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Old June 6, 2019, 02:39 PM   #51
Lohman446
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fastbolt
I tend to agree with much of what Nanuk posted in post #15.

Good luck guessing whether someone is going to be afraid, intimidated or even willing to comply when they're facing a gun muzzle.

Someone might not want to be shot, but that may not mean they're necessarily afraid of the person holding the gun pointed at them, or believe the person would/could shoot them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanuk
It is you for the most part that will be able to de-escalate a situation not the shock and awe of your favorite blaster.
I had to go back and reread post 15 and this stepped out. I once had a self defense instructor (not a firearm instructor) explain that if you had to actually throw a punch you had, likely long ago, lost control of the situation at hand. He was not wrong. Getting back control when it is lost is difficult at best.
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Old June 6, 2019, 03:17 PM   #52
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Just speaking for myself.. a firearm is a deadly weapon which should only be brought to bare in circumstance where life threatening jeopardy is actively occurring or reasonably considered to be imminent.

If the question is whether or not someone is more scared of this weapon or that weapon, I really don't follow the logic behind such a question. I do not consider that aspect to be important at all. I certainly would not make SD choices based on such speculation.
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Old June 6, 2019, 03:27 PM   #53
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This has been an interesting thread. I'm not sure about the intimidation factor of a knife verses a club in a confrontation with an attacking felon. I do know that a knife would be more intimidating to me.

Lohman I certainly agree with your instructor. Avoidance and de-escalation are generally preferable to a fight, especially one where lethal force is in play. Any self defense plan that doesn't include serious focus on situational awareness and identification of risk misses a vital component.
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Old June 6, 2019, 11:10 PM   #54
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Quote:
Good luck guessing whether someone is going to be afraid, intimidated or even willing to comply when they're facing a gun muzzle.

Someone might not want to be shot, but that may not mean they're necessarily afraid of the person holding the gun pointed at them, or believe the person would/could shoot them.
There's absolutely no reason to guess at something like that or wonder about it.

You don't pull a gun because you "guess" it will be intimidating. You don't hesitate after you draw and wonder if the person will be afraid or guess about how intimidated the person is.

You respond to the threat as appropriate, and if the attack breaks off before the gun is fired, or before a hit is scored, then that's a win. If it doesn't, you've already responded the way you should have.

Statistics and probabilities help us understand possible outcomes--they don't tell us we should EXPECT a particular outcome, or plan based on likely outcomes being the only ones that could happen. That would be crazy. Even a highly improbable outcome might play out in any given attack--but that shouldn't prejudice the defender against action. The response should be based on the defender's reasonable assessment of what is absolutely necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury.

Knowing that the vast majority of successful self-defense gun uses do not involve firing the gun should not make a defender hesitate if his/her assessment of the situation is that shooting is immediately necessary to resolve the situation without an innocent person dying or being seriously injured.

People get confused about the value and point of statistics--on both sides of the argument.
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Old June 7, 2019, 08:59 AM   #55
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I had to go back and reread post 15 and this stepped out. I once had a self defense instructor (not a firearm instructor) explain that if you had to actually throw a punch you had, likely long ago, lost control of the situation at hand. He was not wrong. Getting back control when it is lost is difficult at best.
I have had literally hundreds of people at gun point during my career. I have dealt with about any reaction you can imagine.
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Old June 7, 2019, 09:02 AM   #56
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There's absolutely no reason to guess at something like that or wonder about it.

You don't pull a gun because you "guess" it will be intimidating. You don't hesitate after you draw and wonder if the person will be afraid or guess about how intimidated the person is.

You respond to the threat as appropriate, and if the attack breaks off before the gun is fired, or before a hit is scored, then that's a win. If it doesn't, you've already responded the way you should have.

Statistics and probabilities help us understand possible outcomes--they don't tell us we should EXPECT a particular outcome, or plan based on likely outcomes being the only ones that could happen. That would be crazy. Even a highly improbable outcome might play out in any given attack--but that shouldn't prejudice the defender against action. The response should be based on the defender's reasonable assessment of what is absolutely necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury.

Knowing that the vast majority of successful self-defense gun uses do not involve firing the gun should not make a defender hesitate if his/her assessment of the situation is that shooting is immediately necessary to resolve the situation without an innocent person dying or being seriously injured.

People get confused about the value and point of statistics--on both sides of the argument.
Absolutely right on John.

