I wonder why Europeans feel physically unsafe here while simultaneously finding us extremely friendly. Is it just a normal reaction to being a stranger in a strange land?
Ozzie here. It's not just being a stranger in a strange land, your country has some dangerous edges. My experience in California:
* The police are like military. I saw a couple of incidents, and concluded that if the police pull you up, it's best to drop to the ground and obey. Pretty scary.
* I didn't realise that nobody walks when I first arrived. It's pretty easy to end up in the wrong neighbourhood if you go for a long walk. Ie, packs of young rugged looking dudes eyeing you off.
* Bums in San Fran. I've never seen first world poverty like that. Very confronting.
* The missus visited LA, turned off one exit too early and ended up in Inglewood. Her descriptions of the neighbourhood were... colourful.
On the plus side, the nightlife was really safe. In Australia I'm used to constant fistfights and violence around clubs/pubs. On the flipside, I got the feeling that everyone was being so polite and respectful because ya never know who's got a gun. That's not really a relaxing feeling.
I wouldn't worry about people carrying guns in bars... not something I've ever seen happen. I've spent a good deal of time in Oz and the bar brawling culture there is just not something we have here. It happens sometimes, but usually when it looks like something's going to break out a half dozen people spring up and try to diffuse the situation. 98% of the time it never gets past the shouting-of-threats stage. In Oz it always went from zero to bloodspray in short order.
Depends where you are in Oz. In Melbourne, you don't have bar brawls. There is some violence late at night outside the nightclubs when they close, but the 'bar brawl' is largely myth here.
So just as a counterpoint as a native, also in an area with legalized carry, I've never had the feeling everyone was polite and respectful because you don't know if they have a gun. I think that is a bit of projection, never heard anyone say anything similar.
I'm talking about clubs/nightlife specifically. And yes it's pure speculation. But I've always wondered - surely it must cross your mind, "is that aggressive drunk wannabe tough-guy packing heat? What if he loses control?"
To be honest it never has for me. If I see an aggressive person the first thing I do is assess my exit strategy in general. It is the first thing I learnt from my sifu(s) in kung fu, best to remove yourself from potential danger than risk any altercation.
That said, I can't recall any time I felt weird at any clubs/etc either, but depending on the crowds I could see where you might be more alert in certain circumstances. I just don't think that's any different than anywhere though.
Maybe its because I grew up around the idea of more ubiquitous guns that the idea doesn't scare me, or I''m crazy, probably both. :)
Eh, cheers mate, if you're ever in the twin cities ill buy a round.
I generally agree with the other commenter here (who says he never worries about guns), but I thought it worth adding that the atmosphere can vary depending on the club. It's unusual, but not unheard of, to go through a metal detector (wand) at concerts and some clubs (say, a medium-size venue with space for ~500 and up -- much more unusual at a small club with space for 200, say). Why is there a metal detector? To keep guns and knives out. So, there can be caution and fear around guns in clubs.
I don't think the fear is about just guns. I think it's about all manifestations of violence (knives and beat-downs too). Two examples that come to mind are the fan who was attacked at the LA Dodgers game (just a beating) and ended up handicapped, and three hipsters who got shot outside a small but influential indie club in LA (http://www.laweekly.com/2011-01-06/news/mongols-and-hells-an...).
Teaser quote from that last link, which is worth reading:
"It seemed so cheesy, I thought it was a joke," says the guitarist, 30, whom we'll call Brad; he's a witness in the gunman's trial and fears for his life. "When he started shooting, I just stood there staring at him. I couldn't believe anyone would fire a gun into a crowd of nerdy indie-rock kids."
It has to be emphasized that the above story was a "story" because it was so weird (I've been to that club, and it really is a classic indie rock skinny hipster hangout).
What do Americans do when they get pulled over? Open the window and hold your hands on the wheel and dashboard?
The police in New Orleans took a shot at tourists because when they pulled over their car, the person next to the driver reached over and grabbed a (silver colered) photocamera... Policeman thought it was a gun and shot. I feel European people need a 'How To Interact with the Police' course. Made us very jumpy whenever there was a policecar around.
> Open the window and hold your hands on the wheel and dashboard?
Yeah, they teach you to do that, and if you don't, normally the cop will tell you to do something like that next time you get pulled over.
I think it's a good system. The cop doesn't know if you have a gun. The chance is probably 1 in 1,000 or less, but still kinda scary.
As a sidenote, America is in many ways more like a 3rd world country than most of Europe. The bad guys will have guns no matter what [1], and it's much safer for us all if the good guys have guns, too.
[1] Well, we could change this in a few decades if we ended the drug war and eradicated endemic poverty. But the government is too busy spying on us and planning to invade Syria, to think about making other changes.
Thanks for the reply. On a side note: Most Europeans are (tough to be) very afraid of guns. They're not allowed to own guns (except for very heavily regulated guns for hunting and sports). Even carrying a pocket-knife downtown is against the law, as is defending yourself with something like a baseball bat against burglars at night in your own house. ('Excessive force').
