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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

There's more here than the calculus of survival. Consider your right to life and liberty. To surrender that is to become a victim. Some would honestly rather risk it than enter into that class. Its a personal choice. Americans used to be famous for their backbone. This thread leaves me wondering.

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Crime problems are mostly social/economic. Regular people shouldn't have to fight robbers. Thats what police are for.

Responding to being robbed isn't an exercise in patriotism.

Actually, police have no duty to protect individuals. The Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled this repeatedly.

You mean movies have lied to me? :(

Police are for cleaning up crime scenes after the fact and trying to catch the people responsible. There's almost nothing they can do before a crime is committed. Even if a crime is in progress, they're more interested in protecting their own skin than in protecting yours. (Ever notice that a dead cop is a tragedy and a dead civilian is just another day at work?) I've known people who were attacked around the corner from a police van and the police did nothing, if they even bothered to notice at all.

I was robbed at knifepoint many years ago. I gave up my wallet willingly.

I did so because I cared far more about being present for my wife and children than I cared about the fact that some assholes would enjoy the contents of my wallet.

At the time I was practicing both boxing and karate on a daily basis, so I probably had decent odds in a fight... but why bother? I can get another wallet and some more cash. I can't get my daughter a new dad.

If this makes you think I have no backbone... well I suppose we simply have different principles.

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