit cards, and cash. You can't replace your life, or the life of the person robbing you.
If you carry a concealed weapon with the intent of "showing them who's boss," "being a hero," or "cleaning up the streets," do everyone a favor and sell the gun off to a responsible owner.
I'll take my chances and go with the option that leaves me going home in one piece. I can afford therapy for the psychological trauma I receive as a direct result of being held up.
I cannot, however, both afford legal fees and therapy bills after killing someone because he wanted $20 for drugs.
My first thought was, "how on earth does a group of people just STAND there while another person is getting beaten, possibly to death? Er, sometimes I forget that there are smaller drugstores than where I work.
As a psychology major who has looked at this particular social phenomena, I find it humorous how common sense and logic, and the truth conflict.
It is perfectly normal for this to occur. It's known as the "bystander effect." In a time of great stress, such as witnessing a violent crime, one tends to look to others for cues on how to behave and react. Seeing as almost nobody in any given set of people has ever experienced a comparable stressful experience, there are no cues on how to act or behave. Most likely, everyone in standing there going, "Something needs to be done, but
what?"
All it takes is one person to defy normative social influence (read: what everyone else is doing) and it makes it much easier for others to follow.
People are sheep.