They say that statistics lie and liars use statistics. I am not saying that anyone here is lying, just that the data is frequently manipulated to get the results that the requester wants.

Case in point; about 9 years ago I was sick, I had all of the signs and symptoms of West Nile. The doctor refused to test me for West Nile as the CDC was conducting a survey to see how far and to what extent the disease had spread and they did not want any more cases to show up in the study..........
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Old June 7, 2019, 09:15 AM   #57
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I have had literally hundreds of people at gun point during my career. I have dealt with about any reaction you can imagine.
I can imagine you have. I don't think I would be wrong in suggesting that the legitimate and legal use of a firearm by a law enforcement officer is tremendously different than that of a civilian.
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Old June 7, 2019, 09:44 AM   #58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanuk View Post
Absolutely right on John.



They say that statistics lie and liars use statistics. I am not saying that anyone here is lying, just that the data is frequently manipulated to get the results that the requester wants.



Case in point; about 9 years ago I was sick, I had all of the signs and symptoms of West Nile. The doctor refused to test me for West Nile as the CDC was conducting a survey to see how far and to what extent the disease had spread and they did not want any more cases to show up in the study..........
They also say that people choose to ignore statistics they find inconvenient.

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Old June 7, 2019, 11:11 AM   #59
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This is an interesting discussion.

To address a couple of earlier comments, Dr. Gary Kleck has extensively studied the likelihood of ending an encounter with a criminal without shooting, so nobody has to guess at this; you can look it up. I believe the current number is something like 90% of the time, but keep in mind that includes burglars who most often think they are entering when nobody is home. It is not based on reported events. It is based on surveys where the social scientist uses various methods to account for fabrications and misreporting of fact. The reason for using survey methods is, historically, people don't tend to file police reports when neither they are not injured and the bad has fled, whether wounded or not. This results in enormous self-defense event underreporting. It's not like the bad guy will report you for shooting him because that would require admitting to committing a crime (or trying to). People say their failure to report these incidents to police is based on the fear the police will think they are the dangerous person and also that their weapons may be confiscated.

My memory of the early studies is they found 80% of gun-armed defenders did not have to discharge their weapons. Of the 20% that did discharge their weapons, most did not hit anyone but rather served as warning shots that drove the bad guy off. Kleck's more recent work changed the numbers some, reducing the percentage of discharge incidents, but increasing the frequency with which discharges resulted in wounding the criminal. The latter is on the order of something like 5% of the time, IIRC. Most of those are survived, of course. Look it up for yourself to get more detailed numbers. I need to look at it again myself, but I think the numbers I gave are in the ballpark.

For another aspect of psychology, I'll mention there is a book called Sheep No More by Jonathan T. Gilliam. He is a former SEAL and FBI SA and Air Marshal who does security consulting as well as occasional guest-hosting for Sean Hannity. I got a signed copy from him at the Indiana NRA Annual Meeting. As well as fighting, his book describes how to analyze yourself as a target from the criminal's perspective and thereby to neutralize the clues you present that help him decide you'd be a good choice of victim. It's a preemptive mindset and awareness concept.

There was an article in Esquire in the mid-90s sometime by a playwright in California (LA, IIRC) who got a gun and a carry permit after he and his wife were victimized. Afterward, he described encountering a group of young men on the street whose leader informed him they were going to rob him. He pulled the gun out and said that wasn't so. The leader said "you aren't going to shoot me" and continued toward him. He lowered his aim and shot the thug in the thigh, who went down cursing, then turned to his buds and asked: "aren't you going to do something?" They weren't. He jaywalked across the street away from the group. He said he considered stepping into a shop calling for an ambulance, but then thought "was he going to call an ambulance for me?" He didn't place the call.

Several things interest me about that tale. One is that victimization can turn non-gun owners into gun owners who feel they have a right to defend themselves. Another is the behavior of the group leader, as described, was driven at least partly by his ego and maybe his alpha male position to show no submissive behavior in front of his group. If the encounter had just been himself and the author, I don't know that he would have insisted on challenging the gun. If I am right, it suggests you are more likely to face obstinance from a member of an assailant group (i.e., home invaders, robbery gangs, etc.). Finally, just as with warning shots, demonstrating a willingness to shoot makes believers out of your foes, but I'm not sure what to do with that information. Shooting to wound can be interpreted by authorities as suggesting you didn't really need to shoot at all.


