I must say, recent events and experiences have really impressed upon me how bad the world is. Many people think that their lives are fine, and as a result, that the world is not a bad place. Personally I think ignorance of whats out there only adds to the problems we all face.

Last night, me and a group of friends were out for a walk. There were 10 of us, and we were in a grassy field in a nice area of town. We were just in a group, about to walk home at around 10:30 pm, when these 3 guys game right in the middle of our group. They said we insulted them, and just attacked, without reason and provocation. One friend has a bruised ear, another has a broken face. His cheek bone is broken in 3 places. All for no reason! The fight stopped long enough for me to jump out of the way and dial 911. We would have done more, but they may have concealed weapons. Whats more, they had friends watching from a small forested area. They were the attackers friends because they were cheering them on. 3 People, around age 20. Did so much damage. We never said a word to them, they just viciously attacked.

If a person cant feel safe walking around at 10:30 at night, in a nice neighborhood, where can he? So many worse things happen around the world, and some people say there inst a problem. To such people I say WAKE UP! The world is plagued by violence,and just because you may not experience it, that does not give you the right to ignore it. Don't teach your children that the world is perfect, then they will never know the difference between right and wrong. They wont even know if they can make a difference..

The police were contacted, and they said the could not do much after they arrived, they had bigger problems to deal with, and that all they could do was patrol the area.

I'm sad to hear that happened to you, metaphor. Sounds like some sort of dare or some other silly thing some people do sometimes. I agree with what you said. The same can be said about anything we are ingnorant of. It is so hard for others to empathise when similar circumstances haven't happened to them. Imagine how a girl feels when she is sexually assaulted for no reason other than being female, or black people who are harassed by police for no good reason other than being black. Life is not fun when we have to live it in fear. The good news is that you are now a wiser, more experienced person who can sympathise with others. You can now comfort and give good advise to others when they tell you of such injustices done to them. You will all naturally heal physically, it is what you do with your experience that will determine whether or not you heal emotionally.

They knew you weren't armed. You thought they might be.

In any case, sorry to hear about your misfortune. I'm not quite clear on how ten people got their ass handed to them by three, but I regret that you did. Hope the thugs are caught and punished.

stand up for your self they prey on fear,10 to 3 blooming great odds i would say..

I do not see how this unimportant enough for them to say that.. These things can lead to murder if they ever go too far.. They checking for mobile phones in the area could go a long way in narrowing it down(they invade our privacy anyway), once they have suspects, i am sure they can proof too.

GooFy does have a point, since they initiated, defending yourself is very much an option. But i have never been in such situation, though. I did get stopped by a group near a railroad passing, and got threatened there, but that never got violent. I basically bluffed knowing that most of the group was not interested.

Maybe you are blowing a single experience out of proportions? I am sure most people are mostly non-violent, or vent it in sports. Otherwise, i could not explain how i have to deal with violence so little. Maybe violence is a bigger problem in your area though.

well, those injuries happened when they attacked right off the bat. There was no way to prevent it, because we had no clue what they were going to do when they first approached us. We did push them off, and they ran off. They only touched two of us. I dont care who you are, there is no way to stop someone from hurting you if they just walk up to you and attack. We were not about to run after such violent people, we were more concerned about helping our friends. We were not going to make matters worse by following them to their bigger group who were watching.

They must have had something in their fist. How could someone break a persons cheekbone in 3 places by punching? I guess it is possible with fists, but how likely is that?

Sorry if i accidentally made light of your encounter.

oh no problemo

Why were none of you packing?
/flamebait

you mean guns? resulting in some dead bodies?

I agree, killing is awesome!

Killing people is awful. I hope I never have to do it.

But maybe if someone had pulled out a weapon, the thugs would have gotten out of there.

yeah, absolutely right, weapons prevent violence, there would be no violence if people were armed to the teeth. oh, wait...

why didnt we carry a weapon?..well, i dont make it a habit of walking around with my katanas. ( notice the S then? )

There would be minimal violence if people were allowed to be armed, but the people that misused their arms were put in jail.

sounds like the, would you rather have one country with nuclear weapons or all of them debate. If we had pulled a weapon, more than one person would have been in the hospital that night

It all depends on the situation.

Worst case scenario: You pull a weapon, the thugs all pull weapons, situation goes downhill.

Best case scenario: You pull a weapon, point it at the thugs, they all run away. Nobody is hurt.

These people were looking for a fight. A weapon would have presented a challenge to them. They were obviously under the influence of something and not thinking clearly. I think doing whatever you can do minimize the damage of the worst case scenario is the best choice, however unlikely that scenario may be, somewhere it will happen eventually. Damage control is the only responsible action to take. I would rather have a bruise then someones blood on my hands because i tried to fight them off with a weapon. I would defend myself, but I would not be the one to sink down to their level, and make the situation escalate.

Most likely scenerio: weapons get pulled and people panic and become more emotional. Never ever ever pull out a weapon unless you are absolutely positve you are willing to use it. And never carry a weapon unless you are prepared to spend some time in jail.

It seems crazy to think that guns would make society safer. Presence of guns just means when shit hits the fan it hits harder. Does not help for self defense either, you have less chance to respond.
Also it makes things between the public and police tenser. When a policeman pulls a car to the side, the chance of there being a gun in the car really changes the approach he will take.
The public in general does not need guns, either, robbers, extortionists might need them. Seems like a natural thing to illegalize them to me. (I have not followed the gun-control thread though.. 300 replies too read.. :/)