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What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?


  • Total voters
    37

H. Lee White

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What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.
 
What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.

A potential attacker can stop the victim from reaching for the cell phone, seizing it, dialing for help, and explaining the situation. It's a lot harder for the attacker to deal with an armed and dangerous victim.
 
What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.

I am going to have to say B. The only thing a potential producing a cellphone is going to do is make the criminal laugh his ass off and significantly increase the likelihood that the potential victim is going to be murdered.
 
Didn't we just see this thread?
 
In all honesty, it is hard to say exactly.

Many small-fry, minor annoyances and wannabe-badguys could be scared off my putting the cellphone to your ear and saying "I just dialed 911".

Determined attackers, hardened criminals, and serious hardcases will laugh, take the phone away and insert it for you as a suppository.


OTOH, a gun in the hands of someone who looks like they'll use it is an entirely different matter. Most do not want to go there. There are easier prey in the sea.
 
I have an app on my phone that has a virtual revolver that I can load and shoot, it even makes firing sounds.
 
Well for someone like me it would be rather easy to just scare them off since I am pretty tall. Just attract a lot of attention to yourself and and act intimidating and you can scare most of them away. In other cases it's rather hard for them to stab you if they don't have eyeballs or something in their eyeballs.
 
Much as I hate to say it the phone would actually be more useful than it sounds because a good deterent against criminals is disorientation, if they need to think that takes them out of their comfort zone, & many low level criminals will get out of there at that point.

On the other hand though fear is an even better motivator, so if you can point a gun at someone then in a lot of cases its not only going to disorientate the bad guy its going to make him a little worried about his safety & at that point he might consider doing a Usain Bolt impersonation, & Im not talking about the post race pose, Im talking running like a rocket.
 
What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.

B, obviously. It's a matter of comparing the time spent to produce a threat to your attacker.
With a revolver: Produce the weapon and get it ready to fire, which takes roughly a second or two, depending on the weapon and the person using it.
With a cell phone: Produce the phone, wake the phone, dial the number, explain what's going on. Some of those steps may be unnecessary, based on the phone and your location, but, in any case, it would still take a lot longer.
 
Well for someone like me it would be rather easy to just scare them off since I am pretty tall. Just attract a lot of attention to yourself and and act intimidating and you can scare most of them away. In other cases it's rather hard for them to stab you if they don't have eyeballs or something in their eyeballs.
So... A or B?
 
What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.

Every one carries a cell phone. A revolver may be more effective in this situation but far less practical in general, more likely to do harm than good.
 
Every one carries a cell phone. A revolver may be more effective in this situation but far less practical in general, more likely to do harm than good.


More likely to do harm to the attacker you mean... which is kinda the point...
 
A potential attacker can stop the victim from reaching for the cell phone, seizing it, dialing for help, and explaining the situation. It's a lot harder for the attacker to deal with an armed and dangerous victim.

911 enter is probably easier than using a revolver, particularly for someone who isn't trained or normally uses guns.

Though if the assaulter doesn't care about consequences than a revolver would be more effective.
 
The question revolves around between the two options, and so no other options exist.
So... A or B?
And then.. why do you feel the need to avoid the question?

At least here a cellphone.
 
What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?

A: Potential victim producing a cell phone and promising to call the police to report the attacker, should he not go away.
B: Potential victim producing a revolver and promising to perforate the attacker, should he not go away.

Hello everyone! :2wave:

In answering the poll question "What do you suppose has stopped more violent crime?" I answered Choice B: Revolver.

A fairly decent description of violent crime can be found on Wikipedia: "A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end, (including criminal ends) such as robbery. Violent crimes include crimes committed with weapons."

The article narrows the definition even further when speaking about violent crime in the U.S.: "The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) counts five categories of crime as violent crimes: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault."

Looking at the question (using the word "stopped" and not the word "prevented") would to me indicate ending a violent crime that has already begun; and in such an instance I do not think that a cell phone would stop a criminal once they have initiated such a crime.

I only bring up such detail about the words because after reading the question and then the two ready made answers, I felt that there was only one reasonable answer in the first place (which for me shut down the debate before it was able to start! :( ).
 
ask the asshole whose colon and rectum were "violently displaced" from a contact hit of a PMC jacketed 124 grain Hollowpoint hitting him at about 1150 FPS out of a second generation Smith and Wesson 469 Semi Automatic handgun
 
More likely to do harm to the attacker you mean... which is kinda the point...

No I mean to yourself.

If you're in a gang then the likely hood of a gun being useful is high. In which case I would recommend it. For your average Joe you're more likely to hurt than protect yourself with a gun.

Also people aren't the most rational and brightest. Often times people shoot before thinking, happened plenty of times.


To OP. Should probably strike "revolver" and replace with "gun"
 
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No I mean to yourself.

If you're in a gang then the likely hood of a gun being useful is high. In which case I would recommend it. For your average Joe you're more likely to hurt than protect yourself with a gun.

Also people aren't the most rational and brightest. Often times people shoot before thinking, happened plenty of times.


To OP. Should probably strike "revolver" and replace with "gun"


That is an often-repeated canard, a mantra for the Brady Group and suchlike... but the plain fact is, it is not true.

Gun accidents have been falling for about 40 years and are about as low as they've ever been.

Studies have shown that suicides are not predicated on the presence of a gun... people who are truly suicidal tend to use whatever method is expedient, and will use other methods if a gun isn't handy.

Annually there are a total of about 30,000 gun deaths (of all sorts... most of them are suicides, last time I checked maybe a thousand or so were accidents) in the USA.

The government-sponsored National Crime Victimization Survey estimates there are around 80,000 defensive gun useages (DGU's) per year by private citizens defending against criminals... in most no shots are fired at all.

This is probably a low-ball figure... other studies have placed annual DGUs in the hundreds of thousands if not the millions. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, as perhaps 98-99% of these incidents do not involve any shots fired or anyone injured... the citizen shows the gun and the criminal flees; most often the police are not called.

Even if we use the low-ball NCVS figures, it makes DGU's several times more common than all gun deaths of all types.. and the real DGU numbers are probably in the hundreds of thousands if you average all the credible studies done.

If you are referring to the old canard of "don't pull a gun on a criminal, he will just take it away from you and shoot you with it"..... that's nonsense. Taking a gun away from a determined person is not so childishly simple... if it were, there solution would be "if he takes your gun, just take it back and shoot him if it is THAT easy". :roll:

As for people not being rational and sensible, studies have revealed that citizens with concealed-carry permits have a lower incidence of criminal acts and mistaken shootings than the general public.

So in summary, that is an untrue statement and based on fallacious information.
 
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