Quote:
Originally Posted by jar
but for me, seeing someone with a revolver says "It's very likely that person would hit at POA."
I'm curious how you arrived at that perception. My recollection is the police department migration from revolvers to pistols from the late '60s to mid-'90s resulted in fewer misses in police gunfights. Someone pointed out that for pistols that fired the first round double-action and the subsequent ones single-action (e.g., the S&W model 39 adopted by Illinois State Patrol starting in 1967), the first shot miss numbers were the same as for double-action revolvers, but the subsequent single-action rounds did better. So the conclusion was that double-action shooting is just harder for most people to learn to make hits with.
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Old June 7, 2019, 01:47 PM   #60
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Here in the 'hood of Memphis, the thugs may stop what they are doing when a gun is pulled- but they know damned well that you can't shoot them when they are running away. Holding them at gunpoint for the police is an exercise in futility. They just run.
I guess that's a psychological stop.
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Old June 7, 2019, 04:45 PM   #61
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I have wondered about using civilian bodycams as a line of defense. Fine unless it is you who messed up, I suppose.
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Old June 9, 2019, 09:45 AM   #62
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I was watching a discussion of bladed weapons vs. impact weapons. Someone pointed out (correctly, in my view) that while bladed weapons had a strong psychological impact, they were very bad at stopping a fight in physiological terms and that impact weapons like blackjacks or saps were more effective on the physiological level.
1. NEVER rely upon a psychological stop. It is great if it happens but it is never a primary plan.

2. If an attacker wielding a knife shows you the knife for "psychological" effect........

He does not know how to use a knife.
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Old June 9, 2019, 10:04 AM   #63
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I wouldn’t rely on psychological factors; but there are psychological aspects of firearms that don’t compromise their utility. Say the gaping maw of a 12ga, or the giant thunderclap and fireball from a short-barrelled rifle.

I’ve talked with some guys who have the opinion that suppressors are actually a negative in some situations because they minimize the “shock and awe” factor.
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Old June 9, 2019, 11:41 AM   #64
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davidsog
2. If an attacker wielding a knife shows you the knife for "psychological" effect........

He does not know how to use a knife.
I disagree. Any time a robber shows the victim a knife or a gun, it is done for the psychological effect and says nothing about whether or not the wielder knows how to use the weapon. The intent of showing it as a threat is to compel surrender. If the only test of whether or not the wielder knows how to use it is to use it, by that logic robbers should never show a knife or a gun, they should just proceed directly to shooting or stabbing the victim and forget showing the weapon.
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Old June 9, 2019, 12:28 PM   #65
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I disagree.
You can disagree all you want.

The awareness your attacker has a knife greatly increases the chances the defender will defeat any knife attack if the defender is trained.

In fact, a knife can be a huge detriment to an attacker because it becomes his sole focus.

A well trained knife attack is lethal and delivered before the defender even knows the knife is present.

The knife you do not know about is lethal. The knife you know about is not much more than a nuisance, sure you will get cut but it will heal.

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Old June 9, 2019, 12:32 PM   #66
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I've heard that open displays of tommy guns --- whether full or semi auto --- presents a strong psychological deterrence against pirates on the open sea.
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Old June 9, 2019, 01:59 PM   #67
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A well trained knife attack is lethal and delivered before the defender even knows the knife is present.
Most people using a weapon to rob someone aren't interested in perpetrating a lethal attack although they may be willing to do so if necessary. Their primary goal is to use the weapon to intimidate.

That doesn't meant they don't know how to use the knife as a weapon or that they are unwilling to use it, if they feel it is necessary, it just means that their primary motivation is to compel cooperation, not to perpetrate an unexpected, rapid, lethal attack. That said, it is likely true that most people using a knife as a weapon in an armed robbery aren't schooled in its use--because that's true of most people.

While we can learn important lessons from combat experience and training, it's important to understand that there can be significant differences between combat and civilian encounters.
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Old June 9, 2019, 03:23 PM   #68
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When I put the sights of my glock on a guy's heart he laughed at it. His partner moved away and was no longer part of the attack. subject number one may have pressed his attack if I had an lcp, he may have turned and run if I had an AR. I doubt that anything would have made him leave, he thought I was bluffing. With the smaller weapon or even only a club or knife he would have attacked.

Second subject may have wet himself, and he left when the gun came out. Two examples of the psychological aspect of brandishing a gun on two bad guys. Two very different results. If subject one had been shot, he would have been surprised and shocked but I don't think that he would have had a meltdown. He probably would have fought. subject two would have probably gone down screaming for his mommy.

