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The only thing I'm "championing" (just pointing out, really) is that certain populations seem to enjoy using anecdotal tragedy to promote their own quasi-apocal

The only thing I'm "championing" (just pointing out, really) is that certain populations seem to enjoy using anecdotal tragedy to promote their own quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities, despite all available data contradicting that worldview. I'm sure everyone here appreciates the update on your locale, and your own stories of property crime and/or non-criminal (yet perhaps unnerving?) personal interactions. Alas, none of that appears to be relevant to either the submitted story, or homicide or any other violent crime.

idopmstuff 3y ago
Someone saying that the have a gun and are going to shoot you is very clearly assault, which is a criminal act. It would generally quality as a violent crime in statistics (if SFPD took reports of threats of violence, which they will not). While we should use data, we should also understand where there may be issues with the data that we're using.
- ambulancechaser 3y ago
  The gist of your point is 100% correct. I just want to point out that under the common law definition of assault (and i have no idea what definitions are in effect in SF), the fact that the person calmly ignored them points that this might not be assault. > Assault is generally defined as an intentional act that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact. No physical injury is required, but the actor must have intended to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the victim and the victim must have thereby been put in immediate apprehension of such a contact. Calmly ignoring the threat is evidence that the person was not "in immediate apprehension of such a contact". I only bring this up because i think it's interesting, and the underlying point you are making is 100% correct. This kind of thing is not normal nor innocent and not to be tolerated.
  - Lochleg 3y ago
    It's a reasonable belief and fear that person will carry out the act. You are probably misinterpreting the reasonable part, especially when people mask their reaction to try to get away or out of shock / instinct. The person making the threats probably gets enjoyment from getting a rise out of random strangers. Also, returning to the original context, there are too many people on the street that have severe mental health crises going on and are freely roaming some cities. They don't necessarily need to go to be convicted of a crime as a solution.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - stickfigure 3y ago
    Oh, I was definitely apprehensive of imminent harm. More details: Fairly normal-looking dude walked up next to me and kept pace for a couple minutes, threatening me and calling me "faggot" (which seemed odd, since I was walking with my girlfriend at the time). I didn't see an actual gun so I figured that the safest course of action was to simply ignore him until he presented more of a threat or walked away. I guess I bored him so he walked away. The calm took some willpower.
    - ambulancechaser 3y ago
      For sure. I didn't mean to derail the thread or tell you how you feel, just share what I think is an interesting aspect of assault as defined in common law. But your subjective experience here is exactly what the law means to recognize with assault and sounds like it was assault. But who knows. Glad the situation fizzled out (usually best case scenario)
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    > I just want to point out that under the common law definition of assault (and i have no idea what definitions are in effect in SF), the fact that the person calmly ignored them points that this might not be assault. This is actually an interesting point of semantics to me. I guess it'd really hinge on how you define "calmly" here - if you saw me walking my dog while a homeless person screamed that he was going to kill me, I would certainly appear calm. Even internally, I suspect my heart rate would increase but not enormously. Still, I would be very alert and mentally prepared for the possibility that this person is going to attack me, because I very much believe that to be possible. Given that, I would say that I have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harm (and I expect a lot of San Franciscans are similar in that regard).
- treeman79 3y ago
  And depending on the DA you’ll be thrown in jail if you defend yourself.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- runjake 3y ago
