On Mon, 2 Jun 2008 18:53:59 -0700 (PDT), Sam the Bam
may have said:A minor confrontation yesterday... I'm out
riding my bicycle, some nut job on another
bike chases me, screaming. It seems I
committed the crime of running a stop sign
(guilty guilty guilty). He pulls along side,
still yelling. I ignore him. He's foaming at the
mouth. I run another stop sign, he blows another
gasket, hahaha! It's worth the price of admission.
Finally he peels away.
Now does that constitute a 'self defense situation?'
Not that I could do much, we're both on bikes... maybe
Sakuraba could pull off some kind of move, but I'm not
him... does mma cover this?
For a moment I thought he might try to ram me,
then I would have gone apeshit. I wasn't carrying
anything, but I'm confident I can put my knuckles
through anyone's nose.
My question is, are you prepared for this sort
of thing, do you have your kata down?
Do you wait for the enemy to make the first
aggressive move? Where is the point of no return?
There are many answers.
You may be under a legal requirement to wait until you have been
physically assalted, or you may not; there may be some clear point
beyond which physical measures are deemd defensive, but you'd have to
sonsult with authorities in your area to determine what they are.
IMO, the approach you took was adequate; someone going apeshit over a
common practice is prima facie not fully in contact with reality. (I
will ignore the fact that the law itself, as well as those who are
obliged to enforce it, may be equally disconnected.) As such,
minimizing your interaction - which includes *staying in motion* as a
means of limiting the other person's opportunities to act, was prudent
as far as I'm concerned.
It is probably fruitless to speculate about outcomes had a different
path been taken; it wasn't, and even ex post facto plans come under
the old rule "no intricate plan of battle ever survives the first
encounter with the enemy unscathed."
--
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