GOOD READ: found while reading news:
He shot an unarmed man!
He wasnt armed! Police had no reason to shoot him!
How often have we heard those screams from an angry community? Trayvon Martin may be the first to come mind but it happens more often than most people think. Kansas City firefighter Anthony Bruno, unarmed and drunk, was shot and killed by an off duty police officer. And, of course, the most recent case of Michael Brown in St. Louis, Missouri.
The problem with the public outcry and the rioting in pursuit of JUSTICE is that most people know exactly nothing about physical combat and life threatening situations. They assume that if a person is unarmed that deadly force cannot and should not be employed. And they are wrong.
Have you seen the viral videos of the knockout game? Many of those videos involve one solid blow to the head that results in an unconscious victim. There is laughing and yelling and everyone runs away. Well, what if they didnt want to stop there? What if the attacker decided that he would just kill someone today? He now has an unconscious, helpless victim to beat to death.
Take the case of Michael Fobbs as an example. He walked up to a man sitting on a bench and simply started hitting him repeatedly until the man was dead at an Amtrak station in Texas. Would that victim have been authorized the use of deadly force? Fobbs was unarmed.
Bear in mind that more people were beaten to death with hands and feet than were killed by so-called assault rifles in 2012. Those victims were not allowed to use deadly force simply because their attacker did not have a weapon? I think not. Laws on self defense seldom mention the use of a weapon. They are based on a reasonable fear that your life is in jeopardy, not the presence of a weapon in the hands of your attacker.
You may have missed the television programs on the science of fighting. In that series, Randy Couture was studied. In his well-known ground and pound method of dispatching an opponent, Couture was able to generate over 2,000 pounds of force in his downward blows to an opponents head. Thats the equivalent of dropping a car on your face. Trained fighters seldom take the full force of those blows because they are moving and defending with their own arms and hands but what if the victim was not a trained fighter? Couture, and any other trained fighter, could kill you with just a couple of blows to the head.
The rise in popularity of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA style sports has also added new weapons to the attackers hands only arsenal. Have you ever been choked out? In MMA sports, the defender can tap out or the referee can end the fight and pull the attacker off of you. In the real world, you will be choked until you die. Thats a real fight.
So, if your attacker is unarmed and gets you in a choke, is that it? Youre just going to let yourself die because you wont use lethal force against an unarmed opponent? How about if you are on your back being hammered in the face and you are moments away from losing consciousness and eventual death? Just going to accept your fate? I seriously doubt that.
Im not. If Im armed, Im going to kill you. Dead.
If a cop walks up to someone out of the blue, draws his pistol, and shoots them dead in the street, thats one thing. But, shooting an unarmed assailant during a fight in the street is another. You do not know the intentions of the attacker and cannot allow yourself to be overpowered or knocked unconscious. You will only be another statistic.
You also have no idea if your attacker IS armed and they just havent used their weapon yet. You cant wait until you are unable to defend yourself to find out. I suspect most of you reading this would not. So, why are we judging a police officer who makes the same decision you would make under the same circumstances?
Get a reality check, folks.
Ross