I fail to understand how people accept that, especially the last part. That's basically taking away their right to defend themselves and their families. That kind of law favors and protects the bad guys - what's the point in that?
The thought goes something like this: "The burglar is a 'victim of society' and he needs treatment and education. We need to feel sorry for him. He needs our protection". Sickening. One guy used his kid's little bat to hit a junkie on his legs and was thrown in jail, fined for about $ 300 and got to visit courtrooms for 2 years because he couldn't work for the army with a 'record' and he needed this record to go away.
Police even tell you (off the record) to kick the burglars ass and later say he 'fell down the stairs'. Same thing when you're a witness. The defendant has the right to know who testifies against him. But you do not have the right to even know the defendant's last name...
Or: Roadmap, How to hit a burglar: "A baseball bat under your bed is wrong. By arming yourself you take the risk of escalation. The danger is that you use the weapon quickly.
I don't know anyone who thinks that a burglar is a "victim of society", but why shouldn't a burglar get a chance to better himself?
Whats the point of clubbing a burglar to death or breaking his legs anyway if he is no threat to me? If I wanted to live in an environment where people perceived "eye for an eye" as justice, I'd move to some country with sharia law like Saudi Arabia/Iran/Afghanistan.
I am glad that we have more civilized ways to deal with criminals here.
The idea is not to club the burglar to death. The point is that such laws are overly protective towards the one that are doing bad stuff, and whoever tries to get in their way to prevent them from doing such usually ends up in a bad situation.
A family member once told me a story about a friend of him who's a Judo instructor. The guy was waiting at a bus stop and someone attempted to bug him at gunpoint (a daily occurrence in big Brazilian cities). The guy was able to immobilize the criminal and take his gun, but since he resisted and attempted to fight, he beat him enough that he didn't have any more energy to keep fighting. He then called the Police. Guess what? He was detained for having beaten the criminal!
Stories like that are abundant in Brazil. My mom is a Judge there, so I've heard a fair share of those. Not only regular citizens get punished for giving criminals what they deserve, but police officers to. Once in the city where my mom worked there was a large police operation to arrest a group of drug dealers. It ended up bad with gun shots and all. The aftermath was that the officers that fired shots against the dealers were all in bad waters after that, and got suspended for a while. What's the point in that??
The laws in western europe (to be more specific: Austria - I don't know that much about Brazilian laws) ensure that only the state has the right (in most cases) to use violence and give criminals what they "deserve".
It cannot be that a normal person or even worse, a victim, tries bringing justice (or at least what they personally believe to be justice) to criminals (or people they believe to be criminals), because they are not trained policement that know their limits, nor are they usually judges.
I am not saying that a normal person should not use self defense, I definitely would, but there are limits to what is considered an appropriate reaction.
I cannot kill someone if the person doesn't show aggression towards me or someone else. (a burglar breaking into my home)
Likewise I cannot beat someone into unconsciousness if I could have just held that person down until police arrives.
What did your friend do to the robber after he disarmed him? Could he just have held him down? What kind of aggression did he use? From your description many things are possible, from slapping him, to breaking his spine and many things in between.
The same goes for the policemen. Did they needlessly risk or cause the death of innocent bystanders? That is also something that policemen must consider before they do anything that could start a shooting.
I don't see how keeping uncivilized people around is good for a country. How often does a violent robber really reform himself to become an asset for society? In "The Diamond Age" a character is executed for mugging a guy and that seems reasonable to me.
You can use weapons to protect yourself, but it is very limited and will always trigger an investigation if the use of force was excessive. (I think some if this might also be the case in the US, though in many european countries you really are in trouble if you end up shooting someone that didn't have any weapons on them, or just a knife)
The other thing is that it is rare that a burglar brings along weapons, because he can safely assume that the victim wont have any weapons. (so they usually just run away if they are caught)
If everyone had weapons at home, you would have more life or death situations, where a burglar would have to shoot someone, just to get out alive.
In most cases not even the police would shoot a criminal who is running away (if the person isn't threatening anyone), because they are also bound to never use excessive force if there are other means. (like picking up the criminal on another day at his home)
So yes: In rare cases you wont be able to properly defend yourself, but it reduces the amount of escalating situations on a larger scale, so you are generally better off. (Just take a look at statistics on how many people are injured/killed by weapons in a country like Germany vs USA)
In Italy you can harm someone physically only to defend people (self-defense, which of course also applies to your family or any bystander) , not to defend property. I guess that most European laws work like this, and I agree with this attitude.
I also agree with that. I wouldn't want to live in a society that is okay with killing or otherwise harming someone for stealing or breaking into someones home, because it would profoundly change how criminals act, and I'm also not a sadist that enjoys harming other people.
If someone breaks into my home it could be annoying, or maybe I will even experience fear to some degree, but I am also insured, so it wont hurt me that much, as long as burglars generally don't feel the need to protect their lives with weapons.
