ANTI-SOCIAL AGGRESSION AND TRAGEDY ARE AVOIDABLE

(Though this incident occurred in 2009, and plenty other anti-social aggression incidents just like it have come to pass since then, it stands out as horribly indicative of the essential problem.)

One person ends up dead, another is a newly minted killer, and a family will never be whole again:

Was this antisocial aggression avoidable? I can’t say.

What I do know is that this is an all too common outcome of such things. Common enough that there’s at least one in the national (US) news story every month. I used to collect stories like this one, they were such a powerful reminder of where anti-social aggression and violence can lead, and what you’re risking every time you engage.

After a couple years of this, I stopped because of the sheer volume (and sameness) of the stories. They all start the same way, with a disagreement that one or both parties think will be solved by going to blows, and they all end identically.

What aren’t people learning from all this carnage?

When firearms are used, there is an expectation for a lethal outcome, and anything less is viewed as a miracle. The opposite is true for “mere fisticuffs”—the expectation is that everyone will survive with the losers getting nothing worse than marked with an ass-kicking.

Sure, death tends not to happen, but it happens often enough that you should take stock of what you’re doing. Just as while you don’t expect to be involved in a fatal car crash, you should still drive with care.

If you educate yourself in the realities of self-defense, and truly understand the lesson that the above article on what anti-social aggression has to teach, you’ll understand, on a gut-level, why you must go out of your way to avoid the avoidable regardless of ego and anger. On the flip-side, when violence is the answer, you’ll know why you must be the one doing it.

For want of a little knowledge, another life is needlessly lost and others changed forever.