  We should also take practical steps to increase your chances of survival, which, if someone says this to you: - Keep an eye on their hands. - Attempt to de-escalate the person. - If they brandish a weapon in extreme close proximity to yourself, use both your hands to firmly grab onto the hand/wrist that's holding the weapon and extend your arms fully (using your skeleton to maintain that distance and provide added strength). Your focus should be on controlling that hand so they don't stab or shoot you. Yes, you may incur injury regardless, this is what's colloquially known as a "shit sandwich". - Increase distance and vacate the area as soon as possible. If they have a gun, run in a zig zag pattern and seek cover (blocks bullets) or concealment (hides you, but doesn't stop bullets). - Once you are safe, then report the incident to law enforcement (if they'll do anything).
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    You mean well, but this is Hollywood-grade advice for close quarters encounters. Arms extended gives you the least possible leverage. Like when cops in movies run around with gun drawn at arms' length (the Weaver stance is for target shooting). To disarm a gun-wielding opponent, you want to get in close, grab the weapon from both sides securely (hug it) and do a dead drop. Unless you're fighting The Rock, they can't hold both you and the weapon. Unless you are The Rock, you'll probably get killed grappling with them any other way. Don't do this for knives. Just stay the length of two arms + 1 beer bottle away from them. I don't have any advice for swords but anyone who comes at you with one isn't playing by conventional rules, so run like hell. The zig zag thing is a myth. It works in Counter-Strike, but you'll just end up dying an embarrassing death in reality. The only zig zagging you should be doing is from cover to cover. Get to cover as directly as possible. This isn't The OA...interpretive dance won't save you. PROTIP: As cover goes, cars are made of the same stuff as beer cans and glass. The IC engine block is the only part that will actually stop a bullet. EVs are explosive.
  - idopmstuff 3y ago
    I can't imagine you live in SF, because this is just bad advice. You don't attempt to de-escalate. You completely ignore. You do not try to grab their wrist. If they brandish a weapon, you run. You don't report the incident to law enforcement, because they do not care and will do nothing.
hermitdev 3y ago
It's not just this tragedy, it's any tragedy. Every time there's a mass shooting, people use it as a rallying cry for more gun control, rather than focusing on fixing the issues that actually led to the violence (usually severe mental health issues), as if people haven't used knives or vehicles to commit mass murder/violence. Never let a good tragedy go to waste, so the saying goes.
- mhoad 3y ago
  It’s actually nothing like that at all. People keep bringing it up because the US has the second highest number of gun related deaths of any country in the entire world.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    hermitdev claimed that if guns weren't available, people would use knives or cars instead. So the fact that gun related deaths are higher in the US is irrelevant. And they do have a point: knife murders are more common in Europe than they are in the US. But not by much. The fact that the murder rate in the US is 7X the murder rate in Europe is a much more relevant statistic.
    - mhoad 3y ago
      The point you seem to be making doesn’t really hold up to even a light level of scrutiny. There is not any evidence what so ever that a person who might commit a murder with a gun would just use the next available option to them such as a knife. That was something that was just introduced to the discussion as a fact when in reality it’s something you have made up. In fact it’s immediately clear that to most people they are two very different things precisely because one of them is literally just pushing a button. There is a reason why the murder rate is 7x higher because the access to guns requires a much lower buy in to commit the act in the first place. Hence why people argue for stricter gun control laws. Mass access is precisely the problem.
      - MrOwnPut 3y ago
sanedigital 3y ago
By "certain populations" do you mean a small selection of the worst members of almost all populations? Jumping to conclusions and pushing narratives isn't the exclusive purview of any particular group, especially not in 2023.
bigtex88 3y ago
What an absolutely asinine thing to champion. How does that do any good to actually help with "policy" as your initial comment seems to intend? All you seem to be doing is acting like "I'm smarter than all of you!" SF is a dangerous city. That seems to be the main point of concern here.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Well if we’re inventing types of danger out of whole cloth and proposing solutions to them they probably won’t help with anything. We also should probably quantify what “dangerous” means if, as both that post and the article say, violent crime in San Francisco is actually exceptionally low.
- quest88 3y ago
