> John Thornton asks:
>
> > If I run into a liquor store with my hand in my pocket and
> > tell the clerk to give me the till is that a violent crime?
> > According to the DOJ it is. While I won't argue it isn't
> > monumentally stupid I will argue it isn't violent.
>
> The threat of shooting someone unless they give you money, whether or
> not the threat is credible (how will we know? do we have to force your
> hand? what if you actually have a gun, but would never shoot it?) is
> ABSOLUTELY VIOLENT.
>
> Sheesh, what dictionary do you have today?
My dictionary differentiates between implied, threatened and actual violence.
When a person pretends to have a gun in their pocket when they in fact have none their actual capacity to harm is relatively low.
When a person has a toy gun and pretends it is real their actual capacity to harm is rather low.
When a person has a gun in their hand and points it at you and demands something the capacity for harm is quite high.
If I have my choice I would prefer the first or second scenario to the third. I recognize that implied or threatened violence is different from actual violence. I've been on the receiving end of actual violence and I can assure you I much prefer implied. I've had guns pointed at me and in only one instance did I even feel threatened. While I did not personally consider those other instances violent I defer to the community norm and have no problem labeling them as such. But a man with his hand in his pocket is just that, a man with his hand in his pocket. If he points something tube-like through his pocket a reasonable person can assume it is a weapon.
Anyone who works at a convenience store is instructed to assume all robbers are armed anyway regardless of their posturing.
> > You'll also notice that the two catagories that make up the
> > bulk of violent crimes are Homicide and Robbery with 12% and 13.8%
> > respectively. So how many of those violent crimes were
> > actually violent?
>
> I'm gonna stick my neck out and say: all of them.
>
> /jordan
Then you would be wrong. You should have chosen 'most of them', you would have been on firmer ground.
I received a conviction for a "violent crime" when I was a University student many years ago. I'm not ashamed to admit it since I did nothing violent, just kind of dumb. The facts are for personal reasons I decided to steal a convertibel top of of another students car during a heavy downpour one night. A stupid prank yes but certainly not a violent crime. I took the top home where it occupied a consideral amount of space in the front room. Not the easiest thing to dispose of. Turns out his father was a judge so the cops were really motivated the find the person who committed the heinous crime of flooding this guys type 121 VW. Since the top sat in the front room and many people came and went from my apartment eventually word got around and the cops came knocking on my door at 7AM. They could see the top as soon as the door was opened a few inches. I admitted to taking it and in the course of discussing this I told them the metal clips that held the top on were still in my car. They sent an officer to retrieve them. He returned with the clips and my 45 which was also in the car. He asked how long the gun had been in the car. I told him it's always in there, has been for years. I was charged with felony stealing involving a firearm. Since the top wasn't worth $200 I should have been charged with a misdemeanor theft but that's what you get when you piss off a judges son. My attorney could not do much for me since the judge in my case knew the "victims" father. You couldn't find a judge who didn't. There was no implied, threatened or actual violence in my case. I have more stories if you want some.
John Thornton