The threat of violence is not physical assault despite your claims to the contrary. If all robberies are violent (they are) it still does not follow that all robberies are physical assaults. You use physical assault and violence interchangeably as well as threat and violence interchangeably whenever you suits you and then say I misrepresent you when when I claim you equate them. Read the above sentence I wrote "The majority of robberies involve no physical assault" which you claim is incorrect because a threat is violence. I never claimed robbery wasn't violence, I said it wasn't a physical assault. Unless of course the robber pistol whips, stabs or otherwise physically assaults the victim. Then it is robbery AND assault. Nowhere will you find me making the claim robbery isn't violent yet you frequently respond as if I had. You claim violence = assault = threat when it suits your needs.
You are equating a threat with an assault if you claim that my statement that robberies don't necessarily involve a physical threat is incorrect. It can only be incorrect if a threat is a physical assault which means threatening to punch someone equals punching them, threat = assault. If a threat isn't a physical assault then most robberies are not physical assaults. You can have one or the other but you can't have both. Take your pick. Robbery = physical assault (threat = physical assault) or robbery doesn't = physical assault (threat doesn't = physical assault). You want to claim threats from robbers are a physical assault but threatening to hit someone is not a physical assault. You can't do that. Maybe you're unaware that you are doing this but you most assuredly are. I have and continue to claim robbery is not physical assault. It is emotional and mental assault. My position hasn't changed, only your misunderstanding of it has changed. I am not a writer so the failure may be all on my end in not making my intentions clear. I believe you mistook my objection to placing robbery under the category of "Violent Crimes" as meaning robbery is not violent. The category Violent Crimes is useless if it includes both physical assaults and mere threats. Either categorize all physical assaults as violent crimes and list robberies separately or replace violent crimes with Physical Assaults and list robberies without physical assault separately.
When you or Doug or anyone cites a statistic like 53% of criminals are in prison for violent crimes and them use the DoJ categorization that lists rape, murder, homicide, and robbery you are roughly equating these crimes. You are equating threatening to harm someone with actually harming someone to no small degree. I have and will continue to oppose categorizing a threat and an actual assault together except in the most general terms such as crime. The ONLY purpose in categorizing robbery with murder and rape is to increase fear of crime. Something I don't think we need here in the good ol' USA.
John Thornton