  No one is denying crime is a problem. The point is that people were quick attribute this tragedy to yet another unprovoked attack, which turned out to be false. But it fit the narrative, so it was believed to be true.
screye 3y ago
On the other hand, I feel like it takes an incredibly public tragedy for a platform for HN to tolerate any discussions around SF crime. People want to talk about crime, drugs & homelessness all the time. It is only in high profile cases where the issues seem topical, that HN can't discourage discussion around them. > quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities I don't see why speaking out about lack of police enforcement is seen as 'quasi-apocalyptic'. > despite all available data contradicting that worldview All available data is in favor of those speaking out about crime & drugs in west coast cities. Additionally, the eye test seems to portray a situation that's more dire than even the data might suggest. (underreporting, catch & release).
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  > platform for HN to tolerate any discussions around SF crime. I think we all live in our own bubbles, because I see so much discussion of SF crime. I also think it's important to note that there is a huge difference between "should we prevent random street killings?" and "how much effort should SFPD exert to protect cars when the majority of actual SF residents don't even own one?" EDIT: Just to cite my sources: [0] shows 397k registered cars in SF [1] shows 810k residents. [0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv-research-reports/research-development-data-dashboards/vehicles-registered-by-county/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv-research-reports/research-... [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocitycalifornia,sanfranciscocountycalifornia/PST045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocit...
  - TylerE 3y ago
    18% of that 810k is under 18. 397k for 664k adults means a 59.8% car ownership rate.
    - RC_ITR 3y ago
      I think it is important to note that police do not only protect adult residents.
  - ribosometronome 3y ago
RC_ITR 3y ago
I didn't like the direction of this comment. All cities are good and bad in their own way for the people that live there.
- politician 3y ago
  It might be helpful for you to take a class on gun safety to reduce the anxiety you have about seeing guns. Remember, the police also open carry because peaceful open carry is primarily about deterrence. Brandishing a weapon is legally different from open carry, and is already a crime. Brandishing means to draw or exhibit the weapon in a threatening manner, or to use it in a fight, other than in lawful self-defense.
kolinko 3y ago
Considering that a large population of sf tech is migrants, many people, myself included, compare it not to other American cities but to European and Asian ones. I would say that the comparison is apt - since we compare the tech/science successes of SF with the rest of the world, we should also compare the crime rates with it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wpietri 3y ago
> certain populations seem to enjoy using anecdotal tragedy to promote their own quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities For those interested in the topic, I recommend Loewen's "Sundown Towns". My copy's on loan, but I think it's in Ch 11, "The Effects of Sundown Towns on Whites" that he talks about the culture among descendants of white-flight suburbanites, their low-to-no-experience views on the horrors of the city, where Those People run rampant. Many are terrified of even going to cities. To people who actually live in the cities, their view is almost unrecognizable. As an example from something in my feed reader today [1], take Theo Wold, a former Deputy Assistant to the President for Policy (under Trump) and current Idaho Solicitor General. He quote-tweeted a photo of a white woman hugging two Black men. They were the Tennessee Three, the state legislators who were under threat of expulsion for protest. His comment: "Every Red State will have to wrestle with the fetid, urban Leftist vote sinks. That begins with asking the question: why does the GOP continue to push the annexation/development of rural land that only grows the size and power of Leftist strongholds?" Fetid stronghold sinks! Sounds pretty bad. In our favor, at least we have taco trucks on every corner. It reminds me of nothing so much as this bit from Chairman Mao: "It is very necessary for the educated youth to go to the countryside to be reeducated by the poor and lower-middle peasants. Cadres and other people in the cities should be persuaded to send their sons and daughters who have completed junior or senior middle school, college or university, to the countryside. Let us mobilize." [1] https://balloon-juice.com/2023/04/13/late-night-open-thread-the-gop-death-cultists-are-agitated/ https://balloon-juice.com/2023/04/13/late-night-open-thread-...

