On fighting and gender equality

I was referring to a public setting off-duty, not while I'm on the job.

On the job if I can defuse a situation verbally, I will, and as long as neither side has actively started beating the shit out of each other, I'll just tell one or both parties to go home and call it a day. If they are actually fighting, I have to break up the fight and detain/apprehend(we're not allowed to use the word "arrest" in the military) the individuals participating. Then they get a full questioning, if it's serious then lawyers get involved. If it's not, it'll probably get dropped more or less, with paperwork in their disciplinary file that hampers their promotion opportunities and such, or results in a fine that they have to pay. If lawyers get involved, a fine is almost guaranteed, and they'll probably suffer reduction in rank.(the person who is determined to have started it based on testimony of witnesses and the participants)

I've had to get civilians several times too though. Usually we hand them over to the local cops, ban them from the installation(and fire them if they are civilian employees on the base) and the civilian cops file a report and send them home with no charges unless serious injuries occur.

Quoted for emphasis. This is the outcome when police are involved that I most desire if cops have to be involved(from my opinion as an off-duty individual). Ideally, I would rather the individuals in a confrontation settle it amongst themselves, even if that involves a fight of some sort and then walking away.

The violence usually ensues if in the process of breaking up a fight, one of the participants hits an officer or is not being compliant when we're trying to cuff them. That's how police skullcracking occurs in those situations.

edited 2nd Jul '13 11:23:22 AM by Barkey

If by "delicate flower", you mean I that I'm not Neo, then yeah.

Incidentally, though, the fact that I walked away from this◊ without a scratch doesn't suddenly give me delusions of invincibility.

EDIT: Wait, wait. So basically, the way you deal with civilians during the job is completely contrary to the way you handle it personally?

So basically, your job is to put a stop to the very thing you would do?

edited 2nd Jul '13 11:28:17 AM by KingZeal

There's a difference between getting your face kicked in and getting a black eye or some bruises, and those differences are pretty significant. The human body can take and heal pretty ridiculous amounts of punishment.

Damn, what the fuck rear-ended you?

^

I don't recall the statute which says I'm on-duty 24 hours a day. There's the way I do my job, which is how I am supposed to, and then there's doing what I want to do, which I reserve for when I'm off-duty as a private citizen.

Based on the fact that we aren't given off-duty credentials such as a badge with the expectation that we get involved in stopping crime even when we're in plain clothes, I'm free to do that with no conflict of interest.

What I'm saying is that as a private citizen, I don't call the cops. I handle my own problems myself. As a cop, if I'm called, I am obligated to respond and do certain things depending on the situation. I am in no way legally obligated to call the police if some shit is going down around me. My job in a situation like that when I am on-duty is to resolve the conflict. If there are no serious injuries, I can do this verbally if possible, which I already said was one of my preferred alternatives. Giving people jail-time is essentially my least preferred method for dealing with fighting that does not result in serious injuries would be the most succinct way to sum up how I feel on this subject.

I don't particularly care to be proactive when it comes to people getting into little scuffles, I would rather be reactive.

edited 2nd Jul '13 11:35:24 AM by Barkey

If you weren't in the trunk, I wouldn't assume you are invicible either.

edited 2nd Jul '13 11:26:54 AM by Besserwisser

A Chevy Charger.

No doubt, but the problem is you never know how much your body can take this time. There was a cop on-site of my accident, for example, who told me he had needed medical attention after not getting hit anywhere near as hard as I did. I walked away with nothing but a slightly sore neck. MR Is and CAT scans said I was fine. But, hey, who knows how it could have gone in the other direction.

By comparison, I once needed a neck cast for months just for doing a handstand.

No doubt, but the problem is you never know how much your body can take this time. There was a cop on-site of my accident, for example, who told me he had needed medical attention after not getting hit anywhere near as hard as I did. I walked away with nothing but a slightly sore neck. MR Is and CAT scans said I was fine. But, hey, who knows how it could have gone in the other direction.

By comparison, I once needed a neck cast for months just for doing a handstand.

No, but my point is—you don't advocate the very law that you enforce. Yeah, I know that's pretty common (family of cops, as I said), but in this case, we were talking about advocating how to handle a situation. If you want to get into a fight personally, then I really have nothing to say about it—but originally, we were discussing the context for how society should handle it by default.

edited 2nd Jul '13 11:52:05 AM by KingZeal

Interesting pdf about statistics of women, men, prison and the various breeds of assault-driven murders. Enjoy.

The highlight of that: while fewer women commit murder, proportionately more get banged up for longer even in clear cases of self-defence. You may need to rethink a few things, there, Besser. <_< The stats do not live up to the anecdotes. -_- Although, you are free to find stats you prefer, instead.

edited 2nd Jul '13 12:30:20 PM by Euodiachloris

Yeah... no. At the very least, the link is heavily biased. First off, it mixes domestic violence victims with self-defense. The two are not the same. With our current arrest policies and domestic violence shelters, battered women have no excuse to kill their boyfriend or husband, unless he was attacking her at the time of the murder. Which happens rather rarely or the sentences wouldn't be as severe (the link mentions weapon use as a reason for that but there are other factors which only coincide with gender as well). We also have ample evidence of discrimination against men in the justice system, so we have to at least doubt data coming from those sources. And something which is probably not counted as murder is hiring a hitman, which women are more likely to do (though men probably still murder more, even if you count those hitman as female perpetrated murder only). There are other factors to think of as well, but that's it for now.

