Posted on 09/04/2007 7:36:50 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter
NITPICK ALERT!! NITPICK ALERT!!
It's not a privilege. It's a human right.
Other than that, great story my friend.
L
Gidday Dave, great to hear from you as always. That’s me at 2:30 You write:
> Most self-defense altercations occur within 15 feet, and very few people (certainly very few criminals) can cross this distance and neutralize the armed citizen without getting shot. Even fewer will try.
I should check that if I were you: there is a well-accepted theory that 21 feet is about as close as you would ever want to allow a Bad Head to get, because he can probably cover that distance in 2.5 seconds. Here is a link to an article I generally agree with: http://www.usadojo.com/articles/21-feet-valid.htm
Also, check out the techniques taught by Applegate in that manual I sent you — the Bad Heads know how to do these things, and you only have to get a little bit off-line in order to have the bullet miss entirely. And a miss is as good as a mile.
> But from what you say here, you indicate that the 2nd Amendment is preferable, when other posts and communications indicate to me that you consider unarmed resistance superior.
This may seem like a dichotomy: it’s not. I believe that an armed populace is healthy for government, and so it has proven in America for over 200 years.
And I don’t really have difficulty with the idea of the average Citizen having firearms available as a weapon for self-defense. I wish we had that right in NZ. We don’t.
And, as you know, I believe that having the ability to defend yourself with-or-without weapons is highly desirable.
I definitely believe that you should not be carrying a firearm unless you also possess the capability of defending that firearm with your bare hands if necessary. Because of the 21 foot rule, it is possible that one day, it becomes necessary.
If I was a Bad Head, and I suspected that you were untrained in self-defense, and that your pistol was your only means of protecting yourself, I would rush you 100% of the time and take your gun off you: why not? The odds would, perversely enough, be in my favor.
I say again: you should not carry a firearm, concealed or no, unless you can defend that firearm with your bare hands. Otherwise you risk arming a Bad Head, and having your firearm used against you and against others.
> The GA’s are very visible with their bright-red jackets and berets. Airplane companies, when they put federal marshals on board plans, put them in plain (or, if you like, PLANE, ha ha) clothes so that anyone intent on making trouble won’t know if they’re in for opposition.
That’s the whole idea: being a visible deterrent. I’m not into playing mind-games with the Bad Heads: I like them to know that there are Angels about, and to be deterred. That is why we dress in red berets and gleaming scarlet jackets: we stick out like dog’s bollix. The end justifies the means: if crime is deterred — perfect.
And people know that anyone dressed in a red beret and gleaming scarlet jacket is someone who will help them. We try to visibly be one of the Good Guys.
When we fly on planes, we wear our berets and jackets, too, and we make ourselves known to the flight crew. I don’t mind if the Bad Heads know that there are a couple of big burly martial artists in seats 12 A and F dressed in scarlet that they are going to need to neutralize if they want to take over the plane. Good luck to them! I hope they think twice, and then once again. Mission accomplished, crime deterred.
Because we are an unarmed foot patrol, we cover the ground pretty quickly and quietly: just because we are visible doesn’t necessarily mean the Bad Heads see us coming — often they don’t. And so far, in NZ we have only had to use force once: mostly it comes down to people skills.
I could tell you a story about a child molesterer who got the shock of his misbegotten life. One moment he was alone in the bush, lurking for kids and reading kiddie porn and drinking beer and munching KFC. The next moment he was surrounded by six Guardian Angels with very stern experessions on their faces, encouraging him to leave the area immediately and to never return. And after he had peed himself in fright, he left!
Or about the young punks who had gotten together for a nite out bashing Street People. You should have seen the look on the old fella’s face: one minute he was about to get a bashing. The next minute, seven Guardian Angels in gleaming scarlet had made a wall of safety around him, facing down the punks, tipping out their alcohol (they were underage) writing down their ID and encouraging them to leave. Now.
Or I could tell you a story about how twenty gangstas having a knife fight ran from three Angels who had materialized out of nowhere. “@#%%!! It’s the Guardian Angels! Run!!!” — and so they did.
I could tell you these stories because I was there for each of them. Visible deterrence is a very good thing.
> Just from most of our perspectives, armed resistance can be and is a superior and more effective form of defense or deterrence.
In New Zealand our cops patrol unarmed, and they actively resist every attempt to arm them. Why is that, I wonder?
>> In New Zealand our cops patrol unarmed, and they actively resist every attempt to arm them. Why is that, I wonder?
> You tell me.
Apparently, they believe that arming themselves “ups the ante” with Bad Heads, making every confrontation a potentially armed one.
I’m not convinced of the validity of this argument, but on the surface it does make a certain degree of sense.
> Methinks New Zealand sees more sophisticated “bad heads” than we do. The techniques you suggest require training. Most bad guys here don’t train.
Now that surprises me. I would have thought it a career pre-requisite for a Crim to spend at least some time learning his craft. What else is there for him to do whilst in gaol, except buff up at the gym and run away from his cellmate?
...all of this in front of my wife, who was talking to me on the cellphone, terrified, giving me a blow-by-blow account of what was going on.
Just Damn!
My wife and I have an agreement. I go to war zones and she stays safe. She isn’t happy about it but that’s too bad.
Stay safe out there!
Might want to wear a vest beneath that jacket in the winter time to keep warm:
http://www.bulletproofme.com/
yes, but do you wear the shirt “honk if you’ve never seen a gun fired from a moving harley”? :)
I tripped across this thread, somehow....?
I HIGHLY commend you for what you’re doing in YOUR COUNTRY!!! And, for recommending we too, do something similar in ours...
Stay safe out there, OK?
And everyone else...knock off with the macho comments. Sheesh.
He's obviously doing the best he can with the law as it is in where he lives. Can't blame him personally for the anti-gun laws over in his country any more then you canbe blamed for President Obama. Majority rule has the say.
You are a good man DTH!
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