idopmstuff 3y ago

Someone saying that the have a gun and are going to shoot you is very clearly assault, which is a criminal act. It would generally quality as a violent crime in statistics (if SFPD took reports of threats of violence, which they will not). While we should use data, we should also understand where there may be issues with the data that we're using.

ambulancechaser 3y ago
The gist of your point is 100% correct. I just want to point out that under the common law definition of assault (and i have no idea what definitions are in effect in SF), the fact that the person calmly ignored them points that this might not be assault. > Assault is generally defined as an intentional act that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact. No physical injury is required, but the actor must have intended to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the victim and the victim must have thereby been put in immediate apprehension of such a contact. Calmly ignoring the threat is evidence that the person was not "in immediate apprehension of such a contact". I only bring this up because i think it's interesting, and the underlying point you are making is 100% correct. This kind of thing is not normal nor innocent and not to be tolerated.
- Lochleg 3y ago
  It's a reasonable belief and fear that person will carry out the act. You are probably misinterpreting the reasonable part, especially when people mask their reaction to try to get away or out of shock / instinct. The person making the threats probably gets enjoyment from getting a rise out of random strangers. Also, returning to the original context, there are too many people on the street that have severe mental health crises going on and are freely roaming some cities. They don't necessarily need to go to be convicted of a crime as a solution.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stickfigure 3y ago
  Oh, I was definitely apprehensive of imminent harm. More details: Fairly normal-looking dude walked up next to me and kept pace for a couple minutes, threatening me and calling me "faggot" (which seemed odd, since I was walking with my girlfriend at the time). I didn't see an actual gun so I figured that the safest course of action was to simply ignore him until he presented more of a threat or walked away. I guess I bored him so he walked away. The calm took some willpower.
  - ambulancechaser 3y ago
    For sure. I didn't mean to derail the thread or tell you how you feel, just share what I think is an interesting aspect of assault as defined in common law. But your subjective experience here is exactly what the law means to recognize with assault and sounds like it was assault. But who knows. Glad the situation fizzled out (usually best case scenario)
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  > I just want to point out that under the common law definition of assault (and i have no idea what definitions are in effect in SF), the fact that the person calmly ignored them points that this might not be assault. This is actually an interesting point of semantics to me. I guess it'd really hinge on how you define "calmly" here - if you saw me walking my dog while a homeless person screamed that he was going to kill me, I would certainly appear calm. Even internally, I suspect my heart rate would increase but not enormously. Still, I would be very alert and mentally prepared for the possibility that this person is going to attack me, because I very much believe that to be possible. Given that, I would say that I have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harm (and I expect a lot of San Franciscans are similar in that regard).
treeman79 3y ago
And depending on the DA you’ll be thrown in jail if you defend yourself.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
runjake 3y ago
We should also take practical steps to increase your chances of survival, which, if someone says this to you: - Keep an eye on their hands. - Attempt to de-escalate the person. - If they brandish a weapon in extreme close proximity to yourself, use both your hands to firmly grab onto the hand/wrist that's holding the weapon and extend your arms fully (using your skeleton to maintain that distance and provide added strength). Your focus should be on controlling that hand so they don't stab or shoot you. Yes, you may incur injury regardless, this is what's colloquially known as a "shit sandwich". - Increase distance and vacate the area as soon as possible. If they have a gun, run in a zig zag pattern and seek cover (blocks bullets) or concealment (hides you, but doesn't stop bullets). - Once you are safe, then report the incident to law enforcement (if they'll do anything).
- jstarfish 3y ago
  You mean well, but this is Hollywood-grade advice for close quarters encounters. Arms extended gives you the least possible leverage. Like when cops in movies run around with gun drawn at arms' length (the Weaver stance is for target shooting). To disarm a gun-wielding opponent, you want to get in close, grab the weapon from both sides securely (hug it) and do a dead drop. Unless you're fighting The Rock, they can't hold both you and the weapon. Unless you are The Rock, you'll probably get killed grappling with them any other way. Don't do this for knives. Just stay the length of two arms + 1 beer bottle away from them. I don't have any advice for swords but anyone who comes at you with one isn't playing by conventional rules, so run like hell. The zig zag thing is a myth. It works in Counter-Strike, but you'll just end up dying an embarrassing death in reality. The only zig zagging you should be doing is from cover to cover. Get to cover as directly as possible. This isn't The OA...interpretive dance won't save you. PROTIP: As cover goes, cars are made of the same stuff as beer cans and glass. The IC engine block is the only part that will actually stop a bullet. EVs are explosive.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  I can't imagine you live in SF, because this is just bad advice. You don't attempt to de-escalate. You completely ignore. You do not try to grab their wrist. If they brandish a weapon, you run. You don't report the incident to law enforcement, because they do not care and will do nothing.

hermitdev 3y ago

It's not just this tragedy, it's any tragedy. Every time there's a mass shooting, people use it as a rallying cry for more gun control, rather than focusing on fixing the issues that actually led to the violence (usually severe mental health issues), as if people haven't used knives or vehicles to commit mass murder/violence. Never let a good tragedy go to waste, so the saying goes.

mhoad 3y ago
It’s actually nothing like that at all. People keep bringing it up because the US has the second highest number of gun related deaths of any country in the entire world.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  hermitdev claimed that if guns weren't available, people would use knives or cars instead. So the fact that gun related deaths are higher in the US is irrelevant. And they do have a point: knife murders are more common in Europe than they are in the US. But not by much. The fact that the murder rate in the US is 7X the murder rate in Europe is a much more relevant statistic.
  - mhoad 3y ago
    The point you seem to be making doesn’t really hold up to even a light level of scrutiny. There is not any evidence what so ever that a person who might commit a murder with a gun would just use the next available option to them such as a knife. That was something that was just introduced to the discussion as a fact when in reality it’s something you have made up. In fact it’s immediately clear that to most people they are two very different things precisely because one of them is literally just pushing a button. There is a reason why the murder rate is 7x higher because the access to guns requires a much lower buy in to commit the act in the first place. Hence why people argue for stricter gun control laws. Mass access is precisely the problem.
    - MrOwnPut 3y ago

sanedigital 3y ago

By "certain populations" do you mean a small selection of the worst members of almost all populations? Jumping to conclusions and pushing narratives isn't the exclusive purview of any particular group, especially not in 2023.

