What happens when there is a "Good Guy with a Gun"

[Ziggy Stardust]

Were Native Americans or other undesireable often counted in murder statistics for that period?

Hard to say. If it happened in a major settlement (like Dodge City), it likely would have been counted. But not sure how often that would have occurred. If it was out on the frontier or in a small mining town, for example, it is highly likely it wouldn't have been (of course, in those locales even murders of white people were unlikely to have been reported to any central authority).

[Jub]

One, not all criminals are hypercompetent ambush predators. They sometimes screw up the whole 'ambush someone and be ready to kill them before they know what's going on' thing.

Are you willing to risk that to save your possessions or would you rather hand over your wallet and let your bank and insurance take care of the loss? The vast majority of criminals just want you to hand over your stuff and stay still long enough that they can get clear before you report the crime.

Two, there are many categories of violence that do not start instantly- there is posturing, menacing, or an exchange of threats. Again, undermining the 'if you're really in danger you'll have a gun pointed at your chest before you know what's happening' argument.

That's not typical outside of gang on gang violence. If you see that sort of thing happening your best bet is to get clear, not to shoot back. If that type of behavior is aimed at you your best bet is to play along, act cowed, and leave once they get bored. The average criminal isn't the kind of sicko you make horror movies about.

Three, the prospect of an armed victim can still be a deterrent because the criminal does not know what might happen, except that it now includes a non-zero possibility of dying. Whereas when robbing an unarmed victim, the probability of dying is pretty much zero. The criminal might have a great advantage, but the advantage of surprise is not the same as having absolute control of the situation and uncontested power of life and death over the victim.

I imagine there are very few muggers who would carry through a plan to mug someone if you told them that person was carrying a gun, even if they did plan to have the advantage of surprise.

I stop even trying to mug people at that stage, I start to shoot and loot. That or I move into property crime, which is where most smart criminals are anyway. Auto theft, fraud, smash and grabs; those are all already more common and profitable crimes than muggings.

The converse is that medical science was a lot less advanced, so you were more likely to die of an injury that today you'd almost certainly survive with competent medical care.

Would you rather eat a modern 9mm round that is designed to cavitate on its way through you with modern technology, or take a flesh wound through your leathers and have it dug out with tweezers and disinfected with alcohol? The wild west lacks a lot of medical technologies, among them is effective pain treatment, but it isn't some pre-germ theory shithole.

Do you have evidence that gunshot wounds were on average less likely to cause death then?

No, and given that we can't even get good census data or figure out the actual violent crime rates we're never going to have that data. We can however, look at muzzle energies for bullets, the kinds of clothing people wore back then, the accuracy of both weapon and shooter and figure out that guns were far less effective back then than they are now.

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The "heroic citizen with a gun" scenario is more applicable to one to many style robberies, i.e. a situation where a criminal holds up an entire convenience store or restaurant (like the anecdote I posted above) - not "one to one" style robberies where a criminal holds up a single person.

Even in those cases it's safer for everybody, would be hero included, to stay down at let the criminals take the goods. This is what insurance is for.

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No, they were just exposed lead which deformed far more readily than modern jacketed ones and being subsonic they had a tendency to stop on impact as opposed to zip on through for modern rounds. "Stopping power", in so much as it actually counts, is far far far more common with older subsonic rounds.

I should have said something like lethality instead of stopping power. However you would have known that from context, so this is really just you pointlessly trying to drag things off topic.

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Yeah, the older rounds could knock you over a little more reliably and fuck you up fairly well. .45 was the common revolver round at the time, as were any array of rifle rounds ranging from .30 to .58. Average rounds nowadays are more like 9mm (.35, more or less) for pistols and 5.56mm (.21) or 7.62 (.30) for rifles, they make up for the smaller size by being far more speedy, which helps compensate for having less brute-force impact.

