posted
We got robbed last night in a driveway in what we are assured is one of the safest neighborhoods in town. They had a scary gun pointing exactly directly at my boyfriend's face and made him get out of the car, and I got out too and kicked my purse under the car so they would not espy it, and they took all our cash (three dollars) and a handful of stuff that was in Steve's pocket (receipts and my driver's license), and one of them groped me, and then they left. I'm going to write to the NRA and tell them of my harrowing experience, and I feel sure that they will totally revise their views on gun control after this. So ultimately it will have been a good thing.
(But I'm still shaky.) (Because they pointed a gun at my boyfriend's head and if I'd done something wrong they could have shot him and him be dead.)
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I'm glad that you're both okay, Fyfe. I think that my instinct would have been to kick the purse under the car too, but Bao is right that its probably a better idea in circumstances like that to not risk it.
How many of them were there? Were you able to provide the police with solid descriptions of them?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Sorry you went through this but glad all is ok. It is a scary situation. When I lived in Houston, I was robbed twice once someone just got into my car and took stuff and I felt so violated and scared for about a month after that and once and knife point in a parking lot and that really freaked me out. I know the fear that you are feeling but don't let it tear you down!
Posts: 224 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Jesus! I'm sorry you were assaulted -- you doing okay?
And yeah, I've been there, on both sides of the law. It didn't affect me as much as I would assume a sexual assault would, but you're obviously made of tougher stuff. Good luck catching the bastards!
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Lalo, when you say that you've "been there, on both sides of the law", what do you mean, exactly?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I'm (usually) a guy, and I've been both mugged and arrested. Nothing terribly criminal, just midnight trespassing in what he called "urban thug" clothes (loose jeans and a hoodie), but I've had guns pointed at me on both occasions.
Honestly, it didn't affect me that much. But if my girlfriend were sexually assaulted... oh, the blood, how it would flow.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The muggers probably thought it was also one of the richest neighborhoods in town. And all they got was 3 bucks.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Ah, okay, that makes more sense! I completely misunderstood you, and thought that it sounded like you were saying that you'd been on both sides of Fyfe's exact situation.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I've been in a similar situation. The appropriate response is to hand your stuff over as quickly as possible. No THING is worth your life. And really getting cute with the tossing stuff under a car or whatever is not the best option. I'm glad it worked for you, but try to develop a different response if this ever happens again. For awhile in NYC if you didn't have $20 on you, you were asking to get stabbed or shot. It was kind of the going rate, and everyone just walked around with $20 in their pockets. Weird, but definitely not worth getting killed for NOT doing it...
I went on a huge self-defense training kick after this happened to me. And know what, none of that would ever really matter. The whole idea of fighting someone who mugs you, for example (not saying you did this, of course) is predicated on being able to get the drop on them somehow. You learn all these great techniques for disarming someone, except that only an idiot puts the gun "just there" or comes at you with their knife hand/wrist exposed for more than an instant. It'd be just dumb luck if you ever had a chance to actually use any of the training. And what they tell you in most classes is you're better off not trying to get a move on someone who already has the gun on you...
Anyway, I'm glad you are both okay. Sorry about the loss of the driver's license. Losing credit cards & licenses & stuff is just such a royal pain.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I've been mugged a couple times before and arrested once, basically for the same thing that Lalo got arrested for, both times I was pretty angry afterwards.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: For awhile in NYC if you didn't have $20 on you, you were asking to get stabbed or shot. It was kind of the going rate, and everyone just walked around with $20 in their pockets. Weird, but definitely not worth getting killed for NOT doing it...
In fact, many rabbis said that it was ok (possibly even recommended) to carry a 20 on Shabbos (a problem both because of carrying and because money is off-limits on Shabbos) in certain parts of NYC for precisely this reason. Pikuach nefesh, a risk to life, overrides even Shabbos.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Sorry this happened to you, but your anti-NRA response is not a logical reaction. The gun did not, after all, decide to point itself at your boyfriend.
Would you have felt better if they'd held a knife at your boyfriend's throat?
Instead of being mad at the tool they used, why not be mad at the people who committed the crime?
Again, I'm sorry this happened to you.
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While I understand there are pro-gun people on this board, I can completely understand your reaction. Thankfully I have never been in such a situation but I personally think I would be a *lot* more traumatised if I had gun pointed at me than I would be if a knife was pointed at me/held against me.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Why wasn't Steve carrying his gun? Why weren't you carrying yours? You might want to get one before the groping guy who now knows your address can come over to finish what he started.
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: rivka, come to think of it, I believe one of my orthodox Jewish co-workers was the one who told me about this.
I feel so "connected."
Fortunately, it isn't nearly as bad in those parts of NYC these days. So no more stuffing $20 in your shoe Shabbos morning. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Bean Counter: Why wasn't Steve carrying his gun? Why weren't you carrying yours? You might want to get one before the groping guy who now knows your address can come over to finish what he started.
BC
Heh.
-o-
I've been arrested, but I've never had a gun pointed at me. Sounds like a terrible--and sobering--experience, and I'm sorry it happened to you.
