ARMED RESISTANCE TO CRIME: THE PREVALENCE AND NATURE OF SELF-DEFENSE WITH A GUN

Crime victims used to be ignored by criminologists. Then, beginning slowly in the 1940s and more rapidly in the 1970s, interest in the victim's role in crime grew. Yet a tendency to treat the victim as either a passive target of another person's wrongdoing or as a virtual accomplice of the criminal limited this interest. The concept of the victim-precipitated homicide [1] highlighted the possibility that victims were not always blameless and passive targets, but that they sometimes initiated or contributed to the escalation of a violent interaction through their own actions, which they often claimed were defensive.

Perhaps due to an unduly narrow focus on lower-class male-on-male violence, scholars have shown little openness to the possibility that a good deal of "defensive" violence by persons claiming the moral status of a victim may be just that. Thus, many scholars routinely assumed that a large share of violent interactions are "mutual combat" involving two blameworthy parties who each may be regarded as both offender and victim. The notion that much violence is one- sided and that many victims of violence are largely blameless is dismissed as naive.

Thus, many 'scholars' routinely assumed that a large share of violent interactions are "mutual combat" involving two blameworthy parties who each may be regarded as both offender and victim.

Right there is a big part of the problem.

Please refer to 'figures don't lie, but liars will figure'.

All the papers and studies in the world notwithstanding, see also '.. shall NOT be infringed.'

This is huge in the black community. Many times where a crime has been stopped with a gun, no one will admit or volunteer that information. Many times people are ignorant of gun laws and go with the myths.
Another factor could be called the greyman syndrome whereas people do not want the police running serial numbers on a weapon because they believe it automatically goes into a data base, kinda like automatically registering a gun to a particular individual. They want the association between them and the gun anonymous. This of course in states like Florida where we have no registration and do not do background checks on private sales.

I really see the need for accurate crime simulation software.

The basic idea is to create a video game like setup, in which you are armed with variables of your fists, a knife, and a gun in various modes of function (unloaded, loaded, round in chamber, safety off/on, open carry, concealed carry (belt level, shoulder, mid-abdomen, pocket, leg, ankle).

Likewise your opponent has numerous variables, including time of day, illumination, distance, how many of them, their size, armed or not, intoxicated or not, their intent, whether they are unarmed, armed with sharp or blunt objects or guns, functionality of gun. Overall experience level of criminal. etc., etc.

In a realistic simple scenario, say a one-to-one with an armed opponent attempting to mug you. What you would see on the screen is a “red light/green light”, in fractions of a second in which you should not or can attack the criminal.

That is, unsheath or unholster your weapon and attack them with it and how, when the light is green, based on your simulated speed of action.

The point of this exercise is both to show the huge advantages of being armed, even against an armed opponent, and (my prejudice) the even far greater advantages of concealed carry.

Imagine for a moment, a slightly intoxicated mugger, in daytime, in an urban area with people around; whose attention is distracted looking out for witnesses and police; who does not know you have concealed carry.

At frequent intervals on your screen you see that green light, over and over again, lasting from a fraction of a second to two or three seconds, where you can draw and fire likely before the criminal can react.

This would pound home the ginormous advantages to having a gun.

The video game company that made this software would get very rich indeed.

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