[jcampbell1]

Don't gun toters have a saying like "If you are going to pull your weapon, you better be prepared to use it." Would you actually be willing to shoot someone over a parking pass? Or are you suggesting that this type of scam doesn't happen in the US at all because the risk of getting shot by running this racket are too high? I don't understand how guns are relevant here.

[wyclif]

You're assuming the owner has to be willing to draw. They don't-- it's the diffused cultural knowledge that someone might be carrying concealed. "An armed society is a polite society." Also the reason why happy slapping never caught on at all in the US, but was big in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Australia. But not the States!

[bh42222]

You're assuming the owner has to be willing to draw. They don't-- it's the diffused cultural knowledge that someone might be carrying concealed

I've heard it say that in Miami the criminals concentrate on tourists because locals might be carrying. But despite some of the most pro-gun laws, Florida is not exactly known as a low crime rate state.

And paradoxically, many states with strong laws against guns have lower crime rates that many strongly pro-gun states.

I'm pro concealed carry myself, but do not think the real world evidence supports a connection between that and lower crime rates. Perhaps if some place has a sudden radical change in gun policy some data can be extrapolated?

Similarly, it's not like in violent hell holes around the word almost everybody isn't carrying and still getting robbed and killed.

[anon998877]

If we need mutual fear to assure civility, I'm pretty sure the term society does not apply anymore.

[bdunbar]

It's not mutual fear but recognition of a fact of life: citizens who might be armed should not be messed with.

I've lived in places where anyone could be assumed to be armed, that all householders had firearms. I've lived in places where no one had firearms, except criminals.

The former had zero mutual fear, the latter had fear, but only on the side of the unarmed citizens.

Nothing says 'fear' like bars on the windows and bullet-proof glass in front of the counter at KFC, food served by turnstile.

[anon998877]

My point was: if we already live with such conditions we may have lost the fight to live in a decent society. And a society which is not decent is not a society, it's only an amalgam of people.

[sp332]

One of the founding principles of the United States government was the Leviathan from Thomas Hobbes' book. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Leviathan_%28... It's not just a book about government, it starts with a discussion of the nature of humanity, and then works out (using thought experiments) what a peaceful society would have to be like, given human nature.

[anon998877]

Hobbes draws an anthropology before stating his theory of the state. But we should take care here, a few points:

firstly the anthropology is terribly negative and the conclusion are that without government we would leave in a violent state of nature. It's not that clear that without government the situation would be so violent and moreover, from scientific point of view, it's also not that clear that there was such a state of nature: homo sapiens could well have been really civilized when he became home sapiens.

Secondly Hobbes never concludes that we should be armed or anything like that. No. He concludes that we need a powerful state and that to build this state we need to give up some of our rights. We give some rights and the state acquire the obligation to protect us. If you think about it it goes totally against the American vision: Hobbes would probably agree that the citizen should give up their rights to be armed, to throw out the state of nature, and in return the state would protect them. This seems really hobbesian, not the reverse.

[sp332]

But the Leviathan is a construction of the people. The Leviathan can't take or be anything that the people didn't have to begin with. So if the Leviathan might have the power of, say, capital punishment, one must first allow that the people had the power of capital punishment first, in their "natural state", and then gave it to the Leviathan. Every power the government has - owning guns, levying taxes and fines, imprisoning criminals, printing money - is a power that individuals used to have, that have been given up (in varying degrees) to the Leviathan.

The right to bear arms seems to be something that is expressly protected by the Bill of Rights, and this is definitely an aspect of the relationship of the government with the people, not of people to each other. I'm sure Jefferson and Madison didn't want people to go around threatening each other with guns, but they still wanted the government to be afraid of people with guns.

[hugh3]

All society is based on mutual fear.

[anon998877]

Could you elaborate?

Are also all communities based on mutual fear? And how much the concept of community is part of the concept of society?

[pavel_lishin]

Those videos always bothered me. I suppose they never showed the ones where the slappee goes berzerk and breaks the slapper's arms.

[JonnieCache]

Oh no, there were plenty of them. They didn't stay on youtube for long though because they were pretty graphic.

[JoeAltmaier]

Certainly most folks wouldn't shoot someone over a parking pass - that would be criminal. But its not about the parking pass. Its about the intimidation. Should you put up with an implied threat to your life or health?

There's a saying: the threat of capital punishment is absolutely effective. Its just that the criminals are the ones using it.

[JonnieCache]

If you need a firearm to deal with an attempt at mild intimidation in a carkpark, you should take a look at your self confidence.

In these situations, a cheery, "Nah mate, I'm alright" combined with just the right amount of eye contact and a swift exit is more than enough to resolve the situation.

Do you really think its part of these guys business model to actually attack people who don't give them their parking tickets? How long do you think they'd be able to continue this scam if they that was their policy?

These people aren't totally stupid. They are perfectly capable of realising that its not worth spending the rest of the day dealing with the repercussions of assaulting someone in a carpark in broad daylight, when they could let you walk off and wait for the next "victim," carrying on the scam as normal.

[JoeAltmaier]

In a civilized society, you don't have to "deal" with ongoing intimidation. You take care of it. If bullies are tolerated, they grow bolder. Its the story of the decay of neighborhoods etc.

Again, the point was missed. Its not about a single incident. Its about zero tolerance for disrespect, intimidation, shakedown, public bullying. So somebody other than you can park without knuckling under to some jerk.

[JonnieCache]

>In a civilized society, you don't have to "deal" with ongoing intimidation. You take care of it.

That is exactly my point. You take care of it by not being intimidated in the first place.

[JoeAltmaier]

Which works for a few - you among them. So the strong survive, and that's your bar for a 'civilized society'? Of course not. Your timid niece needs to be able to park her car too.

[metageek]

>this type of scam doesn't happen in the US

In most of the US, this type of scam doesn't happen because we don't have this kind of parking lot. I think I've seen just one in my life. Most lots have either parking meters or gates and attendants.

[bdunbar]

Most lots have either parking meters or gates and attendants.

I don't know where you are from. In Dallas, the downtown lots closest to the center (expensive) had gates and attendants.

Further out (cheaper) were lots where you slid cash into a slot matching one's stall number: a guy came around on a regular basis to collect the cash, but he wasn't stationed in the lot.

YMMV.

[metageek]

I've seen a few of those, too.

I've seen one "print a ticket" lot, in a beach town in southern CA; I haven't seen any others when living in MA, PA, VA, GA, or the Bay Area.