What the hell did you just shoot me with?

[blas]

If I may, I'd like to tell a story of what happened a few weeks ago at the bar. Yes, I understand I was off work and at a bar, where sometimes, bad things happen.

There was a group of about 3 middle aged men, their wives (?) and a couple of younger people around my age. The older men were beyond drunk.

This bar is full of peanuts. Every table has them. The floor is almost always littered with peanuts....but the floors are hardwood...maybe it's good for wood?

I was sitting at a table with my boyfriend and my friend and her fiance, and we were shooting the shit when a flying peanut bounced off my breast and then plopped onto the table. I looked up, and two of the older men high fived each other and started laughing like hyenas. As you can guess.......the men were trying to get the peanut in my cleavage.

I screamed "Which one of you fucking Beach Boys threw the peanut at my boobs?" which my boyfriend overheard and he got right in their faces (he was taller and bigger than all of them). They immediately backed down and panicked, going "We're so sorry! It was just a joke! I mean, we were just fooling around, we weren't aiming at her!" and one of the wives said "You and your crazy girlfriend need to calm down, they didn't do it on purpose!"

We left shortly after, not wanting to be kicked out or arrested. Bf used to live in Madison. He said "It's stupid shit like that that gets people stabbed and shot.....people throwing shit at each other and doing stupid things like that, because someone's not going to find it funny and is going to kick their ass." This isn't the first time we've been somewhere out in public were someone has thrown something at me or him, and my boyfriend will go into protective mode, and the perp in question will immediately back down and panick....or will say "It was just a joke!"......not everyone thinks it's funny.

Which I truly believe. Sometimes people just do not think and throw stuff at people and do just the most silliest things that the wrong person is not going to find it funny or ignore and walk away.

[Becks]

How many people (honestly!!!!!) think of consequences when they're angry?

I know I don't (very often).

[aniwahya]

No one has the right to by hand or by proxy (gun, slingshot, thrown object, squirt gun etc) to touch another person with uninvited or unnecessary contact. Assault is defined as follows:
"Assault and battery. Any unlawful touching of another which is without justification or excuse. It is both a tort, Trogun v. Fruchtman, 58 Wis.2d 569, 207 N.W.2d 297, as well as a crime, Scruggs v. State, Ind.App., 317 N.E.2d 807, 809. The two crimes differ from each other in that battery requires physical contact of some sort (bodily injury or offensive touching), whereas assault is committed without physical contact. In most jurisdictions, statutes have created aggravated assaults and batteries, punishable as felonies, and worded in various ways. "
(this can be found on http://compuserb.com/assault_and_battery_def.htm)

Squirting someone with a squirt gun would fall under "offensive touching". Keep in mind that the guy didn't just squirt her once, he did so twice. She had no way of knowing what was in the bottle, even something immediatly harmful might not register right away due to adrenaline or it could have a delayed effect. Or he could be someone who is really sick and gets off on squirting people with his own bodily fluids. Also, he wasn't just charged with sexual harassment of Hon, but the assault of a strange man who he shot in the face who did have security and the cops looking for him. He didn't just squirt a stranger, he squirted a strange woman in the chest twice. If a strange man shot me in the chest with a water pistol, and then continued to keep shooting me with it after I responded in a clearly negative and uninviting fashion, then out of the things going through my head "oh he must be joking around" would be on the bottom of the list if, at all.

On the subject of the kid, Hon didn't put the kid at harm. The guy holding the kid did. Slapping him, throwing something at him, these things would not be justifiable. Taking the squirt gun after she asked him to stop and he refused I would consider to be perfectly reasonable. the one responsible for the ensuing struggle over the gun was the guy who was using it to assault (and I at least feel that it was assault the moment he continued to do it after she responded in a clearly negative fashion) caused the situation. Or he could have just not gone around squirting strangers with a squirt gun. He is an adult who made a conscious decision to do what he did, and as a consequence of that decision he now has a sexual harassment charge, an assault charge and his child has been taken away, and I don't feel sorry for him at all. In my reality actions have consequences.

Also, since he is the one who created a situation in which his child may have been hurt because of his actions, I think calling child services was exactly the right action. As someone said, Hon responding "Give me that gun!" could have evoked a much deadlier response from security or a bystander, and it would not have been Hon's fault (she was responding with shock, and still trying to figure out what was going on). If his kid had been shot because his of his dad's poor judgment, that would have been a much worse outcome than the kid being taken by child services.

