silverlance
Member
Recently Ive noticed that quite a few posters are worried about rising crime activity, especially gang activity. Whether these fears are real or unfounded is another topic - but nevertheless the impression that there is a rising tide of crime is certainly existent.
So, as one who works and lives in what is arguably one of the most crime infested sectors of one of the most crime infested cities in the nation, I'd like to offer up a few suggestions on the proper mindset for one adapted to such living. I'm likely preaching to the choir - but I figure this might be more effective than yet another thread where grim stories of urban violence vie for morbid approval.
anyway, here goes. feel free to add or detract.
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1. if there's going to be a fight, don't be there. many times you can figure out ahead of time if there's going to be people throwing down. Big basketball game at the Staples center, valentine's day at some hot club, a police brutality demonstration. Then there are the little ones - like a crowd of thugs hanging out at carl's jr (you won't believe how many people get killed going form or to fast food restaurants), or some shady characters walking real slow or leaing against the wall under a freeway overpass.
2. don't stick out. if you are wearing armani and your date is in a sleek evening dress, don't go walking at night in to the liquor store, or that cheap ethnic restaurant that has great food for little money. likewise, don't go yakking and giggling down the street like a pair of star crossed lovers - you will look like an easy, completely vulnerable target. indeed, you might even be considered offensive to the natives - your overt happiness may be taken as an insult intended to make them feel envious. also, don't let your date call you all sorts of pet names out loud like "pookie" or "sweetie" or "honeybunch". see #3. gangsters ARE racist. they DO like to pick on weaker people. they are NOT misguided youngsters - at least, not when they are banging.
3. don't let your date become dead weight. if you are walking with your date, or even at a restaurant, don't let her become a dead weight. don't let her hang on your arm like a barnacle, don't let her make you hold open doors like prince charming, don't ever let her make you hold her big gucci bag for her while she goes to the powder room. if she is on your arm you cannot react quickly to threats, and at the very least you will look like a pansy, and #2 will apply. save the genteel behavior for the proper setting. remember, this is a different culture, a different set of norms. abide by them. you don't need to be rude to your date - just let her know that you expect her to hold her own; your date should neither get you into fights or hamper you should you get into one. Your goal is to look tough, but neutral.
4. pay for parking. don't be a cheapskate and park way the F out there because you don't think parking ought to be $5 an hour. the natives pay that parking for a reason. parking way out there means you will be on foot for a long time, that your car will be at the mercy of thugs, and that you might wind up unwittingly parking in some crack dealer's favorite spot.
5. when you are driving, drive defensively. and here i don't mean watch the speed limit. you should always keep a cushion distance between you and the car in front - should you need to get out in a hurry, you will need that space. you should never allow yourself to come directly parallel to another car. gangsters watch for this and may consider this a threat or a challenge. and you should DEFINITELY never lean out the window to cuss, flip off another driver, etc. For one thing, this just isn't high road - for another, you may be doing just what the bad guys want - they want you to provoke them into a fight where they can beat you down and prove themselves. If some jackass cuts you off, let him. if they honk at you incessantly, ignore it and get out of the way SAFELY. if they speed up to your window, and cuss you out, and tell you to pull over to fight, KEEP GOING. your car is a 1500+ lb lightly armored vehicle. you can plow through most things if necessary to get to safety. no need to sacrifice that advantage.
6. know where you are going, and how to get there. GPS is great - use it. so are maps. don't assume that you can ask for directions. lots of women consider gas stations safe places to ask for directions. WRONG. the little indian guy behind the counter is scared crapless every night, and it is taking all his courage just to stay at the job. he is NOT going to come running out to help you if he sees you getting mugged, or beaten, or raped. at the very most he will call the cops - and you know how well that works. when seconds count.... the cops are only minutes away. if you must ask for directions, do so from the safety of your mobile car. oh, and while we are on that - make sure you have gas, so you have that aforementioned luxury.
7. always have a plan. how will I get out if I have to in a hurry? what around me can be used as a weapon if I have to? what should my date do if I get in a fight? This is the last, and probably most important of all my suggestions. The wise man thinks ahead, five steps ahead of his enemy. Even if you are IN the middle of a confrontation, keep thinking. Most of the time you will be able to talk your way out of trouble. A grin, a nod, keep moving... away. Or... who should you go after first?
