https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/11/24/brookline-man-attacked-dirt-bike-atvs-boston/ BOSTON (CBS) – An 82-year-old man was surrounded and assaulted by a group of people riding dirt bikes and ATVs in Boston last Thursday. Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspects. In the past, I had a discussion with an individual on PF who asserted that one never needs a gun. Just some martial arts training. Well I have to ask. What sort of Kung Foolishness training enables an 82 year old man to defend himself against a mob.
People that claim that about martial arts watch to many movies. I remember those karate and taekwondo kids getting their asses kicked pretty regular.
A guy with a gun can take out a martial arts master at 20 yards. Actually, a lot farther than that with a GOOD gun.
The only people that can't take martial arts masters are students that have bought into the bullshit.
I never got into it, although the Army taught me some basic hand-t0-hand stuff. I was a Field Artillery Officer. Its much better to take out the bad guys at 60 kilometers than it is to wait until they can stab you.
In what to me were the old days, many if not most of the martial arts instructors teaching were ex Korean military. They were easily identified by the two enlarged knuckles on each hand. IMHO these people were likely effective fighters. Then we seemed to "progress" into an era of martial arts being taught by by the students of the 1rst generation of instructors, i.e., people who learned to fight in strip mall dojos. Many of whom had never been in a real fight. At this point I think martial arts seriously devolved with respect to practicality. However, with the emergence of BJJ and MMA I think there is a resurgence of martial arts instructors who can fight. Of course when they get to be 82 years old they will not be able to fight off a mob or even fight a mob in their prime. I have seen many times people posting in gun control discussions on more than one forum claiming that one doesn't need a gun, just martial arts training. Which of course is absurd total BS. IMHO, the appropriate protection tool for a mob would be a 20 round Ruger-57. Low recoil and a lot of firepower.
I'm just basing it on the proposition in this thread - that if the 82 year old had a gun, he would have been fine. But what if the goons had guns? Would he be safe then?
What is the relationship between criminals having guns and honest people having guns? Do gun laws keep criminals from having guns?
Well MMA seems to be made up of fighters and not martial artists. It's one thing to learn the technique and people who take martial arts that's all they learn. It's a whole other thing to learn how to fight. If you ask me the best way to learn how to fight is fight. Don't practice your moves on one another in the classroom but fight. And to me that's the difference between MMA which seems to be in name only and martial arts. You'll never learn how to get out of a pin unless you're actually pinned.
Goons prefer unarmed victims. Not only would he be safer, fewer goons would risk their own lives attacking the weak. Also, fewer goons will live to attack again. Its a win win. I love seeing headlines like: 82-year-old South Carolina man kills intruder who cut wife The couple told the Aiken County Sheriff's Office the man forced his way into their home in Jackson on Monday afternoon and attacked them with a knife.
No one is ever entirely safe out in public, guns or no guns. But even large groups of criminals are still large groups of individuals who each (usually) fear death. Strength in numbers means a lot less when the target can still kill one or a few of the group. An unarmed 82 year old man poses no threat to a group of unarmed criminals. An armed 82-year old man poses a lethal threat, perhaps not to the group as a whole, but certainly to each individual member of the group, even if they are also all armed. This means the reason they're attacking the old man has to seem be worth the risk of death. If it doesn't, they won't attack. An armed society isn't about eliminating criminal violence (utopian fantasies are just fantasies). Its about making criminal violence a more risky proposition for the criminals. And if that reasoning doesn't work for you, feel free to look up the studies showing that the majority of incarcerated criminals report that they have avoided committing crimes when they knew or thought their victim was likely armed. Criminals are just as prone to fearing death as the rest of us, and tend to alter their behavior to prevent it. If they had feared that this man could've shot (even just one of) them, he would not have been worth toying with for fun.
And further to that (since editing time is up), in this case, no the old man would not have been fine if he'd had a gun, because the mob of criminals would'nt have had any reason to suspect that he likely did have a gun, and would've attacked. Upon one or more of them being shot, its likely the mob would've become enraged and done worse to him than break his windows and punch him a few times. What would have likely prevented this crime is if the old man had been in an area where the criminals knew people were more likely to be armed, and thus had reason to fear that he might be as well. This is why this sort of random public violence (as well as other types of criminal violence) decreases dramatically per capita in rural demographics where people are more likely to be armed. Put simply, the criminals are more worried about getting shot when their victims are more likely to be armed.