(I kinda doubt the NRA will disband when they receive your letter, though . . . )
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Yes...if these people know where you live, I would advise getting some basic weapon training. I would be quite nervous being unprotected, and I don't see what the police would do to help.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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I can give you a list of some guys who do have carry permits and won't let their date get felt up without a fight until you can get a permit and a handgun of your own. What State are you in?
posted
I made my point. I believe it was Anne Rice who made the feminist point that the only real necessary function for men in the modern world is to protect women and children from other men. Any man who cannot do that one job should be replaced by one that can.
It was written that God man Man, but Sam Colt made all men (and women) equal.
I can here the liberals "Someone might have died and for what? 3 dollars!!! That is insane..."
Not at all, the divers license, the groping, and most important thing, the principle. These people will escalate to car jacking, armed robbery, rape and murder. My wife, instead of hiding her purse would have shot the guy holding on me and I would have felt up his buddy with a tire iron. We live in the world we are willing to tolerate.
quote:Not at all, the divers license, the groping, and most important thing, the principle. These people will escalate to car jacking, armed robbery, rape and murder. My wife, instead of hiding her purse would have shot the guy holding on me and I would have felt up his buddy with a tire iron. We live in the world we are willing to tolerate.
Or you would both have been shot and bled to death on the pavement.
I'm not saying it's a given that this would have happened, but just as it is stupid to say, "Guns never help in that situation!" it is equally stupid to say, "If I were carrying a gun, this would have gone differently in a positive way." Because you don't have a freakin' crystal ball.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I neither own a gun nor condemn a person who does...
What I condemn is ANYONE using a gun for an end like what was described in the first post.
I don't feel everyone who holds a permit to a gun is like that, I just hope that the vast minority fits into that category.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I almost chimed in on *phanto's* very moderate post to say "look, I agree with you but this isn't the place..."
to my horror, I had to come back to this crap.
You complete and utter fool. Someone just got robbed and sexually assaulted at gun point. Who the hell do you think you are to come in here and start tossing around your macho bullshit like this? There are very few times that someone should be beaten to teach them a lesson, but this is one of them.
Say she had a gun, where would it have been most likely? Drawn, cocked, and loaded the whole time? They got jacked in their driveway! You think either of them would've had the opportunity to draw their precious all-powerful firearm?
But no, you not only ignore the realities of the situation, but you have to come in and insult and bully someone who was just victimized so you can show everyone how big your balls are because you would never let some guy grope your girlfriend. Pitiful.
You are not only being a moron, but you are being an outrageously insensitive and offensive one. I'm beginning to buy the idea that you are, indeed, a liberal plant put here to make conservatives look like idiots.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Oh, heavens, I was so kidding about the NRA. I am neither planning to write them a letter nor hoping that any letter I could write would have the slightest effect on them, since I expect they are already aware of the fact that people get robbed at gunpoint. It was a joke, not a political statement.
I also don't rate my boobs so highly that I think it would be necessary to kill someone for touching them. If I had had a gun, it wouldn't really have helped extensively because the guy had a gun already pointing directly at Steve's face, and I wouldn't have been willing to take the chance. Steve is not in charge of "protecting" me from anything, and I wouldn't thank him for doing something that would jeopardize both our lives just to save me from the indignity of being felt up (as he knows). We're both sorry that we had to go through it, but all things considered we handled it pretty well.
Except the purse, I know. I feel excessively guilty about the purse (even though it wouldn't have mattered; they were only after cash and I hadn't any), like I swapped my boyfriend's life for the stuff inside. I wasn't thinking terribly clearly--the purse fell against the door when I opened it, and I just let it go on falling. No possession I could possibly have would be worth losing Steve over. I was mainly focused, at the time, on getting out of the car because the key was in the ignition, so I thought they were going to take the car, and they told me not to get out, and I did not want to be taken with the car.
My beloved did everything exactly right. The groping guy who now knows where I live has probably ditched my license or sold it to someone who needs fake ID, and anyway it is very unlikely that they are going to come back because they do not want to compromise their crime or be identified. (I pestered the police a lot to make sure they weren't telling me soothing lies on this point.)
Thanks, everyone, for your good thoughts. We are doing better today.
I think you did extremely well considering the circumstances. Don't beat yourself up about the purse thing. A thug threatened you with deadly force and you guys lived through it-- that makes you winners in my book. Glad you guys are feeling better.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Oh, heavens, I was so kidding about the NRA. I am neither planning to write them a letter nor hoping that any letter I could write would have the slightest effect on them, since I expect they are already aware of the fact that people get robbed at gunpoint. It was a joke, not a political statement.
Just for reference, I too thought it was a political statment.
I'm glad you appear to be doing well.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Fyfe, you really sound like you're handling it well, today and I'm glad that y'all are doing better.
I hate that happened to you, but at least you didn't lose anything really valuable and the groping, while grotesque and I'm sure very upsetting to you, didn't escalate to anything else. The most important thing is that you guys are safe. *hugs*
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm glad you two made it out of that situation alright. I'm sorry you were violated beyond the robbery:(![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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