8B. keep your goodies to yourself. animals learn this early on, when they days old. if you let other people know that you have goodies, then they will want to take them from you. this month's National Geographic features an article on animal intelligence, especially that of the bluejays. apparently, jays know that other jays like to steal food. so, if a jay sees another jay watching it hide food, jay#1 will wait until the other jay leaves... then move the hidden food to another hidden location. the same is true for humans. folks should NOT put "Keep Honking I'm Reloading" or "Proud owner of A Small Arsenal" stickers on their cars, homes, etc. besides advertising what goodies are at the place your car goes home to, they would also make DAs look at you kind of funny should you ever need to use a firearm in self defense. corollary to this, of course, is that you should do you very best to NEVER let anyone see you carrying a gun in or out of your house. when I go to the range, i take the time to either load the car in my garage with the door closed, or back my car all the way up so that the trunk is almost inside the garage (if someone is already parked in the garage). I check to make sure no one is looking before i put things in my car, and even so I try hard to use very nondescript packaging. If you are using hard cases, consider switching to rectangular soft cases. these have much less of an outline and don't scream "GUN!!". If you have to use hard cases, or if your gun is so long that even in a soft case it will be conspicious, then use CAMOFLAUGE. how? well, pretend it's a fishing rod. Put "I love to Fish" stickers on your car. Wear a fishing hat. Talk to all the neighbors about how much you like to go fishing with nothing but a big long piece of bamboo and a string. Thow a yellow rain poncho over yoru gun case when moving it in and out of your house. The idea is to be a poor target with a low probability of return. You may be the most vigilant Guardian on the planet - but even you have to leave the house sometime (I hope).
9B. to know your neighbors is to know the enemy. just as the majority of murders are committed by people the victim knows well, the vast majority of burglaries, muggings, and thefts are committed by people that live no more than one or two miles away from the victim. you can bet your bottom dollar that should your home ever be the subject of a home invasion, at least one of the BGs will have been by your house many times before already. so, prempt this. know your neighbors. find out which ones are good people and will call you if a uhaul pulls up to your driveway and starts removing everything while you are at work; find out which ones will actually call the cops if they hear gun shots or bloody screaming coming from your home. or, if you are really lucky, one of your neighbors might be of like mindset... and you can become an armed community. how do you think folks in the Jungle (you have to be from LA to know this reference) survive? well, people look out for one another. on the same note, know which of your neighbors are sleazebags, crackheads, alcoholics, or cocaine nosejobs. I guarantee you that at least one person on your block uses illegal drugs (or legal drugs illegally). as well, find out which neighbor has a crazy gangster boyfriend, or a little punk of a kid who likes to steal things. get involved, become your blocks' neighborhood watch captian (I am). criminals are much less likely to target you if they know you are casing their house, their lives, just as hard.
10B. Make your property unappealing to crime. this has been said many times, but it bear saying again. keep your house in good repair, so that a broken window stands out. make sure your shrubs do not cover your house - what you gain in privacy you will become a huge problem when the bad guys can lie in wait out of everyone's sight. use see-through walls or fences as opposed to cinderblock barricades. put steel gates on your doors, and stick wooden dowels behind your sliding windows so they can only open a certain amount. don't let your dog bark all hours of the day. even a little yorkie terrier can be trained to be a selective barker - ive dont it myself. you don't want to give any advantages to the invaders. be aware, though, that you shoudln't go too extreme - if you have floodlights and a gatling gun mounted on a 25 foot tower you will be telling everyone that you hav esomething valuable to protect.
11B. know when and where to ****. don't go bragging at a bar about how many guns you have. don't be widely known as the guy who has a "survival cache". defintely don't let people know how many rounds of ammo you have! if you have nothing that needs saying, don't say it. hell, don't even suggest it. your admission of "owning a few handguns" will become "owns a hundred handguns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition for each of them" after your eager listeners play telephone a couple of times. then one of two things will happen: a team of well prepared goons comes by to take your stuff sans permission, or a team of well prepared GOVERNMENT-FUNDED goons will come by to take your stuff sans permission. Remember my thread about Matthew Corwin? Well, this was a guy who had nothing but 100% legal guns, spotless criminal record, and one of the nicest guys (former Army MP) that you could ever meet. The SWAT team stormed into his house, threw everything on the floor, sliced all his electronics cables with cutters, confiscated everything (even the speakers to his computer), and to this day has yet to return his guns - even after he was acquitted of all charges by court order.
that pretty much covers the most common mistakes I see people making down here. notice that I don't say anything about carrying. that's your own perogative, with its own risks. i figure that i dont need to dwell on that given that we are on thr.
stay safe, be assured that it is highly unlikely that you will be killed by gang activity, and enjoy your life.
