Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Bad Guy Tactics

So, when society got 'civilized' life was easier for the stick up man.  Find a likely target, flash a weapon, demand valuables, then go away.  But thanks to the prevalence of CCW that is becoming more and more risky for the bad guy.

It's not super prevalent, yet, but the victim is more and more likely to air our the bad guy.

Now, bad guys aren't the brightest bulb on the string, but eventually they'll catch on.  And they'll change their tactic to minimize risk to themselves.

What will they do?

They could walk up behind and shoot a victim behind the ear.  It avoids an armed response.  But that's a lot of prison time just to get an iPhone4. 

They could walk up behind and clout a victim with a blunt object.  Still a risk of murder, but less so.

They could get other bad guys with weapons to help with a stickup.  Safety in numbers.  A victim with self defense capabilities might hesitate, more, to take on 4 armed thugs.  But then the bad guys have to split the loots.

I don't know when the prevalence of solo bad guys meeting CCW toters will tip the balance into a tactic change, but I want to think on it ahead of time.  Ideally, I'd prefer they switched careers and became telemarketers or summat instead of stick-up artists.  Maybe politicians.

8 comments:

Tango Juliet said...

I believe CCW is the reason why ID theft is on the rise. BG's are much less likely to be shot.

abnormalist said...

You are missing a big part of standard bad guy tactics, working in pairs.

In my short history of interactions with the generic bad guy, I've only once ran into one that I suspect was acting alone. Every time otherwise where someone confronted me with a threat of violence there was always two.

I suspect your generic bad guy approach will be two fold.

1. Going after loan individuals with two visibly armed bad guys. This may also precipitate an increase in the firepower of the baddies, as you are less likely to want to pull your CCW piece as you are looking down the barrel of a sawed off shottie.

2. Targeting victims with something else to be concerned about. Family's with children, couples, parent and child. This will make them less likely to want to risk a gunfight when Jr might get hit by bad guys stray round.

Bob S. said...

Jovain,

I also think there is an element missing from your consideration -- the bystander.

Because most bystanders are disarmed; either by law or indoctrination, few feel equipped to intervene in a situation.

So while the bad guys may increase their numbers, I think that will spur more spontaneous group action on the part of the non-criminals.

I believe that more identity theft, more vehicle break ins, more home robberies will occur before the thugs get bold/desperate enough to work in large groups. That is other then flash mobs.

Jay G said...

The issue with #2 is two-fold:

First, you run the risk of the mama-bear syndrome. Someone that might just hand over their wallet if confronted alone might very well decide to rip off your head and s**t down your neck of you threaten their kids.

Secondly, there are more witneses - and more sympathy (meaning more heat on the cops to actually find the perp) if there's a cute little kid interviewed all crying because the bad man robbed his mommy.

The smart crooks will become better studies of their victims. The dumb ones will perish. Eventually, one hopes, the smart crooks realize that there's more money to be made in honest work, and we see an overall decrease in the crime rate.

The other thing you might see is an increase in pickpockets, purse snatching, and car theft...

Anonymous said...

Pickpockets are way down because not that many people carry large amounts of cash. . .It's all plastic now. . .and those can be cancelled or locked down with a phone call or a suspicious pattern. and then the perpetrator is on in store video using the card . . .

Old NFO said...

Concur that 'most' perps run in pairs at the minimum... And they know that iPhone is worth $300 or so, and they can turn that though a fence for $100 for little 'pain' on their parts... The heavy stuff? Yeah, 3-4 bad guys makes it a chancy proposition to try to take them on.

John Stephens said...

On the third tentacle, goblins are not the most trustworthy of critters. The larger the group, the more likely one of them will talk too much, get picked up, and sell out the rest. That will keep the overall number of packs down.

Aaron said...

We're already seeing multiple armed bad guys in Detroit.

Impressively enough, even outnumbering the good guy three to one and having the advantage of initiating the attack, the bad guys still lost and took at least one fatality.