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I still don't see much to engage with here. I too can write an essay, about how even to most meek coward lashes out when you corner him, and that you'll be hard-pressed to find a more central example of being cornered than a home invasion, but that too will just be an essay with no way to resolve the disagreement.
If you insist that Americans are afflicted with the same sort helplessness in the face of violence, but their legal framework is different, maybe you can give a few examples of a similar assault, in a state with strong self-defense laws, where the assailant makes himself absurdly vulnerable for several minutes in the process of preparing for an attack, and the victim chooses to do nothing. Maybe we can see who can find more of these stories, or who taps out first? Not a perfect process, but far more constructive than just-so stories based on lived experience.
That would be the argument I'm making. No one can make legal calculus as they fight for their life, so a good deal of people default to paralysis.
Go ahead! That is itself engagement! Not all arguments can be resolved by data. Some are just to explore the idea space and different points of view. Given we are both talking about internal subjective experiences, we almost certainly cannot prove anything with data here. I'm telling you my experiences and pov and you can tell me yours. We may never agree, and that is ok, arguing and discussion does not have to lead to someone winning.
I would say that very few people even think about the legal calculus at all, (though of course I am sure some do), merely that people react according to their experiences and when their experience with violence is extremely limited, that is the bigger factor in their actions or lack thereof.
I'd also say the same in other emergency situations, where say someone collapses on the street, most people don't freeze because they are making an evaluation of whether they may be sued for giving CPR incorrectly but rather because it is an unexpected event they do not have experience in or training for. Or where there is a fire, you can observe people freezing because they are unprepared for unexpected events. Even when there is no legal consideration for them to think about.
That people freeze and panic in stressful situations that have no legal consideration, is a good indication in my view that them freezing and panicking is the de facto response to crisis situations in general. That's why militaries and police and medical organizations drill and expose people to scenarios so that they can overcome those reactions and do something useful. And why fire drills are useful so that people don't have to think about where to go in an emergency.
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