“A thief is using the threat of potential herpes to rob people in the Bronx, and he’s been quite successful,” villagevoice.com reports. “On at least three occasions in the past month, the robber has threatened people with a hypodermic needle during robberies in the borough’s Williamsbridge section. In each case — under the threat of potential herpes — the victims handed over their belongings without a fight.” Needless to say, the Voice’s blog gets straight to the heart of the matter: “This raises the question: would you be more likely to give up your shit to a thief if you were threatened with herpes or threatened with a gun? . . . “We’re on the fence about this one — as much as we’d prefer to not get shot, we’d also prefer to not get herpes.” In gun-free NYC it’s all about relative degrees of victimhood. Nice.
Sounds like an excellent way to get sh…oh wait, the Bronx. Ok. Yeah, that could be effective against unarmed people. Also, herpes virus doesnt survive very long outside of a host, so good luck against educated people.
Future news story:
“A team of surgeons removed a broken syringe from the colon of a petty criminal today. Apparently the hapless thug threatened to stick a man who wasn’t about to be fooled by the threat of a disease in a needle.”
This perpetrator took a clue from the anti-gun crowd…if you bet on the ignorance and fearfulness of the general public – “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Abraham Lincoln
I thought that quote was from Hitler.
Ban hypodermic syringes, for the children!
Bloomberg, are you listening?
Or another:-
In this case the right to bare arms is a bad thing, makes it easier for the perp to find a vein…..
Good thing he didn’t have a high capacity assault syringe
It does have the thumb thingy that goes up.
Definitely 2 thumbs up!!! (pardon the pun)
At least the robber is following the law by keeping it under 16 ounces.
As someone who was assaulted by a street loony with a syringe at one point… THIS IS NOT FUNNY. I spent nearly a month being tested and wondering if I had to put my affairs in order. There could be anything, ANYTHING in that syringe including simple air which could kill you.
Anybody threatening with a syringe is threatening with lethal force. PERIOD!
+1
Absolutely, I hope the offender was caught, charged & convicted of attempted murder.
Herpes isn’t life threatening…
Nope, herpes is not. HIV, hepatitis and an entire host of other blood borne pathogens are. Without my handy-dandy portable lab and a few minutes to run some basic tests, I think I would just assume the threat credible and act accordingly.
The real question here is if this happened in a city other than the Bronx, and you were to use lethal force against him, how would the powers to be see it? Credible, or “well, it was only a syringe…”
“well, it was only a syringe…”
Any half decent defense would shred that statment.
But an Air embolism can be (not to mention all the other things that might be on a dirty needle or mixed in to whatever substance is in that syringe).
If someone threatens me with a syringe, I’m not going to take their word on it’s contents.
A syringe full of air is life threatening!
Glad you weren’t infected with any life threatening or damaging virus. I agree he threatened you will lethal force.
Thanks. Ultimately it was just a “stick” and nothing was injected. VERY bad month in my life though!
For air, that assumes they hita vein, and manage to pump a lot of air in to you, 20cc – 40cc depending on the source, which seems like a difficult task unless you just sit there and let them do it.
I would not be as worried about the virus since it seems like an obvious bluff, but I would be concerned about the chance of an air bubble being in the syringe if I was assaulted by the person. For some strange reason, I think anyone who would do this would also be less than vigilant in prepping his weapon.
Perhaps, if NYC would change its laws regarding gun ownership, we could have a new cliche: Bringing a syringe to a gun fight.
Injected intramuscular or subcutaneous, air is essentially harmless. Intravenous injection requires about 10mL to be detrimental to health. Intraarterial, good luck landing that hit, but then you’re definitely looking at some problems.
The comments about air bolus injection are 99 untrue
Pathogenic agent assault however is a very real threat in this case.
Either way, threat is potentially life threatening, I fear for loss of life or grave bodily harm and respond appropriately. Thankfully I live in a state that honors it’s law abiding residents and not the criminal elements.
He picked the perfect enviroment for shearing sheep. Maybe one of the sheep will finally say enough and introduce him to the deadly “assault brick” or tire iron or bat.
Then the former sheep would no doubt be arrested for being a “violent vigilante”.
Jeebus, what a shit stain NYC is.
Impossible. Everyone knows it’s guns that cause crime and violence, no way any criminal could ply his trade without an evil gun.
Well, whatever, NYC subjects deserve what they get.
Since The Bronx is just as nasty as it was when I left it so long ago, I’m surprised that most of the BG’s potential victims haven’t said “I already have herpes,” and then proceeded to beat the living sh!t out of said BG.
If the bandit wants to intimidate Bronxites with something they don’t already have, he should be threatening to give his victims a high school diploma.
If I guy tries to rob me with a syringe he has been carrying around in his pocket, I say it attempted murder. Unless the guy is a nurse, can prove the syringe was kept in a sterile environment, and he is trained in giving injections, then I have to assume it is a germ infested dirty needle that will give me hepatitus, blood poisoning, HIV or worse and that the scumbag holding it deserves to die if he attempts to stick me with it. Now in New York, I obviously can’t shoot him, but I can use whatever I have at hand to flatten his head.
Can you get crossbows in a NY? I’m thinking that would be a decent defense option for communist cities. That certainly would be a great DCU story, if the BG had an arrow or bolt stuck in his chest.
Many of us would already have the guy covered by our home defense weapon(s) of choice before he got close enough to use his needle. The advantages of living in the United States, as opposed to New York City…
All this talk about air, and virus life expectancy is irrelevant. If it’s sharp and metal and being stabbed into my body against my will – it is a credible threat.
Living with Herpes is really hard, especially when you are a single. According to a report from the largest Herpes singles dating site HerpesSingles com, 98% of its members who used to be on a general dating site to find the love and support were rejected by others. That could be the reason that why HerpesSingles com is so popular and now has more than 560,000 members.
How is it that this sort of sh!t gets through the filter, but we can’t properly describe Condition 1?