Wrong place at wrong time

[Diesel42]

Since we're sharing stories, I'll add mine.
First, I agree completely with BigGuy and Exclaiber's posts about MC members. And second, with respect I disagree with drjoker about carrying in all nude establishments. All nude bars are still bars, they allow patrons to bring alcohol in and some even provide free alcohol. They can't sell it, but it's there. Any altercation will be viewed as a man with a gun in a bar. I would never chance it.

Anyway about 25 years ago, fresh out of college I worked downtown and lived in Plano. Traffic on Central was terrible and I don't enjoy drinking. Rather than shop or work late, I would stop at a T&A club for an hour or two before going home. I smoked back then and I could drink water for free, smoke, and the scenery was nice. Several of the girls came to recognize me and would sit with me if they were tired of being pawed. I was seen as quiet and safe. One afternoon, two guys with coffee colored skin walked in wearing lots of red including red bandannas. It was almost funny to me because ALL of the girls and staff looked like dogs as they perked up and went "on alert." The barkeep/bouncer started to leave the bar and move toward these two near the door, when one of the girls grabbed me by the arm and told me to come with her. She walked me to a dim corner where a VERY big biker was sitting with another girl. It was a big round table, with the biker sitting against the corner and a girl on his right. This girl pushed me in the seat to his left and told the biker to look after me. The biker smiled at her and told me not to move or say a word. Naturally, I followed orders, they all seemed to be in control of the situation. The girl left us and headed for the DJ booth. I knew that table would be thrown forward if the biker needed to move, so I stayed very small. I should also mention that I recognized the Banditos jacket and had knowledge of their violence as a kid in east Dallas. In less than a minute, the bouncer had intercepted the red guys and convinced them the bar was not a place for them. Without any drama he got them out. The girl that sat me with the Bandito came back, I tipped both girls and offered to buy the guy a beer for thanks. He just smiled and said, "No, I'm good." I went back to my table with a new appreciation for entertainers and how they control their workplace.

Happy Trails! N

[The Annoyed Man]

I don't know how I missed this thread for the past 10 days, but I'd like to offer a perspective, with all due respect to LEOs, and zero respect for biker gangs.......

1. It has been opined that use of deadly force in reaction to a threat of "a fist fight" is an overreaction that will land you in legal hot water. My answer: that may be true on some sterile intellectual level, but go work in the ER of a level one trauma center for 6 years—not 45 minutes to an hour and a half per visit while working a crime, but 8-16 hours a day, 5 days a week, like I did—and then come back and tell me if you still think that is relevant. Police officers often come in when someone has received a severe beatdown. Often, they were the original officers responding to the scene, but not always. They'll take their reports; interview the victim if he's still conscious (often he's not); and after the victim is admitted to his room or into an OR, those officers leave and go on to the next thing which will confront them during their shifts, which Lord knows, can be complicated and difficult enough without having to deal with defensive shootings.
   
   If the patient dies as a result of his injuries, it may be many hours or a couple of days later. IF an individual officer is involved beyond that point, he or she may be told that the patient died of....for example....respiratory failure due to flail chest—meaning that so many of his ribs were broken that he lacked the mechanical ability to breathe, and a week later pneumonia took him from us. Or, he or she may be told that the patient died from a subdural hematoma—meaning that he had a depression fraction of the skull at one location after repeated stomping, and the resulting pressure from bleeding under the dura matter and general cerebral edema compromised circulation to a large enough portion of the brain that brain death occurred. If the beating was thorough enough, the patient's lungs were punctured by rib bone, his kidneys were contused, his liver was lacerated, his heart because ischemic for long enough that a large part of the muscle infarcted and died, and his corneas became detached as his orbits were fractured.......and none of his harvestable organs can even be used to salvage some other poor soul's life.
   
   In other words, he was beaten to death......with fists and feet......and it wasn't a "one punch" killing.
2. When this happens, the police officers involved—all good, honorable, decent people—have a much different perspective than either the victim, the victim's family, or the medical staff—including the orderly who wheels the barely human-looking corpse to the hospital's morgue until it can be claimed by the corner. I am NOT saying that these officers are not human, or that they cannot empathize, or that they do not bear their own emotional bruises after years and years of dealing with this stuff. But what I am saying is that their jobs require them to maintain a certain clinical distance (for lack of a better term); partly for their own emotional well-being; partly to maintain control over the scene of the crime; and partly in order to be good collectors of evidence, witness statements, and any other factual data necessary to the pressing of charges if the perpetrator(s) is ever caught.
3. That clinical distance means that, in some cases as texanjoker has demonstrated here, they are more likely to judge circumstances by standards different than the person who, in that terrible moment, is faced with either defending himself with lethal force, or surrender to the possibility of obliteration.
4. I've seen the results of one of those beatdowns that BigGuy refers to when he says:

   4) The beat down hurts and you may even carry permaniate physical reminders. But it will be over.