I used to think that bowhunting was very different and extremely hard on a deer. Too much risk of losing a deer, not enough extra damage to the critter. Then I realized that a rifle such as a .243 will mushroom to what, a half inch? it will strike at almost 3,000 FPS.

Now a broadhed may be almost 1.5" with three or four blades. Holy cow, that's gonna leave a mark! Will that arrow blow through the deer, leaving all of the internals bleeding? Dunno.

One of the deer my father shot hopped away about two yards, stopped, and looked around. Dad ticked his arrow as he prepared for the second shot and when the deer heard it he bolted. about 100 feet.

I personally believe that many, if not most of the people who are shot react more strongly to the pain and surprise than their bodies actually do. If I shot a man in the chest, it's not going to move him or knock him down. It may not even physically damage him enough to stun him or put him into shock. If the guy sees the gun, hears the shot, feels that thing tear into his stomach, understands it all and is maybe even afraid of dying, I am almost certain that this will put him down more certainly and quickly than the actual hit (assuming that it was just an ordinary run of the mill shot.)

I personally believe that for most people, being shot will disable far more consistently based on the fear and shock of being hit than it will by physical injury.

I am comfortable with saying that holding a big and scary gun is a whole lot more intimidating than an lcp. Unloading a fire belching round from a .357 magnum is going to shock and damage a person's resolve far more than a .9mm. It doesn't matter that some .9mm rounds are more lethal and can cause greater injury than a lightly loaded magnum. presentation of a meal will make you hungry. Seeing a fireball the size of a volkswagen and hearing an explosion as loud as a quarry's blasting will triple, quadruple, maybe even more the amount of fear and trauma that the target is feeling.

When I shoot a heavy weapon, the recoil itself isn't what bothers me. I'm not fond of having some behemoth slap my face with a concussion wave that makes my hands tingle for hours.
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Old June 9, 2019, 03:50 PM   #69
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Most people using a weapon to rob someone aren't interested in perpetrating a lethal attack although they may be willing to do so if necessary. Their primary goal is to use the weapon to intimidate.
Certainly........and a knife is a poor choice for intimidation the reasons stated.

If you examine weapon use in crime statistics you will see that knives being used to commit robberies has gone from near par with firearms in the 1970's to half that of firearms by the 1990's.



file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/PTR%2091/uwcc.pdf



file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/PTR%2091/wuvc01.pdf


So, while your presumption would be correct with a less violence innoculated society of the 1970's, it does not hold water in today's society were the exposure to violence is much more prevalent.

Simply put, just like a soldier, people recognize that a knife in plain view has lost much of it lethality and is much harder for the wielder to use in terms of both psychologically and physiologically.
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Old June 9, 2019, 04:10 PM   #70
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davidsog
Simply put, just like a soldier, people recognize that a knife in plain view has lost much of it lethality and is much harder for the wielder to use in terms of both psychologically and physiologically.
I still have to disagree. The majority of people are not people who have any training in or familiarity with weapons. Suzie Soccermom is still going to be scared out of her mind if she is accosted by a thug with a switchblade, and she probably won't know or care that statistics said the attack she is encountering was less likely this year than five years ago.

This started off with the concept that most use of weapons by robbers is initially intended to frighten the victim into surrender. Whether or not the robber is an expert in the use of the weapon doesn't enter into the discussion. If the intention of the robber is to encourage the victim to give up his/her watch/wallet/purse/cell phone rather than to just shoot or stab the victim -- then, by definition, the weapon is used for psychological rather than physiological purposes.
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Old June 9, 2019, 04:29 PM   #71
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Certainly........and a knife is a poor choice for intimidation the reasons stated.
Poor choice or not, the fact remains that people do use it for intimidation, and do so fairly frequently--more than one in ten armed robberies involve knives as the weapon of choice.

And I'm not so sure they are a poor choice in terms of the raw intimidation potential. People understand knives at a visceral, practical level, while the understanding of guns happens at a more abstract level. Everyone has been cut and when they see a blade being waved around, they know just how it's going to feel as it sinks deeply into their flesh. People understand that at the gut level.

