Tactical training for the CCW holder

[Guinnessman]

You ain't kidding. I spent a few days in Chicago out by Ohare a few weeks ago. One night I took the blue line to meet my niece further into the city. As I stood at the platform I lost count of the people that I could have cold cocked, sucker punched, pushed onto the tracks, or ripped their purses/murses with near impunity.

Virtually everyone had their head up their collective asses either daydreaming with earbuds in or engrossed in some trivial bullshit on their phone.

The subway in Chicago (well actually all of Chicago) is one of the last places I would bury my head in my phone and try to ignore the world around me. Most people around town are oblivious to their surroundings and are in their own utopia. Then again insert (Big name city here) and the same is true for those cities as well.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Yeah, while I am not especially prone to the whole "big cities are dens of vice and violence" thing, when I have spent time in places like Chicago or New York, my preference is to keep my back to a platform wall. And I'll only check my phone if I have someone there to keep their eyes open.

I'm lucky in that I'm usually traveling with my wife, who is pretty switched on.

Although maybe it's worth considering that the reason a lot of people are buried in their phones is that they've taken the train thousands of times without ever seeing a violent crime. .

I'll admit that in my own city, I can be pretty lax about security when taking the train. I don't do outrageously stupid stuff but I'm not remotely worried about getting mugged. I'd have to see a group of half-drunk guys in their mid-twenties coming from a sports bar on UFC night for me to worry.

Granted, this is Canada and I'm a big guy. But mainly I've just never seen a violent crime on our train system. And my wife, who commutes by train every day, has only felt nervous twice. And neither time amounted to anything. And of the guys I work with who commute by train, nobody has a single good story involving actual danger.

So conceivably the people who are buried in their phones are just experienced commuters.

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[TR675]

Spending the weekend in NOLA. Good lord. One day in the French Quarter and I realize how blasé I've been all my life.

Love it, though.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Boy, yeah. Friday and Saturday night down there make me crazy trying to stay alert and ready.

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[TR675]

Someone on TPI just posted a video of a strong arm robbery right around the corner from here that happened just a few days ago. Good reminder.

[Tamara]

The subway in Chicago (well actually all of Chicago) is one of the last places I would bury my head in my phone and try to ignore the world around me. Most people around town are oblivious to their surroundings and are in their own utopia. Then again insert (Big name city here) and the same is true for those cities as well.

I remember eating an early breakfast at Salonica in Hyde Park and watching agog as some dude blissfully pedaled diagonally across the intersection of 57th and Blackstone on his cupholder-equipped commuter bicycle with the trademark white cords trailing from his ears. I... just... no.

Although maybe it's worth considering that the reason a lot of people are buried in their phones is that they've taken the train thousands of times without ever seeing a violent crime.

How could they have? They're buried in their phones. Seriously, though, to me that's just one of those things like "Billy Bob's driven home from the bar every night for fifteen years without hittin' nothing."

[Jay Cunningham]

Kids today... back in my day we etc. !

[Byron]

Kids today... back in my day we etc. !

Indeed

With the advent of cheap newspapers and superior means of locomotion... the dreamy quiet old days are over... for men now live think and work at express speed. They have their Mercury or Post laid on their breakfast table in the early morning, and if they are too hurried to snatch from it the news during that meal, they carry it off, to be sulkily read as they travel... leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them... the hurry and bustle of modern life... lacks the quiet and repose of the period when our forefathers, the day's work done, took their ease...

- William Smith Morley - 1886


http://xkcd.com/1227/

The more things change, the more they stay the same.


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[GJM]

This may be dating myself, but back in the Walkman days, I always believed that it made sense in urban areas to walk around with the Walkman hooked up, but the music off. I assumed, but never tested in real life, that could buy you extra reaction time, since the bad guy would assume you had music up and couldn't hear them.

[MVS]

This may be dating myself, but back in the Walkman days, I always believed that it made sense in urban areas to walk around with the Walkman hooked up, but the music off. I assumed, but never tested in real life, that could buy you extra reaction time, since the bad guy would assume you had music up and couldn't hear them.

Though maybe a good way to bait, wouldn't the potential time it could buy you be outweighed by the possibility that it would make you a more likely target in the first place?