Conditions that Attract Violent Aggression

"Boards don't hit back."
--Lee (Enter the Dragon)

The recent 'Batman' theater shooting in Aurora CO provides a sobering reminder of two conditions that attract violent aggressors.

Aggressors are drawn to conditions of perceived weakness. Assailants rarely attack targets perceived to be of equal or greater strength. Instead, they are much more likely to accost targets thought to be incapable of defending themselves when attacked. In the case of the Aurora shooting, the theater was a posted no concealed carry establishment - attractive to any assailant wishing to commit a violent act with a gun without having to deal with return fire.

Aggressors are drawn to conditions of surprise. Assailents are unlikely to assault targets who have been forewarned or otherwise prepared to deal with an attack. Aggressors like surprise. Surprise causes people to delay defensive responses until they can collect their wits. In many cases, surprise attacks can freeze victims who are overcome with fear. In the Aurora case, the shooter almost certainly anticipated a surprise advantage. Choice of venue, film subject, garb, entry pattern, initial behavior as described by witnesses, etc suggest that the shooter believed that his targets would not be able to respond quickly to his assault.

As usual, most of the discussion following the shooting has involved gun control. It does not take a PhD in criminal economics to determine that laws making it more difficult for individuals to defend themselves increase the probability of violent crime. Whatever the technologies of violence that laws seek to control, those wishing to do violence to others will acquire those technologies on black markets which inevitably form for any outlawed product. Perceiving conditions of weakness as outlined above, relatively well armed aggressors will then proceed to assault weakly armed obedients of the law.

As the founders understood, gun control laws impair the capability of individuals to defend themselves.

For those wishing to improve their self-defense capacity, the more relevant discussion involves how individuals can reduce conditions of weakness and surprise that might give aggressors a perceived advantage.