But almost no one has been shot. Guns are more like magic. Press this little doohickey right here, there's a flash and bang, and way over there, something happens. Magic. At some level, people definitely get what's going on, but unless they've been shot, it's not the same kind of gut reaction that people have to knives.
Quote:
Simply put, just like a soldier, people recognize that a knife in plain view has lost much of it lethality and is much harder for the wielder to use in terms of both psychologically and physiologically.
You remain exclusively focused on lethality, however, clearly, in most cases, when a knife is used in an armed robbery, the goal is not lethality. It is intimidation--psychological. Because the goal is not an unexpected lethal attack, but rather intimidation, showing the knife for psychological effect is an absolute necessity and must be done if the intended effect is to be achieved. That is true whether the attacker knows how to use it or not.

So it's not possible to state categorically that a person who displays a knife is untrained and doesn't know how to use it. If the goal is to intimidate, it MUST be displayed.

If, on the other hand, the goal is lethality, then displaying it is a bad idea. But of course that's a different goal and is achieved differently.

Imagine I accidentally drive off the road into a lake and am trapped in my car. There's a wrench in the center console and I use it to break out my window to escape. A mechanic reads the story and says: "Anyone who knows how to use a wrench would know that it's not used to break out windows." Which is a true statement. However, I DO, in fact, know how to use a wrench and what it is for. I used it to break out the window NOT because I'm clueless about wrenches but because I needed to break a window and what I had on hand was a wrench.

Along the same lines, a person who knows how to use a knife may still use it as a psychological/intimidation weapon because that's what the current need is and that's the weapon available. And, in spite of the fact that it might not be the right tool for the job, it can do the trick quite nicely--just like the wrench.
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Old June 9, 2019, 04:46 PM   #72
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Seeing a knife in the hand of desperate criminal is like being charged by a big angry dog. It has a huge psychological impact.
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Old June 9, 2019, 09:22 PM   #73
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This started off with the concept that most use of weapons by robbers is initially intended to frighten the victim into surrender. Whether or not the robber is an expert in the use of the weapon doesn't enter into the discussion. If the intention of the robber is to encourage the victim to give up his/her watch/wallet/purse/cell phone rather than to just shoot or stab the victim -- then, by definition, the weapon is used for psychological rather than physiological purposes.
Sounds like a preconceived outcome.

Quote:
You remain exclusively focused on lethality, however, clearly, in most cases, when a knife is used in an armed robbery, the goal is not lethality. It is intimidation--psychological.
Sure. However the facts point a marked decrease in the use of knives in armed robbery. In other words.....

People recognize that a knife in plain view has lost much of it lethality and is much harder for the wielder to use in terms of both psychologically and physiologically.
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Old June 9, 2019, 09:41 PM   #74
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Seeing a knife in the hand of desperate criminal is like being charged by a big angry dog. It has a huge psychological impact.
Yes it does....

However with knowledge that impact is greatly diminished, something even criminals recognize.
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Old June 9, 2019, 10:39 PM   #75
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Sounds like a preconceived outcome.
1. The word "most" reflects probability. As mentioned earlier in the thread, understanding the probabilities doesn't mean you can plan on that outcome, it's just an observation about likelihood.

2. A knife that is used for intimidation must be used as a threat to the intended victim. There's really no way to argue against that statement. If the knife isn't used as a threat, it isn't doing any intimidation because the person who is to be intimidated can't be intimidated by something they don't know about. While you may be perfectly correct in claiming that when lethality is the goal, displaying the knife is counterproductive, it's simply nonsensical to argue that when intimidation is the goal, displaying the knife makes achieving the goal harder.
Quote:
However the facts point a marked decrease in the use of knives in armed robbery.
Which has no bearing at all on the fact that in armed robberies, the most common use of a knife (when it is used) is intimidation.

If they had been used only 4 times this year, and 3 of those were for the purposes of intimidation/coercion, then the most common use would still be intimidation/coercion. The fact that the use of knives in armed robberies has declined does not change how they are most often used anymore than it would if their use had increased or remained the same.
Quote:
People recognize that a knife in plain view has lost much of it lethality and is much harder for the wielder to use in terms of both psychologically and physiologically.
1. If the purpose is (as it is in most cases) intimidation, then it is meaningless to say that displaying it makes it harder to use "psychologically". In fact, the only way a knife can be used "psychologically" on an armed robbery victim is by displaying it, or, at the very least, informing the victim of its presence.

2. I don't think most people recognize that at all. Perhaps people trained in defense against edged weapons, or trained in the use of edged weapons might recognize that, but I think we can all agree that such persons are, by far, the minority.
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