[zzapp the witch]

I have, what I consider, an extremely large chest. I get all kinds of harassment and humiliation because of this. Things thrown in my cleavage, randomly *felt up* by "accident", to ice water being thrown on my shirt in the food court (yes, my nipples got hard, yes you could see my bra, and yes I was HUMILIATED). All this coming from a gal that puts up with pervyness of various kinds all damn day. Some of you will thankfully have no idea how it feels to be put in a situation like this where you have no way to protect yourself unless your wits are at the ready, and you forearm is already cocked.

Its idiots like those in the OP that have made me seriously muse getting my tits chopped off, once and for all. Simply because women like me are told to "put up with it." Just cause we have tits we're here for your entertainment?

I'm usually not touchy about things like this, but people, on THIS BOARD of all places (especially after the Dear Abby rant) telling the OP she overreacted? I think not. Shut up about the damned kid already. His father put him in danger, and Honya, thankfully, was able to wrest the offending object away from him without causing harm.

Guy was a jackass, no one got hurt, people got punished. Happy day. Quit making it out to be worse than it was. Everyone that wants to get onto the OP for overreacting....reread your posts and see where YOU are overreacting.

[jayel]

Cheers for Zzapp!!! (Whistles, claps). ITA. Well, not about getting my tits chopped off, I was born with the opposite problem, as you can see from my avatar. But the rest of it, oh yea, I agree.

Most of you here have seen me mention that I'm a martial arts student. (If there are any others here, please chime in.) One of the things taught in a reputable Martial Arts school is the philosophy of Proportional Response. In a nutshell, this pretty much means you're not going to kill somebody for throwing a punch at you in a barfight. Four guys mugging you on the subway? Go ahead and break bones, rip off body parts (don't ask which ones), gouge eyes, use lethal force, whatever it takes. Same if someone assaults you with a weapon.

Um yeah, I've been training in Tang Soo Do for three years now, 1st Gup, and we are taught that if someone is threatening you and indicates they have no intentions of backing down even after you try to diffuse the situation, then you disarm them or you fight. I suppose you could look at it either way, since the OP was not in actual physical harm, but the guy was not stopping his bullying. Threatening behavior = responsive action. Btw, I my Do Jang and my Sa Bom Nim.

It never ceases to amaze me how certain members of this forum are consistently able to find some way to blame the victim.

[Record Store Tough Guy]

@ Aniwahya: Indeed, but there is a line that can be crossed that turns victim into aggressor. To use Blas' example, had the boyfriend reacted violently (say a broken nose, maybe some missing teeth, no broken bones) to the men who tossed a peanut at her, though they technically committed assault, he would be using disproportionate force and likely face heavier charges than the instigators. Removing themselves from the situation was the wise thing to do.

In the county where I live, if someone throws a punch at me, and I break his arm, I'm not held legally responsible. Doesn't mean I should, even though the law is on my side. In the county I just moved from, the same scenario results in me facing assault and battery charges, since the law assumes that someone with my training can control that type of situation without having to break bones, and by doing so, I have taken it upon myself to needlessly escalate the conflict.

As for the Original Post, it was just a bad situation that never would have happened had Captain Asshat learned when he was small that there are certain things you simply do not do.

[Record Store Tough Guy]

Um yeah, I've been training in Tang Soo Do for three years now, 1st Gup, and we are taught that if someone is threatening you and indicates they have no intentions of backing down even after you try to diffuse the situation, then you disarm them or you fight. I suppose you could look at it either way, since the OP was not in actual physical harm, but the guy was not stopping his bullying. Threatening behavior = responsive action. Btw, I my Do Jang and my Sa Bom Nim.

It never ceases to amaze me how certain members of this forum are consistently able to find some way to blame the victim.

We're pretty much of the "Remove yourself from the situation without resorting to violence if possible, but if you have to, go ahead and kick some ass" school of martial arts philosophy. The head of the school likes to joke that the whole point of what we learn is to be able to get into position to perform Chin'na* 0, which is run the hell away. ^_^

Also, I pretty much blame the... crap... running out of insults... have to settle for... jackass with the squirt gun for the whole situation. And maybe it's different from a female perspective, too. I'd still hate to see any repercussions from what happened, especially in our increasingly inane litigious society.

*Chin'na being grappling techniques used for self defense that, if done correctly, usually incapacitate the attacker in some extremely painful fashion. Tee hee.

(Also sorry if I implied your school was not reputable. Probably shouldn't have phrased it like that in my original post.)

[Anriana]

Also, I pretty much blame the... crap... running out of insults... have to settle for... jackass with the squirt gun for the whole situation. And maybe it's different from a female perspective, too. I'd still hate to see any repercussions from what happened, especially in our increasingly inane litigious society.

So he shot two different people with a water pistol; what is to keep him from going out to a different retail environment next week and doing the same thing?