bigtex88 3y ago

What an absolutely asinine thing to champion. How does that do any good to actually help with "policy" as your initial comment seems to intend? All you seem to be doing is acting like "I'm smarter than all of you!" SF is a dangerous city. That seems to be the main point of concern here.

emodendroket 3y ago
Well if we’re inventing types of danger out of whole cloth and proposing solutions to them they probably won’t help with anything. We also should probably quantify what “dangerous” means if, as both that post and the article say, violent crime in San Francisco is actually exceptionally low.
quest88 3y ago
No one is denying crime is a problem. The point is that people were quick attribute this tragedy to yet another unprovoked attack, which turned out to be false. But it fit the narrative, so it was believed to be true.

screye 3y ago

On the other hand, I feel like it takes an incredibly public tragedy for a platform for HN to tolerate any discussions around SF crime. People want to talk about crime, drugs & homelessness all the time. It is only in high profile cases where the issues seem topical, that HN can't discourage discussion around them. > quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities I don't see why speaking out about lack of police enforcement is seen as 'quasi-apocalyptic'. > despite all available data contradicting that worldview All available data is in favor of those speaking out about crime & drugs in west coast cities. Additionally, the eye test seems to portray a situation that's more dire than even the data might suggest. (underreporting, catch & release).

RC_ITR 3y ago
> platform for HN to tolerate any discussions around SF crime. I think we all live in our own bubbles, because I see so much discussion of SF crime. I also think it's important to note that there is a huge difference between "should we prevent random street killings?" and "how much effort should SFPD exert to protect cars when the majority of actual SF residents don't even own one?" EDIT: Just to cite my sources: [0] shows 397k registered cars in SF [1] shows 810k residents. [0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv-research-reports/research-development-data-dashboards/vehicles-registered-by-county/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv-research-reports/research-... [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocitycalifornia,sanfranciscocountycalifornia/PST045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocit...
- TylerE 3y ago
  18% of that 810k is under 18. 397k for 664k adults means a 59.8% car ownership rate.
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    I think it is important to note that police do not only protect adult residents.
- ribosometronome 3y ago

RC_ITR 3y ago

I didn't like the direction of this comment. All cities are good and bad in their own way for the people that live there.

politician 3y ago
It might be helpful for you to take a class on gun safety to reduce the anxiety you have about seeing guns. Remember, the police also open carry because peaceful open carry is primarily about deterrence. Brandishing a weapon is legally different from open carry, and is already a crime. Brandishing means to draw or exhibit the weapon in a threatening manner, or to use it in a fight, other than in lawful self-defense.

kolinko 3y ago

Considering that a large population of sf tech is migrants, many people, myself included, compare it not to other American cities but to European and Asian ones. I would say that the comparison is apt - since we compare the tech/science successes of SF with the rest of the world, we should also compare the crime rates with it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wpietri 3y ago

> certain populations seem to enjoy using anecdotal tragedy to promote their own quasi-apocalyptic worldview re: some American cities For those interested in the topic, I recommend Loewen's "Sundown Towns". My copy's on loan, but I think it's in Ch 11, "The Effects of Sundown Towns on Whites" that he talks about the culture among descendants of white-flight suburbanites, their low-to-no-experience views on the horrors of the city, where Those People run rampant. Many are terrified of even going to cities. To people who actually live in the cities, their view is almost unrecognizable. As an example from something in my feed reader today [1], take Theo Wold, a former Deputy Assistant to the President for Policy (under Trump) and current Idaho Solicitor General. He quote-tweeted a photo of a white woman hugging two Black men. They were the Tennessee Three, the state legislators who were under threat of expulsion for protest. His comment: "Every Red State will have to wrestle with the fetid, urban Leftist vote sinks. That begins with asking the question: why does the GOP continue to push the annexation/development of rural land that only grows the size and power of Leftist strongholds?" Fetid stronghold sinks! Sounds pretty bad. In our favor, at least we have taco trucks on every corner. It reminds me of nothing so much as this bit from Chairman Mao: "It is very necessary for the educated youth to go to the countryside to be reeducated by the poor and lower-middle peasants. Cadres and other people in the cities should be persuaded to send their sons and daughters who have completed junior or senior middle school, college or university, to the countryside. Let us mobilize." [1] https://balloon-juice.com/2023/04/13/late-night-open-thread-the-gop-death-cultists-are-agitated/ https://balloon-juice.com/2023/04/13/late-night-open-thread-...