   Death is a permanent reminder to the victim's survivors, and it is NEVER over. With all due respect to BigGuy, I'm not going to submit to that possibility. He may have seen the beatdown administered, and the victim might have still been alive when the ambulance carted him away. But he will not have a single clue if the victim was still alive 4 hours or 48 hours later. Nobody can convince me that this is a better outcome than defending myself with a firearm. If they want to come after me or my family afterwards, we'll deal with that. My son has more guns than I do, and he is similarly inclined. His wife packs—a Kimber Pro Carry in .45 ACP, and she's not very patient with nonsense. My wife packs, and she is similarly inclined. If I have to move or go into hiding, that's fine. That's what we'll do. But I am NOT going to submit to a beating I do not deserve that may result in a painful lingering death for me just because some savage with tribal colors on thinks people like me are beneath notice. Guys like that are no better than wild dogs, and they should be dealt with accordingly. Avoid them when you can; and when you can't avoid them and they come for you, deal with them.
5. I'm a 60 year old man with hardware in his spine, and an 8" long scar up his back. I take pain killers first thing every...single...morning, just so I can get out of bed and get moving. I sometimes need a cane to walk. I'll be go-to-hades before I will submit to one single ounce more of that from some dirtbag who has more ego than brains. I would rather be shot dead than live with one more day with any more pain than I have to. I would rather be shot dead than beaten to death. I'd rather be shot dead than spend the rest of my days on a ventilator because my head was caved in by some crap-for-brains's boot. I would rather be shot dead than spend time in prison for shooting someone who REALLY needed shooting while in the commission of a crime against my person. And if texanjoker arrests me for that, then I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6, even though I have no real confidence in the intellectual horsepower of the 12.
   
   I've seen all of those things, up close and personal, and I've gone home and washed a victim's blood out of my scrubs. (This was in the old days, when ER staff didn't wear aprons and spray visors to protect themselves from blood born pathogens....AIDS had just recently been discovered.) I will shoot somebody first. Period. And I'll deal with the consequences afterward. Regardless of what some clinically detached responding LEO with the best intentions in the world thinks about that. Because HE wasn't in MY shoes when it went down. I'm an adult, and I'll deal with the consequences whatever they are. But regardless of those consequences, the legal determination may not always be the moral determination, and the moral determination is that I have a fundamental human RIGHT to defend myself, by whatever means necessary, and NOWHERE is it written that I must submit to a beating because some dirtbag's cranial vault is interchangeable with his colon.

Now, since A) I am categorically unwilling to lay down, curl up, and take the beating from BigGuy's friends on the one hand; and since B) I am definitely going to defend myself with a firearm from someone who advances within 20 feet of me threatening a beatdown, and that will put me at odds with texanjoker when he shows up to arrest me instead of the criminal(s)—a very bitter pill courtesy of the "justice" system—what must I do to avoid putting myself into that situation?

I avoid, to any reasonable extent possible, those places or people where such things have a higher probability of happening than in other places or with other people. Parking lot of a topless bar at 1:00 a.m.? Very high probability. Parking lot of Wal-mart at 2 p.m.? MUCH lower probability. Parking lot of my church? Lower probability yet. Friends who drink late at night in topless bars? Very high probability. Friends who have a beer at a backyard BBQ? Pretty low probability. If an LEO cannot see the reasonableness of my decision to defend myself, particularly in a place where I have every right to be and where the agressor has zero right to be a predator, then those are the breaks.

In the end, I have no faith in most of mankind, including those who make up the justice system. They serve the law, but the law does not always serve justice, and justice is the higher standard. It is absolutely and inarguably unjust to expect the victim of a crime to not defend themselves—EITHER the perspective of BigGuy's cynical "you might as well lay down and take it," OR from the perspective of texanjoker's "defending yourself with a pistol from a threat of fisticuffs is probably not legally defensible."

I answer to a higher authority than either cynicism or the law. I answer to justice and to God. If I do everything in my power—within reason (I'm not going to hide under my bed all day and refuse to leave the house)—and I live a sober and thoughtful and prayerful life, then I am completely comfortable with accepting the consequences of any decision I make to defend myself. I refuse to live in slavery to the bondage of fear. There will always be enemies at the gate. There have always been enemies at the gate. The mongol hordes have always been outside those gates, whether they ride rough coated ponies or rat bikes. LEOs have the power to make that harder or easier to bear for the rest of us. It may not be my job to dispense justice, but neither is it the LEO's. I'll take my chances with the system if texanjoker feels like he has to arrest me because I shot the dirtbag who was assaulting me in my church parking lot. God may call on me to surrender my life for my brother or for His own glory, but He will never call me to surrender it for nothing. It takes humans to pull off that kind of insanity.