[Record Store Tough Guy]

Well, hopefully the charges that are being filed against him. Even if none stick, he'd have to be monumentally stupid to go out and do it again.

[aniwahya]

This seems to be a reoccuring theme in a lot of my posts, but unfortunately it's the experience I've gained from life.

Depending on your experiences and temperment there is, for some people, what i consider the "dead line". Once someone aggressivly crosses that line, reactive aggressive action is taken by the person who was originally aggressed against. As an example, I worked in a nursing home and have spent a lot of time around World War II and Vietnam veterans. Especially with vets suffering some form of dementia (confusion) or alzheimer's I made damn sure to not surprise them, and to make sure they knew I was there before I started moving things in their room, or touching them.

Sometimes people have reactionary aggression to situations that is "overkill", but once that reaction has been developed it takes a lot of time to tone it down, if it can be toned down at all. I think the "blame the victim" mentality going on is not taking into account that this perv surprised her. She wasn't thinking about how she would respond to someone squirting her with a squirt gun, she was taking the garbage out in the middle of her work day.

Since Record Store Tough Guy brought up martial arts training (that originally typoed as "straining" but that mental image wasn't what i was going for ) I want to make one quick comment on that. There are a great many martial artists who end up being victimized in spite of their training because there is an assumption that their ability to harm someone is greater than the person's ability to harm them. In a teaching setting it is taught to have a calm and measured response to aggression and violence (or at least I was taught). However any situation I've ever been in where I was seriously in danger, there wasn't time to think, to weigh the hypothetical consequences of various actions. You just have to respond as best you can at the time things happen and do your best to stop the threat. Once the immediate threat is over then it is time to stop and consider the appropriateness of further aggression.
If Hon had gotten squirted, gone inside, thought about things and talked to someone and/or called security *then* gone back outside and tried to wrestle the gun from him, that would have been inappropriate aggression in my eyes. Judging someone for responding to overt aggression is easy to do when you're not in the situation .

Oh and as a large chested female, yeah it sucks, a lot. I have come to the conclusion that people touching my boobs is inevitable, and it is a constant struggle to determine peoples intent. Of course sometimes it's easy, like when the coworker tries to shove his arm down my shirt to "make sure they're ok" after I accidentely get a boob caught in a pizza oven. They were fine, he wasn't.

[Ree]

I agree with Zapp. It never ceases to amaze me how certain members of this forum are consistently able to find some way to blame the victim.

I think the "blame the victim" mentality going on is not taking into account that this perv surprised her.

Once again...for the umpteenth time...nobody is blaming the victim here.

Apparently, pointing out that a hell of a risk was taken by choosing to wrestle the water gun from the guy and pull a strange child from around his father's neck means that we condone having some moron go around soaking women's chests, or that we are more concerned about the child who was the innocent bystander in all of this than we are about one of our fellow CS members.

Just as a person does not squirt water at a strange woman's breasts, neither should anyone lay hands on another person's child, no matter how stupid the parent is being.
Yeah, the father should not have had the child there if he was going to do something that stupid, and, yeah, he did put that child at risk with his behaviour.
I don't think any of that is in dispute.

All that was being pointed out is that it takes two to escalate a situation, and that, if they wanted to grab the water gun from the guy, that was fine, but not one person has explained why it was necessary to deliberately wrench the guy's screaming and terrified kid off his shoulders.
Grabbing the water gun was kneejerk, but that other part was not.

Taking the child out of the equation, as many would have us do, I think the answer, from me at least, would still be the same. It was dangerous to go after the guy without benefit of a police presence.
Vigilante acts are never a good idea, and people can end up hurt.
Since we've played "what if?" on the contents of the water gun, let's play another "what if?".
What if the guy was a psycho perv and he pulled a knife on Hon'ya-chen?
What if, in the struggle, either Hon'ya-chen, her friend, or the moron who started the mess ended up being knocked to the ground and hit their head or damaged their spine? Not a far stretch, because there are certainly enough high profile court cases where similar scenarios happened.

Hon'ya-chen, I am very sorry this happened to you. It's bad enough we deal with asshats in the store all day long, but we shouldn't have to put up with crap like that when we're simply taking garbage to the dumpster.
I am also sorry if you were made to feel at any time that none of us sympathized with you, simply because we questioned your rash actions in the heat of anger.

This can go around and around. This discussion has remained fairly civil so far, and for that, I thank the people involved who had kept it that way, but now the comments are getting just a little personal and snide remarks are being made regarding the character of fellow members, just because they don't happen to agree 100% with others and are pointing out a bigger picture.

I think it's time to put this one to rest.