friend of mine got hit by some wannabe gangsters

[buck00]

This whole story was sadly predictable for anyone who has spent time in a bar, poolhall, or anywhere young men like to thump their chests and look for trouble. Your naive reactions to the situation only made it worse. Was this your first time hanging out past your mom's curfew or something?

I had to laugh at your overweight friend. Trying to reason or apologize to a punk who is looking for a fight (while he is backed up by his eager crew) is not only futile and foolish, but it is a show of weakness only encourages aggression.

Advice?

Stop hanging out at seedy poolhalls in general. They are a waste of time, money, and every place seems to have at least one "Billy the Local Toughguy" who wants to try you.

However, if you want to go back to this particular pool hall, you a) better go back with more guys and/or b) learn how to fight.
* Challenging a guy to fight as you cower by your car with a pistol in your pocket reflects you have a lot of catching up to do in the street smarts realm.

 

[BullfrogKen]

buck00 said: Was this your first time hanging out past your mom's curfew or something? I had to laugh at your overweight friend.

That's just not appropriate, buck. Insults about age like that are considered personal attacks here. yongxingfreesty is old enough to own firearms. He's simply trying to figure out how to de-escalate.


yongxingfreesty - Stay out of the poolhalls full of brash young men and you'll solve most of the problem.

 

[ForeignDude]

Just A Few Thoughts...

The best option, as someone else noted, is to stay away from the cheap/seedy joints. You live in Houston, right? There are plenty of good, family places where you can play pool (doesn't Dave-N-Busters have pool tables?).

My understanding of self-defense law (broadly defined) is that if you are attacked by two or more individuals, it can justify the use of lethal force using the "reasonable person" standard. The reason for this is that multiple assailants can inflict greater damage than a single assailant, even if no weapons are being used. (I have Massad Ayoob's "Judicious Use of Lethal Force" DVD and, IIRC, he notes that an attack by multiple assailants can be used as justification for the use of lethal force, if one also fears death or great bodily injury from said attack.) To provide a scenario: IF I was being attacked by multiple assailants and IF I was in fear for my life or in fear of great bodily injury, I would not hesitate to use a firearm for self-defense.

There is also the issue of companions. That is, if there are women or children with you, and you are attacked by multiple assailants, it is your ethical responsibility to protect your companions. If you fail to act appropriately and are "taken out", then those companions (less capable than you of defending themselves by virtue of numbers, size, age, or lack of arms) will be at the mercy of the same assailants who neutralized you. In such a situation, I would feel compelled to act, I would feel fully justified in acting, and I would argue as much in front of the jury.

All this, of course, presumes that you have done everything in your power to defuse the situation.

 

[Browning]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think that you did alright.

The way some people would talk they've never been in pool halls and they never leave their homes to do anything, just because you do doesn't mean that you're looking for trouble or anything, it just means that you have a life and that you'd like to live it.

What really were your and your friends options other than what you did?

He apoligized after accidently hitting the pool stick and if there truly wasn't any attitude displayed by your friend towards these guys to further escalate the situation, then basically these guys are the ones who had the problem. I guess instead of saying "*** is your problem" he could have invited the guy who just pushed him to tea and crumpets at the Queens house and apoligized for being in the way of both of the guys hands as he as he was pushing out. But then again a show of weakness just might have prompted further aggression and hostility on their part to show what tough guys they were.

What could you have done differently?

1) To some on here the obvious answer would be to not be in a pool hall to begin with. To me that's kind of stupid and it implies that you're going to hide in your house because you're scared of the possibility of conflict, so to me that's out. We have to live, work and play in the real world. That doesn't mean that you should be stoned at 2AM in a biker bar in the worst part of town and not expect any trouble, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't go anywhere either. There is a nice medium.

2) Could you have left about the time that they started their huddle after the incident began? I don't know you tell me. Alot of people don't like this option because it looks like running away and they're worried about losing the respect of their friends, but since they outnumbered you and you don't really want to spend any time in jail, it is an option.

3) Could you have called the cops and just stayed in the pool hall until they got there? Going outside just means that they may have access to firearms or other weapons as well. That means that what may have bee a fistfight may turn into a gun or a knife fight. Sometimes it's better to stay inside. Then again sometimes it's not, you just just can't tell unless you're there.

4) Once outside could you have used your pepper spray on the guys who attacked your friend instead of immediately thinking of the gun first? It's better to use a non-lethal weapon over a lethal one. You can just spray someone a little, it's kind of hard to just shoot someone a little. If the incident goes in front of a court and they decide that you weren't justified in your actions, then you're charged with assault, not murder or attempted murder.

5) Is it possible that you could have mediated the dispute when it first began on your friends behalf and shut the whole thing down from the get go? That's usually the tactic that works best for me. Every time that a group has a problem with another group and the situation starts to go south there's always a short period of time where you can stop the thing in its tracks. Alot of times the guy mouthing off is just one of the peripheral members of the group trying to fit in and you can talk to on the the guys with a little more status and work the whole thing out before it starts.

Alot of time just looking them in the eye and telling one of the main members of the group that "this is going to turn into something it's not, we don't want any problems and it's kind of stupid for all of us to get into it over this" shows that you'll fight if neccessary, but at the same time it leaves them an out.

If you had of shot them while they were attacking your buddy in a disparity of force type situation, no matter what you would have done some jail time. Maybe you would have got convicted and maybe you wouldn't have, but at the very least it would have gone to trial and you would have been staying in the county jail until it came to trial. If they'd of pulled out knives and/or guns then the situation is a little more clear cut, but at the very least you would have had SOME legal problems. Maybe it wouldn't have amounted to much depending on the political climate and the laws in your state, but something would have happened.

These are just the things that came to me while reading this. At the end though, you didn't have to kill anyone, you aren't in jail and none of you are hurt. That's really the only thing that counts, so you must have done something right.