I would protect myself an my familiy by force if I needed to, but I wouldn't do it just to protect some stuff that someone tries to steal.
In most American states, forcing entry into an occupied dwelling is presumptively considered a threat to life and limb.
I'm not aware of any state in which one can legally defend property alone with deadly force, but it's always legal to resist force with equivalent force. Many states have rescinded "duty to retreat" laws, which means that you're under no obligation to yield to illegal force used against you no matter where you are.
It's not merely "defending property" if someone's trying to, say, carjack you at gunpoint, and you shoot them first; as soon as the assailant threatens you with violence, you're entitled to defend yourself.
Of course it is legal to always use equivalent force in Austria. If someone threatens your life by pointing a gun at you, you are allowed to use potentially lethal force.
It's just that burglars here do not bring weapons with them (because they do not expect their victims to have weapons), so you cannot assume that your life is threatened, just because you see someone in your house.
Of course, that might be different in other countries.
'Some stuff?' I can see your house has never been burglarized. It's not simply 'oh someone stole my MacBook and other stuff, now I get a new one from my insurance'.
It's someone (or several people) rampaging through all your possessions. Ripping open every closet, tearing everything out, going through all your personal stuff, stealing your expensive suit (you know, the one you got married in), stealing your credit and insurance cards, your passport, your letters from the bank with the security codes. Taking your grandfather's watch, the silver thing your grandmothers gave you. Going through every closet, stealing the spare keys of your car, your bike, your house... You can't sleep the next few nights as they now have keys of everything. You need new keys and what to do about your car, your bike? They also took your backup USB disks. Those contain your documents, your projects, your logins and passwords... It will take you months and thousands of dollars to get everything like it was. You won't feel save again for quite some time...
When I was younger my family got burglarized, and, while it was definitely unpleasant and enough "expensive" - we weren't insured - psychologically it wasn't so shocking. Of course, the subjective experience is, by definition, subjective.
Some objects are replaceable, some have personal value to me, and it is generally annoying to replace keys and documents, but it wont take you thousands of dollars and months of work to fix that.
An insurance here that covers burglary (among many other things like accidentally damaging something and so on) costs about 200€ per year. And it will replace anything that was destroyed or stolen.
You might lose some things that have personal value to you, but I hope you wouldn't kill or harm someone just to get your grandfathers watch back.
It's just a whole different philosophy. If the bad guys don't feel threatened by the people they rob, they will be less likely to use force against them. If we hear a burglar in our home, we europeans tend to hide and call the police, not confront them. It's the police's role to capture the burglars and justice's role to prosecute them.
The law protects everyone.
This will get me down voted to eternity, but this entire thought is so wrong. Let me tell you if you act like a victim, you will be treated like one. My house is rigged up to look a lot tougher to break into than my neighbors houses along with an alarm (accompanied by stickers on all windows). If someone does break in I will go down the stairs. I will not wait for the bad guys to come up and confront me beside my kid and wife. I will make a lot of noise and switch on the lights, but I will not wait for anyone to come up to us. And yes, I have a very nice bat lying around upstairs.
In most cases you are right when you say that you will be treated like a victim if you act like one, but I wouldn't tie having no weapons to acting like a victim in such a general way.
It just depends on where you live and how people behave in certain situations.
If I lived in the US, I'd probably have a gun at home, because the probability that it will protect my life outweights the chance that someone might get shot accidentally. (for example if you have children at home)
But in many western european countries you have almost no upside by possessing a gun (because you just wont experience a life threatening situation with a burglar), just the downside of your children possibly somehow getting their hands on the gun, no matter how safe you stored it.
Guns are expensive (well, the illegal ones, not the legal, they're not expensive). Most burglars won't use guns. To expensive, way to noisy in a country that is very crowded and is very afraid of guns (I imagine over 100 people phoning the police for the sound of a gunshot) and too high a fine ($ 10.000) and too high a sentence should they get arrested breaking and entering.
There was a very high profile case a while back where a farmer shot some intruders and went to jail. It made national news because it was so extraordinary for an intruder to be shot.
Of course it triggers the debate of how much force should you be able to use and we go round again.
Most of this is certainly not true for Europe as a whole and I doubt that it's true for any particular country.
In some european countries, owning a gun is nigh on compulsory, and even in countries where it's restricted, there's usually not much restriction on particular kinds of weapons, e.g. shotguns.
Using a bat to beat someone until they flee is allowed almost everywhere, using it to beat someone until they're dead or brain damaged is not.
You're perfectly allowed to use deadly force to defend yourself in all European countries I know about as long as a reasonable person would think it necessary.
Maybe they came from a smaller European town and then proceeded into a big city here in North America?
I've been to many parts of Czech and a few parts of Germany, and it is very nice there. Never saw anything like we have here in Vancouver with the downtown east-side (ie SF Tenderloin), but maybe I just haven't seen everything.
