Petty Crimes

So my buddy, Alun (blog The Suburban Dwellers Almanac) had his car broken into 4 days ago. It happened in Tustin while we were visiting a friend. My Emotions post was about the drive back from that event. His back window was smashed in, and some of his drum equipment was stolen(not the drums themselves, he left those at home, thank God). I actually parked my car two spaces down the side street we were situated in, but I left 2 hours before in order to give my other friend, Wolf, a ride home early. I don't really know how angry Alun is, but there's an anger inside of me knowing that someone would dare rob from my friend. Not to say that we're special and should not be robbed from, far from it. It's just the fact that it happened and I couldn't do anything about it.

I'm no stranger to thievery, being the victim of such several times in my life. My first memory of being robbed was when I was 7, when my family returned from a day at work to find the patio door smashed in and everything in a mess, especially in the bonus room, which we had converted into the office for the family business. I don't want to say exactly how much the thief/ves made off with, but I will say the first number was not one(1) and it was a five(5) digit figure. After that event, that house truly became a castle. We had iron workers come by and install steel doors and window grills on everything, upstairs and down. We had a security system installed, one with a specific device to detect glass breaking. Also, we got a pair of Rottweilers(Allison and Rambo, though they were more likely to lick a thief than attack him).

That house was never burglarized again.

While I was in high school, I had a car window smashed in and the car ransacked. I didn't have much inside, the thief ran off with my emergency overnight bag full of clothes. No big loss.
Around the same time, I was mugged twice and and held up once. It was the nature of the family business that I usually had to go to the shadier parts of LA county. I suppose back then I acted and dressed like a walking target. But after making some friends in the area, and getting a little smarter, I started thinking about things differently. The world isn't the happy peaceful place that school taught me to believe. I've been stabbed(not so deeply that some fishing line, a lighter, and a needle couldn't fix), and I had buckshot in my leg. These aren't the signs of a peaceful and safe society.

I took off the rose colored glasses the liberal world never wishes to remove. It's not the guns that kill people, it's the one that pulls the trigger. And they do it for any reason they want. It's a war on the mind. Do you run, hid behind words and avoid the bad areas? Do you shake your head at the people who are robbed, stabbed, shot, raped, and killed everyday, saying they deserved it for being in the bad part of town? Or do you go out there, and show them that not everyone is helpless against those predations, that there are dogs among the sheep?

I changed myself. It's made me a colder and more cynical person, but I felt it necessary. You who believe that bad men are inherently good and are forced to do violence, do not forget that they still do violence, and it hurts you the same no matter how good the bad men are inside.

Now I never leave the house unarmed. I dress like I have what I have and I'm keeping what I have. My driver side door has scratches from when I smashed it into the side of a would be car jacker. The last time someone pulled a knife on me, I pulled my own. He tagged me, but his knife was a dull piece of shit he probably never maintained in his life. It barely made it through my jacket. He ran, after I showed him the importance of having good equipment, knowing how to use it, and taking care of said equipment.

If someone ever finds me dead in an alley, they won't label me a victim.

Victims don't fight back.