Bear in mind also that people tended to wear more layers of clothes-- jacket, vest, shirt, undershirt, as opposed to maybe a shirt and undershirt these days. That would absorb the force of a subsonic cartridge to some degree, but it wouldn't stop them completely. Contributes to less fatalities though. A .45 Peacemaker lead ball will blow through your clothes, but it'll probably stop somewhere in you with a neat wad cut out of your clothing in there too. Modern rounds will penetrate through entirely (usually leaving a nasty exit) and fatality is more assured. With the older rounds (as long as you didn't get your head blown off or an artery torn), either they dig it out of you and you heal up, or you die a few days later from infection.

This was what I was getting at. Thanks for doing a better job of making that point than I myself was able to.

[Simon_Jester]

The stupid ones do, yes. It is a very dangerous assumption to bank your life on. The goal of a criminal is to get something from you for nothing and they go into a situation prepared to use violence to get what they want. In other words, they are primed to go off instantly if they do not get what they want and against a normal person, that is enough, because by the time they manage to process they are under threat or under attack, they are already in a position where they cannot offer effective resistance. And if the other guy has a gun, knife, crowbar or something like that, has any element of surprise or advantage and the willingness to do violence, ineffective resistance means you will be either dead or severely injured before it's through. You can mitigate this by situational awareness, meaning you pay enough attention to your surroundings to spot trouble before you end up ambushed. Criminals also tend to be very good at spotting people who possess situational awareness and those who don't, and they will always go for the latter. They want maximum gain for minimum risk, not a confrontation where there is a risk of shit going sideways.

I would argue that increasing citizens' level of vigilance against crime is also desirable, perhaps even more desirable than widely distributing guns. Unfortunately, there is no nationwide movement in the US calling for "how not to get mugged/raped/etc" training- and I DO think that's unfortunate."

At the same time... you are literally saying "they want maximum gain for minimum risk," and meanwhile I have been saying words along the line of "increased risk is liable to deter criminals." I would think those two statements go hand-in-hand.

A high risk of violent confrontation between citizens and criminals going badly for the criminal will not eliminate all types of crime. However, it may well eliminate some types of crime (e.g. home invasions when there is risk of the owner being present). Or at least greatly reduce their frequency relative to other types of crime (e.g. car theft)- which can in turn be countered by other means.

Two, there are many categories of violence that do not start instantly- there is posturing, menacing, or an exchange of threats. Again, undermining the 'if you're really in danger you'll have a gun pointed at your chest before you know what's happening' argument.

Learn the difference between territorial and predatory violence. Territorial violence is like this, all raised hackles, growling, barking, postures, trying to make the other guy back down before you need to resort to actual violence. That's the whole point of threat displays.

Predatory violence, such as a mugger, robber, rapist or similar is not interested in this. They are interested in getting what they want from you by force and resistance makes them go off because they're already committed to violence. It just escalates directly several stages.

Yes, I've read the same website you have.

One issue here is that there are a lot of law-abiding citizens who are at least concerned about being targets of random or territorial violence because the self-identified 'territory' of violent people happens to overlap with the areas they live and work. Or because violent people like to get drunk next door to where they live, and they don't have a lot of freedom to move- Broomstick's posted about problems like that anecdotally a few times over the past few years, just as an illustration of the concept.

This is exacerbated by the US's poor social safety net- and I am totally in favor of improving that net and think it would be much better to do that than to just buy all Americans a concealed handgun or something idiotic like that.

However, it is willfully misrepresenting the arguments of... let's call them armament-philes... to ignore the part where many law-abiding citizens simply cannot avoid ALL the violence that occurs in their society, and some of them would deeply appreciate the ability to ensure that they at least pose enough of a threat that they are unlikely to be casually victimized.

What this does is change the calculation on the criminal's part from "I'll threaten him with violence to hand over his money" to "I'll blow his brains out from behind and take his money". The prospect of possible armed resistance if the victim gets forewarning makes such encounters far more dangerous and lethal for armed and unarmed robbery victims alike, because the robber has already decided on a course of action and he doesn't care if you live or die as long ash e gets what he wants.