I'm not having any of that. Put me in prison....whatever makes the LEO heart happy....I don't care. I'm not going to sit and take a beating, and I am going to defend myself. End of story.

Beyond that, I have no particular opinion.

[drjoker]

All nude bars are still bars, they allow patrons to bring alcohol in and some even provide free alcohol. They can't sell it, but it's there.

Oh, I didn't know that. Like I said, I don't go to those kinda places, so I didn't know. I thought that no alcohol sold means everyone inside is sober.

So, let me change my advice from "avoid nudie bars but if you have to go to one, go to an all nude bar," to "don't go to any bars, especially nudie bars."

Here is the weekend in crime in Dallas;
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairp ... ng_str.php

Notice how ALL the stranger on stranger crime in Dallas happens around bars!

Maybe you should've taken your friend to Hooters instead. It is not 30.06 nor 51% posted. It is not a bar. As long as you don't drink and shove your friend in a cab if he causes trouble, I think it should be O.K. To my knowledge, Hooters is not run by gangs, motorcycle social clubs, nor wise guys.



P.S. You know why I don't go to those places anymore? Not because I'm prude or think it's immoral, but because if you die there, it won't matter whatever good you did in your entire life. You'll always be known as "that guy who died in a nudie bar." Do you really want all your friends and family to know you for perpetuity as "that guy who died in the nudie bar?" or "Uncle nudie?" We all have to die someday, BUT it's how you die that determines your legacy. Make sure you die a good death

[Jumping Frog]

And second, with respect I disagree with drjoker about carrying in all nude establishments. All nude bars are still bars, they allow patrons to bring alcohol in and some even provide free alcohol. They can't sell it, but it's there. Any altercation will be viewed as a man with a gun in a bar. I would never chance it.

Leaving aside the issue of whether it is a wise decision to even frequent that kind of place, I disagree with your decision about carrying in non-51% posted nude bars.

The only reason I would ever be disarmed in any place is if it is a crime to be armed there. No criminal offense, then I am armed. Just that simple.

[BigGuy]

TAM. I think you misunderstood what I'm saying. The best idea is to not be in that position.
Secondly, they are not going to beat you to death, with out what they consider a good reason.
But you need to understand that if you shoot one of those guys, the club is not going to let it go. It's not over because you managed to put that one guy down. If fact, you've just upped the ante. Most likely, beating you to death is no longer enough.
The bullet may have put off the beat down you so graphically, and I'm sure accurately, described. But all you have done is defer the inevitable physical encounter with that club. That beating you described is now as likely to land on your wife, children, other relatives, or friends.
I'd far rather get beaten to death than live with somebody I love getting hurt because I didn't have the stones to live with the consequences of my bad judgment. You have to make your own decisions about "curling up." But for me, my "pride" is not worth the life of an innocent friend or relative.
Again, the best advice is don't be there.

[drjoker]

"wrong place at wrong time?" Ha, ha! Just noticed that! There's no right time to be in the WRONG place, man!

Peace,

[BigGuy]

"wrong place at wrong time?" Ha, ha! Just noticed that! There's no right time to be in the WRONG place, man!

Peace,

True that.

[The Annoyed Man]

TAM. I think you misunderstood what I'm saying. The best idea is to not be in that position.
Secondly, they are not going to beat you to death, with out what they consider a good reason.
But you need to understand that if you shoot one of those guys, the club is not going to let it go. It's not over because you managed to put that one guy down. If fact, you've just upped the ante. Most likely, beating you to death is no longer enough.
The bullet may have put off the beat down you so graphically, and I'm sure accurately, described. But all you have done is defer the inevitable physical encounter with that club. That beating you described is now as likely to land on your wife, children, other relatives, or friends.
I'd far rather get beaten to death than live with somebody I love getting hurt because I didn't have the stones to live with the consequences of my bad judgment. You have to make your own decisions about "curling up." But for me, my "pride" is not worth the life of an innocent friend or relative.
Again, the best advice is don't be there.

No worries about that. I never wanted to go to those places, even when I wanted to go to those places.

[Diesel42]

I really appreciate drjoker and the exchange between TAM and BigGuy. Jumping Frog is also cool pointing out that he will always carry unless it's illegal. We are all on the same page, and we each have unique experiences and perspectives. I haven't been in a nudie bar in years, yet my experience with the biker dude was my first real life experience with situation awareness. I am grateful that my lesson was much less dramatic than the OP.
Happy Trails folks! N