@Zeal: I'm with Barkey on this. In the state of Washington, at least, getting into a fight is a felony.

If a friend and I get into a fight, I'm sure as hell not calling the cops.

^^ and ^^^

What is the point you guys are trying to reach an understanding on again? Who kills who the most?

edited 2nd Jul '13 1:39:39 PM by Barkey

But we weren't specifically talking about friends.

I probably wouldn't call the cops on a stranger either, but really, the chances of anyone getting into a fight with a complete stranger is pretty slim. It's usually people they know.

I would say there are more instances of women getting an unfair bias to benefit them in the eyes of the law, partially because women tend not to be taken very seriously in that department until someone dies or is maimed rather badly.

Women scare the shit out of me when they legitimately are trying to hurt you. If men and women were guns, men would have Safe-Semi-Burst, with Semi being used most often for posturing and scuffling, and burst being the fight portion of fight or flight.

Women just have Safe-Full Auto. I hate fighting women, because they tend not to have limitations in any way once they get started. Eyes, nuts, hair, it don't fucking matter. They're just out to cause you as much pain as humanly possible in the shortest amount of time when that selector switch flips. And that lever isn't going to "Safe" until the whole fucking magazine is empty.

edited 2nd Jul '13 3:14:41 PM by Barkey

Seriously, whoever came up with the phrase "hits like a girl" has obviously never been attacked by a girl.

I think that's actually more of a personality thing, I know women who rough-house same as dudes, but I'm a guy and I have that exact same problem when I end up rough-housing, I naturally just try and grab anyone I'm fighting by the throat and choke them.

^^Girls can also hold grudges for a lot longer than men do. Landmines are probably a more accurate description. Anyone can set them off.

Welp. Not one for divorce but that's probably a good thing here. Just stereotyping here but is the wife Hispanic?

That's going to vary from person to person.

Well, we're kind of trained to hold grudges because of societal expectations.

I've never known grudge holding to be gender-specific. The methods used to hold those grudges may be gender specific (women gossiping about each other versus men physically assaulting each other or wanting some sort of competitive rematch), that has always struck me as an issue that is personality-dependent, rather than gender-dependent.

edited 2nd Jul '13 5:36:44 PM by Aprilla

See, I don't think I've ever met guys who really held grudges. If they didn't let it die, they'd get told to suck it up and deal with it and quit whining, whereas women were encouraged to keep bringing it up for years.

It could also be a regional thing, I guess.

I dunno, I was always taught by my guardians that if you can't get along with someone, just stop being around them. Further, when a girl didn't show interest in me, or we broke up, I was basically advised by friends and family to forget they ever existed.

If that's not holding a grudge, then it's in that kind of "get out of my life so I don't hold a grudge" sorta way.

There's a difference between holding a grudge and not causing yourself undue grief.

I'm talking about the "you did this thing wrong, and I'm never going to let you forget it" sort of thing, where instead of cutting someone out of their life, they just keep complaining about the thing that got fucked up.

No, she's white.

Kara: Good unleash your hate. Use your anger and strike me down. You will become more powerful then you could ever imagine.

Seriously though there is a difference between pure machismo and deciding you don't want to rely on the unpredictable nature of authorities, society, and bystanders.

If you want to sit around trade stories about being bullied and dealing with bullies,I have an open inbox. You may be surprised that in some regard you and I have some things.

Aprilla: Sue happy sure if you can afford the lawyers, one thnks they can make money of your case, or if you are really lucky you get a pro-bono lawyer. Also the various laws and legal options often have a frustrating amount of variety and catches to the situations.

Also there are more then a couple of folks who frankly don't care about a no contact order. To them it is just a piece of paper. Lack of meaningful enforcement because of any number of reasons has lead to some serious issues.

Then there is the hard part. Getting the lelgal system to engage with you and your issues. You have to have some sort of proof in most cases and it has to stand up to scrutiny before the law. The law can be gamed or manipulated via circumstances.

Then there are those fun times where you don't have time or a choice to contact the authorities and have something meaningful happen in a timely manner. If it were that easy then violence would rarely be needed if ever.

Now I can wholeheartedly agree folks need to know or learn where to draw the line men and women alike.

I don't like it coming down to a physical confrontation. But there are times where that was the only meaningful option.

As for schools. I didn't see the get arrested stuff until my senior year.

The usual was suspension for fighting on school grounds. Like you noted for the common kid enough to get the point across that it was a bad idea. Of course this just meant people moved the fights and attacks off of school property.

Grudges: Anyone and everyone can hold a grudge some for a really long time.

Though I do have to wonder if there is some sort of cultural influence that affects length and intensity.

As a whole when it comes to any sort of human interaction the human part is the hardest to work with. The array of situations, attitudes, and events in general varies to siginifcant degree.

Perhaps in some situations Aprilla having been in my shoes would have found physical altercation necessary or I in his a less agressive one.

Though in general I still prefer individuals to take a more active role in dealing with their problems instead of overly relying on authorities or society to fix it for them. Forcing other people to act is akin to herding cats at times.