Alternatively, the robbers decide to find another kind of crime to commit instead, because committing a murder tends to get you targeted by a lot more police attention than committing a robbery. You might get away with it a few times, but you're not going to get away with it many times.

I imagine there are very few muggers who would carry through a plan to mug someone if you told them that person was carrying a gun, even if they did plan to have the advantage of surprise.

Yeah, but how many of them actually know beforehand? You're dealing with fucking fantasy situations here.

Remember, the original premise is "what if a larger percentage of the population were armed?"

Suppose that by act of Q, suddenly (say) 40% of all people were carrying a concealed handgun, and (say) 70% of homes were defended by people with firearms. And would-be muggers and burglars were aware of this. I strongly suspect a lot of the muggers and burglars would find something else to do, something less risky. YES, in theory they could all respond by just becoming far more ruthless and murderous... but that's not the only possible response, and it's not even the only fairly likely response.

Seriously, try to get at least a passing familiarity with the topic before you begin spouting bullshit about it. This is a good place to start. The primary author is someone who has studied violence and its prevention for decades and who grew up as a street criminal before he got clean. What he writes makes a lot more sense than any of the stuff you're spewing here. Be prepared to spend several days perusing that place if you intend to read it thoroughly.

Already spent them.

The thing is, while he makes an excellent point that it's stupid to load yourself down with weapons (or martial arts 'training', or whatever) that you aren't competent and willing to use, and that much of it is likely to fail you if you are ambushed by a competent criminal...

He also talks extensively about how criminals are often people who make rational decisions based on fairly realistic cost-benefit analyses, allowing for the fact that they care a lot less than normal citizens about things like "going to jail" and "hurting other people." The prevalence of guns in a society would certainly tend to affect a cost-benefit analysis.

One, not all criminals are hypercompetent ambush predators. They sometimes screw up the whole 'ambush someone and be ready to kill them before they know what's going on' thing.

Are you willing to risk that to save your possessions or would you rather hand over your wallet and let your bank and insurance take care of the loss? The vast majority of criminals just want you to hand over your stuff and stay still long enough that they can get clear before you report the crime.

I might well be quite willing to say to a hypothetical criminal "welp, you got the drop on me, here have my wallet." But by the same token, that hypothetical criminal may well not want to take the risk of getting the drop on someone who might be armed and vigilant. They might decide to do something else for a living.

Two, there are many categories of violence that do not start instantly- there is posturing, menacing, or an exchange of threats. Again, undermining the 'if you're really in danger you'll have a gun pointed at your chest before you know what's happening' argument.

That's not typical outside of gang on gang violence. If you see that sort of thing happening your best bet is to get clear, not to shoot back...

Since I am personally acquainted with multiple people who have been attacked by posturing violent asses in situations that did not permit them the luxury of running away (at least three off the top of my head)... forgive me if I do not assume you are totally right that this is a panacea. And if I continue to sympathize with those who would like the means of convincing an attacker that committing random violence against them is not just boring, but outright dangerous."

I stop even trying to mug people at that stage, I start to shoot and loot. That or I move into property crime, which is where most smart criminals are anyway. Auto theft, fraud, smash and grabs; those are all already more common and profitable crimes than muggings.

Yes- and those can all be countered by other means, plus they no longer directly threaten your physical safety. Which is kind of the point. Arming law-abiding citizens won't ensure the safety of their property, but there is a sane theoretical argument for it ensuring the safety of their persons.

This theoretical argument may not be supported by the data. But it isn't something so laughable that it should be treated with disdain.

The converse is that medical science was a lot less advanced, so you were more likely to die of an injury that today you'd almost certainly survive with competent medical care.

Would you rather eat a modern 9mm round that is designed to cavitate on its way through you with modern technology, or take a flesh wound through your leathers and have it dug out with tweezers and disinfected with alcohol? The wild west lacks a lot of medical technologies, among them is effective pain treatment, but it isn't some pre-germ theory shithole.

Do you have statistics to back this up?

If not, will you please stop making grossly arrogant assertions that you have special knowledge of 19th century gunshot wounds?