99.5% of Americans will never be a victim of violent crime

Started by Jmpty, March 15, 2013, 11:18:41 AM

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Johan

Quote from: "Plu"
Quote from: "Jmpty"I'm with you, Shiranu. I don't like those odds. If there's a half a percent chance I'm going to be a victim, I'm busting a cap in somebody's ass.

Thus substantially upping the odds.
Oh here we go again.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful

gussy

For most people, the odds are even less .5%.  Most violent crime is concentrated in certain neighborhoods in certain cities.  Living in those areas is very dangerous.  Traveling through them at night can be dangerous.  If you can manage to avoid them, you probably don't have much to worry about.

Plu

Quote from: "Johan"
Quote from: "Plu"
Quote from: "Jmpty"I'm with you, Shiranu. I don't like those odds. If there's a half a percent chance I'm going to be a victim, I'm busting a cap in somebody's ass.

Thus substantially upping the odds.
Oh here we go again.

A lot of people seem to be thinking this was about "busting a cap in somebody's ass", but this was not an argument about guns at all. This was an argument about fear culture, and striking pre-emptively when you feel you're being threatened.

It doesn't matter how you severely react, if you say "I'm going to strike first if I feel even the slightest chance of being a victim", you're going to be a major cause of violent crime in the world.

And that is actually quite hard to deny. It's a simple fact. Only one of the two sides has to strike for a violent crime to occur. If you're likely to be the one striking, you're going to be the cause of a lot of crime. Don't put the blame on the guy you think might maybe strike you.

That kind of attitude is a major issue. It's likely to make things worse in any kind of confrontation.

SilentFutility

Quote from: "gussy"For most people, the odds are even less .5%.  Most violent crime is concentrated in certain neighborhoods in certain cities.  Living in those areas is very dangerous.  Traveling through them at night can be dangerous.  If you can manage to avoid them, you probably don't have much to worry about.
While true, it is worrying that areas are allowed to become "no-go" areas that are effectively abandoned by the state and wider society and are accepted as segregated from the rest of society.

This is not a problem unique to the US, but I do feel that when areas begin to become like this a solution needs to be aggressively pursued, both a tough, zero-tolerance approach to crime with a lot of visible police presence and a lot of work to address grassroots causes of criminality in the area such as poverty, lack of social mobility, lack of support services and so on.

It is a shame though, that as people living in these areas are typically a relatively small part of the population, and they are also the least educated, they are typically ignored, swept under the carpet and don't have much of a voice. For a large majority of people, these areas are simply be avoided, and problem solved, which is probably why nothing ever gets done about them and the people living there are largely abandoned.