So, as one who works and lives in what is arguably one of the most crime infested sectors of one of the most crime infested cities in the nation, I'd like to offer up a few suggestions on the proper mindset for one adapted to such living. I'm likely preaching to the choir - but I figure this might be more effective than yet another thread where grim stories of urban violence vie for morbid approval.
anyway, here goes. feel free to add or detract.
--------
1. if there's going to be a fight, don't be there. many times you can figure out ahead of time if there's going to be people throwing down. Big basketball game at the Staples center, valentine's day at some hot club, a police brutality demonstration. Then there are the little ones - like a crowd of thugs hanging out at carl's jr (you won't believe how many people get killed going form or to fast food restaurants), or some shady characters walking real slow or leaing against the wall under a freeway overpass.
2. don't stick out. if you are wearing armani and your date is in a sleek evening dress, don't go walking at night in to the liquor store, or that cheap ethnic restaurant that has great food for little money. likewise, don't go yakking and giggling down the street like a pair of star crossed lovers - you will look like an easy, completely vulnerable target. indeed, you might even be considered offensive to the natives - your overt happiness may be taken as an insult intended to make them feel envious. also, don't let your date call you all sorts of pet names out loud like "pookie" or "sweetie" or "honeybunch". see #3. gangsters ARE racist. they DO like to pick on weaker people. they are NOT misguided youngsters - at least, not when they are banging.
3. don't let your date become dead weight. if you are walking with your date, or even at a restaurant, don't let her become a dead weight. don't let her hang on your arm like a barnacle, don't let her make you hold open doors like prince charming, don't ever let her make you hold her big gucci bag for her while she goes to the powder room. if she is on your arm you cannot react quickly to threats, and at the very least you will look like a pansy, and #2 will apply. save the genteel behavior for the proper setting. remember, this is a different culture, a different set of norms. abide by them. you don't need to be rude to your date - just let her know that you expect her to hold her own; your date should neither get you into fights or hamper you should you get into one. Your goal is to look tough, but neutral.
4. pay for parking. don't be a cheapskate and park way the F out there because you don't think parking ought to be $5 an hour. the natives pay that parking for a reason. parking way out there means you will be on foot for a long time, that your car will be at the mercy of thugs, and that you might wind up unwittingly parking in some crack dealer's favorite spot.
5. when you are driving, drive defensively. and here i don't mean watch the speed limit. you should always keep a cushion distance between you and the car in front - should you need to get out in a hurry, you will need that space. you should never allow yourself to come directly parallel to another car. gangsters watch for this and may consider this a threat or a challenge. and you should DEFINITELY never lean out the window to cuss, flip off another driver, etc. For one thing, this just isn't high road - for another, you may be doing just what the bad guys want - they want you to provoke them into a fight where they can beat you down and prove themselves. If some jackass cuts you off, let him. if they honk at you incessantly, ignore it and get out of the way SAFELY. if they speed up to your window, and cuss you out, and tell you to pull over to fight, KEEP GOING. your car is a 1500+ lb lightly armored vehicle. you can plow through most things if necessary to get to safety. no need to sacrifice that advantage.
6. know where you are going, and how to get there. GPS is great - use it. so are maps. don't assume that you can ask for directions. lots of women consider gas stations safe places to ask for directions. WRONG. the little indian guy behind the counter is scared crapless every night, and it is taking all his courage just to stay at the job. he is NOT going to come running out to help you if he sees you getting mugged, or beaten, or raped. at the very most he will call the cops - and you know how well that works. when seconds count.... the cops are only minutes away. if you must ask for directions, do so from the safety of your mobile car. oh, and while we are on that - make sure you have gas, so you have that aforementioned luxury.
7. always have a plan. how will I get out if I have to in a hurry? what around me can be used as a weapon if I have to? what should my date do if I get in a fight? This is the last, and probably most important of all my suggestions. The wise man thinks ahead, five steps ahead of his enemy. Even if you are IN the middle of a confrontation, keep thinking. Most of the time you will be able to talk your way out of trouble. A grin, a nod, keep moving... away. Or... who should you go after first?
