At about 8 p.m., Hallback had just left a meeting of the Algebra Project, a national mathematics literacy campaign aimed at helping poor students, and was standing at the bus stop with two friends. A man at the bus stop pulled out a gun and demanded their money and cell phones, police said.People have been told for a couple of generations to "cooperate to ensure your safety." The problem is that is no guarantee. I would rather be shot in a struggle for the weapon or shot running away than shot in the back of the head. (Of course I would rather have access to my own weapon, but that's me.)
The robber ordered them into a back alley and told them to lie face-down on the ground. Then, police said, he shot Hallback in the head.
Authorities are "outraged" that violent criminals kill innocent people.
Now fighting back or even having access to a weapon for self-defense is no guarantee that you will survive a confrontation with a violent criminal. There are no guarantees in this life. But cooperating with criminals - especially when they try to remove you from public - is not going to ensure your safety either. I can't find the statistics right now, but I do know that women, who are abducted from a public street, have a very low survival probability. This case would seem to imply that the same is true for men as well. When a criminal tries to take you to a back alley, or a back room, it is not so that they can leave you alone there, it is so that they can kill you out of the public eye.
Generations have been raised to not fight back, who believe that confronting violence with violent self-defense is wrong. But is it? Self-defense is a human right, but defense must be active not passive. It may not have saved this kid, but cooperation with a criminal did not save him.
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