While I agree wholeheartedly with defending myself (I certainly has no desire to start a fight) I have to take into account the consequences: a few punches and kicks from them (which I have to admit is all that is likely to happen) is not likely to do much to me (black eye, fractured rib maybe and a few bruises). I on the other hand tend to forgo restraint so as to win (try as I might I am not good enough to restrain a group of people all once or sometimes even just one aside from the ever fun solar plexus strike): some 14 kid gents my elbow to his eye and long term damaged eyesight and fractured sockets is what happens. Likewise tendons and joints tend to gain the ability to bend the other direction (and it takes very little to do) which then means I have single handedly ruined the chances of an A+ student prodigy of [insert sport of choice] to further the pursuit of said sport. It has not happened to me but even restraining someone has started to come under attack: a couple of years back when "happy slapping" was all the rage some oiks decided it would be a good idea to try in on some random guy, turns out said random guy was as grey as you get before you hit black (ops) and the police wanted to bury him for simply restraining the guy (it was a pressure point under the jaw I heard).
I totally respect your way of thinking but I've gotta disagree with you. The way I see it is it's everybodies right to not get attacked by people trying to prove how tough they are, and therefore it's everybodies right to fight back with as much force as is necessary to stop yourself from becoming injured, be the injury something as simple as a black eye or as severe as a broken bone. I can see why you wouldn't want to injure a 14 year old kid, but look at it like that 14 year old kid would quite happily damage you as badly as you could damage him so why should you have to suffer that damage because that 14 year old kid thinks he's invincible. If that 14 year old kid doesn't want to get badly injured then he should use his energy for something other than attacking somebody that could badly injure him. As far as I'm concerned it's a valuable lesson learnt for the kid, and you could pretty much guarantee he wouldn't do it again.
I remember the "happy slapping" phase, it almost caused me to lose my job a few times. When I was collecting trollies the little wannabes would run up behind me and slap me, thinking that because I was working I couldn't do anything back. Unfortunately I'm not like that and I'd turn around and smack them. There's nothing more emberassing for these kids then for an adult to open-hand slap them across the face and telling them to behave in front of their "clique". Usually they'd report me but luckily I was well liked and my boss was one of the few that understood that if I let one little kid do it I'd have had them queueing up to slap me.
The thing that really gets me is knives, I have seen all manner of nasty implements being carried/flashed which the police seem to think borders on cute yet I (a trained engineer with a longstanding history of fixing and installing stuff and no prior trouble with the law) have a screwdriver, little more than watchmakers screwdriver, in my toolkit in my bag and I am to consider myself unbelievably lucky getting 20 questions apparently.
I gotta agree 100% with your view on the police on that one. After the kid that attacked my family was sent to jail his little "gang" went to my nephews school and were threatening him through the window as he was in class. The school called the cops and the cops moved them on, then at the end of the day they came back and started trying to attack him. Once again the police came out but instead of arresting them or even cautioning them he said "Come on lads, you've had your fun now" and sent them on their way. My sister went totally spare and phoned the cops to complain, when she was put throught the officer in question his excuse for not doing anything was "they were just kids being kids and having a laugh". It was 4 18/19 year olds attacking a 15 year old, I can't really see how it was just "kids having fun".
I think alot of the problems with the cops in the UK now is that they didn't become cops because they wanted to make the UK a more crime free place and arrest people, they've become cops because it's a career. I had a few mates join the army (I know most soldiers aren't like this but it's becoming more common) and when they were going to be sent to Bosnia (a long time ago I know) they bought their way out because as they put "I didn't join the army to go to war".
QUOTE(FAST6191 @ Sep 12 2007, 02:47 PM)
Thankfully it does not happen often these days (for one I tend not go around by myself) but it has actually got to the point where I do not bother reporting stuff like this any more unless I end in hospital (which kind of forces my hand).