8B. keep your goodies to yourself. animals learn this early on, when they days old. if you let other people know that you have goodies, then they will want to take them from you. this month's National Geographic features an article on animal intelligence, especially that of the bluejays. apparently, jays know that other jays like to steal food. so, if a jay sees another jay watching it hide food, jay#1 will wait until the other jay leaves... then move the hidden food to another hidden location. the same is true for humans. folks should NOT put "Keep Honking I'm Reloading" or "Proud owner of A Small Arsenal" stickers on their cars, homes, etc. besides advertising what goodies are at the place your car goes home to, they would also make DAs look at you kind of funny should you ever need to use a firearm in self defense. corollary to this, of course, is that you should do you very best to NEVER let anyone see you carrying a gun in or out of your house. when I go to the range, i take the time to either load the car in my garage with the door closed, or back my car all the way up so that the trunk is almost inside the garage (if someone is already parked in the garage). I check to make sure no one is looking before i put things in my car, and even so I try hard to use very nondescript packaging. If you are using hard cases, consider switching to rectangular soft cases. these have much less of an outline and don't scream "GUN!!". If you have to use hard cases, or if your gun is so long that even in a soft case it will be conspicious, then use CAMOFLAUGE. how? well, pretend it's a fishing rod. Put "I love to Fish" stickers on your car. Wear a fishing hat. Talk to all the neighbors about how much you like to go fishing with nothing but a big long piece of bamboo and a string. Thow a yellow rain poncho over yoru gun case when moving it in and out of your house. The idea is to be a poor target with a low probability of return. You may be the most vigilant Guardian on the planet - but even you have to leave the house sometime (I hope).
9B. to know your neighbors is to know the enemy. just as the majority of murders are committed by people the victim knows well, the vast majority of burglaries, muggings, and thefts are committed by people that live no more than one or two miles away from the victim. you can bet your bottom dollar that should your home ever be the subject of a home invasion, at least one of the BGs will have been by your house many times before already. so, prempt this. know your neighbors. find out which ones are good people and will call you if a uhaul pulls up to your driveway and starts removing everything while you are at work; find out which ones will actually call the cops if they hear gun shots or bloody screaming coming from your home. or, if you are really lucky, one of your neighbors might be of like mindset... and you can become an armed community. how do you think folks in the Jungle (you have to be from LA to know this reference) survive? well, people look out for one another. on the same note, know which of your neighbors are sleazebags, crackheads, alcoholics, or cocaine nosejobs. I guarantee you that at least one person on your block uses illegal drugs (or legal drugs illegally). as well, find out which neighbor has a crazy gangster boyfriend, or a little punk of a kid who likes to steal things. get involved, become your blocks' neighborhood watch captian (I am). criminals are much less likely to target you if they know you are casing their house, their lives, just as hard.
10B. Make your property unappealing to crime. this has been said many times, but it bear saying again. keep your house in good repair, so that a broken window stands out. make sure your shrubs do not cover your house - what you gain in privacy you will become a huge problem when the bad guys can lie in wait out of everyone's sight. use see-through walls or fences as opposed to cinderblock barricades. put steel gates on your doors, and stick wooden dowels behind your sliding windows so they can only open a certain amount. don't let your dog bark all hours of the day. even a little yorkie terrier can be trained to be a selective barker - ive dont it myself. you don't want to give any advantages to the invaders. be aware, though, that you shoudln't go too extreme - if you have floodlights and a gatling gun mounted on a 25 foot tower you will be telling everyone that you hav esomething valuable to protect.
11B. know when and where to ****. don't go bragging at a bar about how many guns you have. don't be widely known as the guy who has a "survival cache". defintely don't let people know how many rounds of ammo you have! if you have nothing that needs saying, don't say it. hell, don't even suggest it. your admission of "owning a few handguns" will become "owns a hundred handguns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition for each of them" after your eager listeners play telephone a couple of times. then one of two things will happen: a team of well prepared goons comes by to take your stuff sans permission, or a team of well prepared GOVERNMENT-FUNDED goons will come by to take your stuff sans permission. Remember my thread about Matthew Corwin? Well, this was a guy who had nothing but 100% legal guns, spotless criminal record, and one of the nicest guys (former Army MP) that you could ever meet. The SWAT team stormed into his house, threw everything on the floor, sliced all his electronics cables with cutters, confiscated everything (even the speakers to his computer), and to this day has yet to return his guns - even after he was acquitted of all charges by court order.
that pretty much covers the most common mistakes I see people making down here. notice that I don't say anything about carrying. that's your own perogative, with its own risks. i figure that i dont need to dwell on that given that we are on thr.
stay safe, be assured that it is highly unlikely that you will be killed by gang activity, and enjoy your life.
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