Too much of robbery in our locality
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Armed robbers cause armed robbery. Given a robber’s skills, temperament, place in society, and desperation — he may decide that committing armed robbery is the best way for him to get money. Armed robbers are also encouraged by the positive stimulus when armed robbery victims submit to robbers’ demands.
As for preventing armed robbery — if you mean a society with zero armed robberies, that will be virtually impossible. (To have zero robberies would be like trying to produce corn flakes with zero rat feces or roach parts. The best we can do is to reject lots whose samples have more than a very small number of such impurities.)
There are some ways we can reduce the incidence of armed robbery. One way is by having everywhere a constant and intrusive police presence. This is economically infeasible.
Another approach would be to massively increase the length of imprisonment for convicted armed robbers. This is expensive, and risks absolutely ruining the lives of a certain number of innocent people convicted through mistaken identity. (This has also happened with rape convictions; sometimes a person unjustly convicted actually looks quite a lot like the real rapist. Mistaken identity is always a risk when you depend upon capturing people long after the fact.)
Another approach would ensure that people wanting to abuse harmful drugs are able to get as much as they desire very, very cheaply. This conflicts with our goal of using the government to promote healthful living (e.g. by discouraging tobacco use), but at least it’s a feasible approach with more limited danger to innocents.
For some, the concern about armed robbery is the danger of death to the victim — e.g. if when the victim panics, tries to flee without paying, and is killed for it. In a few cases the robber murders even a compliant victim on impulse or due to a reflex reaction to an unexpected loud noise.
To reduce this problem, some people have advocated harsh penalties against carrying effective self-defense weapons, especially those that can do harm; the theory is that robbers may be less tempted to use dangerous weapons such as firearms if they don’t feel they need them. For example, I recall reading a story about robbers with clubs in Canada being beaten off by intended victims using whatever they could get their hands on at the moment. The police chief expressed concern that if too many people tried this, the robbers might be tempted to start obtaining black market firearms to do their robberies (which he considered to be a very bad thing).
If one is to take that police chief’s perspective, I think Canadian law does not go far enough in disarming potential robbery victims. What I would suggest to people who think this way would be a law that criminalizes any resistance to robbery regardless of the means used. All the robber would need is a video camera to film the victim as he makes his demands. If the victim refuses, the robber could turn the video over to the police who would then prosecute the intended victim. The police would give the robber immunity for the attempted crime of robbery in exchange for his testimony against the intended victim and his greater crime.
(There is precedent for this. I read of cases in England where a person used an air rifle to chase off thieves or vandals. The criminals went to the police, who then arrested the victim for using a firearm to threaten people.)
If the robber is armed with nothing more than a video camera, being robbed can become quite safe (though perhaps more frequent).
The opposite approach is based on the belief that choosing to submit to robbery is immoral. One can argue that paying a person for doing a robbery is unethical in the same sense as paying a person to commit murder. Turning over property to the robber encourages him to do more robberies, and encourages others to imitate him. (This sort of cowardice also demonstrates us to be unworthy of the liberty bequeathed to us by those who fought and died for freedom from outrages such as taxation without representation.)
In Gandhi’s autobiography he recalled advice he gave to his sons in the context of India’s desire for independence from Britain. He described three ways of reacting to aggressive and unjust violence. One was cowardly submission, which he said was the most despicable reaction. Armed counter-violence was not as contemptible, he wrote, but he believed that passive resistance was morally superior to both.
An approach that theoretically would work if it could be implemented would be for the entire population to adopt Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance approach — just say no, run away, and if the robber murders you then he murders you. Then there would be no benefit to robbery
As for preventing armed robbery — if you mean a society with zero armed robberies, that will be virtually impossible. (To have zero robberies would be like trying to produce corn flakes with zero rat feces or roach parts. The best we can do is to reject lots whose samples have more than a very small number of such impurities.)
There are some ways we can reduce the incidence of armed robbery. One way is by having everywhere a constant and intrusive police presence. This is economically infeasible.
Another approach would be to massively increase the length of imprisonment for convicted armed robbers. This is expensive, and risks absolutely ruining the lives of a certain number of innocent people convicted through mistaken identity. (This has also happened with rape convictions; sometimes a person unjustly convicted actually looks quite a lot like the real rapist. Mistaken identity is always a risk when you depend upon capturing people long after the fact.)
Another approach would ensure that people wanting to abuse harmful drugs are able to get as much as they desire very, very cheaply. This conflicts with our goal of using the government to promote healthful living (e.g. by discouraging tobacco use), but at least it’s a feasible approach with more limited danger to innocents.
For some, the concern about armed robbery is the danger of death to the victim — e.g. if when the victim panics, tries to flee without paying, and is killed for it. In a few cases the robber murders even a compliant victim on impulse or due to a reflex reaction to an unexpected loud noise.
To reduce this problem, some people have advocated harsh penalties against carrying effective self-defense weapons, especially those that can do harm; the theory is that robbers may be less tempted to use dangerous weapons such as firearms if they don’t feel they need them. For example, I recall reading a story about robbers with clubs in Canada being beaten off by intended victims using whatever they could get their hands on at the moment. The police chief expressed concern that if too many people tried this, the robbers might be tempted to start obtaining black market firearms to do their robberies (which he considered to be a very bad thing).
If one is to take that police chief’s perspective, I think Canadian law does not go far enough in disarming potential robbery victims. What I would suggest to people who think this way would be a law that criminalizes any resistance to robbery regardless of the means used. All the robber would need is a video camera to film the victim as he makes his demands. If the victim refuses, the robber could turn the video over to the police who would then prosecute the intended victim. The police would give the robber immunity for the attempted crime of robbery in exchange for his testimony against the intended victim and his greater crime.
(There is precedent for this. I read of cases in England where a person used an air rifle to chase off thieves or vandals. The criminals went to the police, who then arrested the victim for using a firearm to threaten people.)
If the robber is armed with nothing more than a video camera, being robbed can become quite safe (though perhaps more frequent).
The opposite approach is based on the belief that choosing to submit to robbery is immoral. One can argue that paying a person for doing a robbery is unethical in the same sense as paying a person to commit murder. Turning over property to the robber encourages him to do more robberies, and encourages others to imitate him. (This sort of cowardice also demonstrates us to be unworthy of the liberty bequeathed to us by those who fought and died for freedom from outrages such as taxation without representation.)
In Gandhi’s autobiography he recalled advice he gave to his sons in the context of India’s desire for independence from Britain. He described three ways of reacting to aggressive and unjust violence. One was cowardly submission, which he said was the most despicable reaction. Armed counter-violence was not as contemptible, he wrote, but he believed that passive resistance was morally superior to both.
An approach that theoretically would work if it could be implemented would be for the entire population to adopt Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance approach — just say no, run away, and if the robber murders you then he murders you. Then there would be no benefit to robbery
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