Sean has a post up of yet another person killed wounded AFTER they complied with the robber’s wishes. These cases are quite common, the most horrific in my mind is the Long Island Pharmacy Massacre.
People often say not to use lethal force over “Stuff”. As a matter of fact Michael Bane talks about this at length in his most recent podcast. “I will not shoot you over my Wallet”, “I will not shoot you over my TV” “I will not shoot you over my Car” etc etc. And he’s right. If somebody takes my wallet I’m out the cash, gift cards, and various other non-refundable items, like my train pass. I’ll need to chat with officer friendly to get a police report done about the theft, and I’ll need to get my various credit and debit cards, as well as my licenses to drive and carry cancelled and replaced. That’s a SHITLOAD of work, but better than having to kill somebody, right? (Never killed anybody, so I can’t really speak about that, certainly I wouldn’t shed a tear hearing somebody ELSE killing some jerk willing to do that)
But is that really the point of contention? Let’s mock-up a mugging for a wallet.
Thug Presents a weapon or implied weapon and in-so-many-words presents this offering point: “Give me your wallet or I will kill you.”
Now lets assume he’s not bluffing. There’s no way to tell, and the antis LOVE to give violent and dangerous people the benefit of the doubt. I think any rational person should see the error in that. I don’t associate with anybody who rob somebody or so much as THREATEN violence to get something they wish to take. The people willing to do something so dastardly are not the best and brightest of the world. They are not the people you should EVER trust, or give the benefit of the doubt.
As a general rule unless its some snot-nosed Ritalin-kid mouthing off, I’m going to assume they do indeed mean to kill me over something as trivial as my wallet.
Let’s assume I do simply hand over my wallet and chalk it up for a loss. What has actually exchanged hands? My attacker now has my wallet and its contents, but I have NOTHING new in the exchange. As you can see in the above stories you are in just as much danger AFTER you comply as before. The only thing you have is your agreement in a social contract with somebody who has already demonstrated that they have both no respect for human life, nor any honor to larger social contracts like “Don’t threaten murder” and “Don’t Rob People”.
Furthermore besides the cash and credit cards which are to the immediate benefit of the robber, what else is in your wallet? Well for starters my full name and home address. My gun permits. This will tell any thief willing think about it where the house of the guy who complies lives, and not only is there the usual stuff, but there’s also guns. Also if you have business cards in your wallet, they now know where you work. There’s all sorts of other information that can be gleaned.
So even if the robber runs away with your wallet, who’s to say the danger is done?
BTW the same can be said if they take your car, many of us keep various useful items in our car that might lead back to us if somebody takes it.
I think I can say with a high degree of confidence that you are in WORSE shape complying with a robber than resisting.
Furthermore let’s look at the “contract”: “Give me X or I will kill you.”
really is that first part even relevant? Again you get NOTHING out of the bargain, and quite possibly that “or” could turn out to be an “and” as the above cases. Really how that contract REALLY reads is: “I will Kill You!” and that’s how I read it.
The closest a mugger will get to my property is if I pull out my wallet and toss it on the ground to draw his attention away from my gun as it comes out of the holster.
I will not kill somebody over my property, but somebody willing to threaten me FOR my property is willing to kill me no matter what I do. I WILL kill over that.
