[DieHard the Hunter]

> Alone against four or five or more is not the odds a young and civilized kid wants to go against everyday for the foreseeable future.

Alone against four or five opponents would be insurmountable odds for most trained fighters — let alone a civilized kid.

As you said: hand over the lunch money and wait. A sensible response whether it be in the South Bronx or in the South Pacific.

OTOH, if they won’t be satisfied with lunch money, if instead they are after *you*, then a different response is necessary: one that requires tacit acknowledgement that during the next few moments of concentrated violence you are certainly going to get badly hurt. And, hopefully, so will at least one of your assailants.

This is a difficult mental leap for many people to make: it goes contrary to our built-in survival instinct.

[Gideon Reader]

Mr.Hunter,
In the South Pacific it may be, not necessarily, but, just may be somewhat less of a violent urban confrontation area, where young men gather together as predators against those who are not so inclined, i.e., willing to become gang members.
This is NOT a new phenomenon, but a persistent one. At least in North America.(the ONLY place I was born and raised)The South Bronx, then and I suppose now, a violent and hostile area in one of the five boroughs of New York city, where the residents are members of the lowest socio economic class and crime is high to the extreme.
(Not a place to build that lovely little 3/2 with a pool hideaway for you the missus and the kiddies.)
The ideology of Alamo defense, wherein the attacker is the attacked with a furious moment of overpowering and disproportionate violence, placing aside survival a la Masada is not what most young boys consider. And certainly NOT within the context of the time and place of the subject.
That was then. This is now.
To be attacked by four or five young men then, when the victim is a heavy set boy not yet fully grown, whose main interest was reading history and world geography and Jazz music results in the theft of a pittance and shame and humiliation; the frustration of helplessness. But borne with patience.

The same circumstances now pitting four or five young predatory persons against that boy now fully grown six foot one man, vastly experienced in face to face and physical confrontations and very, VERY well trained and knowledgeable of the law and it’s finer demands, and always armed, could find a number of persons no longer with us, or no longer having any interest in such pursuits.
Life is a wonderful teacher. What is more satisfying that a victim who rises to a point wherein the confidence of superiority liberates. I love the Second amendment. It is the equalizing guarantor of freedom. Caution: Do NOT slip on the brass.