I have just been reading a sad story about a father killed in a pub fight. Tonight more people will be killed in pub fights. Over Christmas many more people will be killed in pub fights. These fights are 'normally' one very drunk person killing another! Should we feel sympathy for these people? If you were killed by a crack addict in a crack house you would feel they had put themselves in a danger position and that they should shoulder some of the blame. So should it be widely accepted that dieing in a pub fight the victim would be partly to blame? Is it common to get killings in American Bars? What is the alcohol violence situation in the USA?
It's quite 'common' for finnish drunks to kill each other in bar fights. That's because they have no control. Let's bang his head 50 times against the concrete. That said, it's easy to avoid these situations. Because these accidents usually occur between 'professional' drunks. The situation differs also between cities. In Helsinki it is rarer than in places in the region like Kotka. It's what excessive alcohol does.
Generally people killed in bars here in the US are a relative rarity. Bar fights are usually not fatal here or anywhere really. But of course, rowdyness can be a problem in both. I strongly doubt more than a few people a year in either country KILL eachother.
James I will update all of the killings this week on to this link. In a normal weekend there should be 2 or 3 reported on the BBC UK website. This weekend due to Christmas there should be many more. I'm not sure how many are not covered on the BBC site but I would imagine its a fair few. In the UK its a Tradition, work all week then at the weekend go down the pub and get killed!
Heh. I've never had thoughts of killing people when I drink... that usually happens when I am sober and rational Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Homicide is more common in the USA than in the UK (at least that's what we're told by the British), so the occasional fatal bar fight is not newsworthy. If it adds up to a couple of hundred people a year, that is down at the bottom of the mortality table with lightning and bee stings. The risk to any one citizen is so low as to not be worth the trouble to think about, much less modifying behavior. Very few people even follow the common-sense guidelines about thunderstorms that would probably reduce their lightning risk by two orders of magnitude. Even in England I'm sure that many more people are killed by dog bites than in bar fights. (I won't presume to make that assessment of the legendary wild people of Scotland and their legendary well-behaved dogs.) Add to that the fact that virtually all bar fight victims willingly participate in the fight that kills them, and you have to move it over into the column with the heading "Death by Misadventure," with skydiving and motorcycle racing. If you want to reduce your risk of being killed by a drunk to zero, then don't get into fights with drunks. Every single one of us has the ability to do that. It's not an unavoidable risk that comes with citizenship. These figures don't bother me at all. If you can't help yourself because every time you go to a bar you get drunk and every time you get drunk you lose control... Well then I suggest that it's time to start classifying alcohol as a "dangerous drug" and stop persecuting people for smoking marijuana, which for all its faults rarely induces deadly behavior.
when i was a young buck, i knocked ALL the front teeth out of a guy that was being hit on by my girlfriend. since then, i dont drink to excess. its that simple.
Having grown up in the US and having been a bartender for several years and then moving to Norway I can say from my personal experience that the level of violence associated with night/pub life is much higher in Norway than it was in the states. I have speculated on this but am unsure why it is so though I have some personal theories.
Trouble with drunks is that they are idiots and the ones that get beaten up are probably masochists. I walked into this pub once and I noticed some guy punching another in the face, he did this repeatedly and the other guy made no sign that he was about to move out of the way and neither did he retaliate. The women that were with them just stared at them expressionless. Another night, I observed some drunk guy being followed by another couple of drunks. Every so often, the first guy would turn round and say something provocative to the other 2, whereupon the 2 punched and kicked him. The first guy continued walking and then turned around again and got the same reaction. He did this at least 5 times along the 200 metre stretch of road that he was walking on. Absolutely stupid.
It's pretty crazy that people are killing eachother, evidently, in pubs so much, but even so...yes. A few murders a week in a country of several million is not that much in the way of news.
I would argue that it should still be determined who initiated the violence: the dead party or the alive one. I do not believe that being semi-conscious should forfeit one's legal right to not be manslaughtered. and again, it all comes down to psychopathology genes that cause crime: eliminate the genes and you eliminate the violence. Actual prevention, instead of just arresting people after they have already killed.
Some of those reports alex won't necessarily be "Pub/Bar fights", although of the occurances of stabbings or head injuries that occur in my local town are down to the rampant amount of people (usually in their Late teens to early twenties) that decide to beat on people due to racism or just to mug them. Unfortunately the town I'm in had one of the lowest house/rent prices in England for a while so it tend to collect a whole host of undesirables that couldn't afford to live elsewhere. Only in recent years have the house prices escalated, more money that was suppose to be spent on local refurbishment is actually now being spent and the home office increased the number of cameras (along with the number of Asylum seekers). I find the town far better now with the Asylum seekers than the Heroin addicts that would rip the fillings out of your teeth if they were worth anything.
This seems to me like a variant on the motorcycle helmet controversy. As a long-time biker who wouldn't leave my driveway without a helmet, I always understood and perhaps secretly envied those who could appreciate the more intense feel of the world rushing past their bare heads, gloveless hands, and sandaled feet. Risk analysis has to be personal, no one can judge the value of an experience to someone else. In that light, I have to regard drunken bar fights as a risk that people knowingly sign up for when they walk into a less-than-genteel tavern, start running a tab, and fail to ask any of the many regulars they know there to keep an eye on their alcohol intake. It's their version of "living on the edge." Of course their employers, prospective brides, and life- and medical-insurance providers should know about this predilection. That is hardly a challenge.
Indeed, and it's not all bars of course. Certain bars have increased risks attached to them. I was hearing from my friend who used to live in Kotka. It's much worse there then in Helsinki. Many people are actually looking for a fight. Dissatisfied with life. Burdened by a harsh climate. A city with not much to do. It makes a certain atmosphere. But he always used to go to these bars. It is possible to avoid these people to a certain extent. And when he couldn't he would just run away. I also wouldn't drive a motorcycle without a helmet. Accidents pick you. At least you can pick the bar.
It would appear that the popularity of fighting bars is another aspect of the high suicide rate in extreme northern latitudes. Solar-spectrum indoor lighting should be mandatory there.
