With all the recent burglaries and muggings, Madison city officials have suggested that people be passive. When confronted by a thief, people should just give up whatever the thief wants. Quite plainly, this is imprudent for two reasons:

1. The most obvious reason is that the city is telling the thieves that it is now easier to steal from people. If the city told building owners to just let graffiti artists tag its buildings and not try to stop them, more graffiti artists will tag buildings. The concept is different, but the outcome is the same. If you tell people to give thieves what they want, thieves will demand it more often since they know they won’t face any resistance.
2. The second unconsidered outcome is that the city is turning people who would normally take action into passive victims. By advising that all remain cooperative when held up by a knife or a gun, the city creates an expectation of passivity. Passivity will then become a trend and more importantly, an accepted behavior of how to handle the threat of crime. Now, when people tell others that they would fight off a thief with a knife, their peers will try to tell them that it is not the right thing to do.

The city calls for an air of passivity and inaction when it really needs to be expressing how tough of a city we are. This can be done by promoting more self-defense classes, creating a student neighborhood watch group and adding more socially attractive areas near points of frequent muggings. The only thing that the city and school are doing well right now is suggesting that people walk with friends in groups.

Call me gung-ho, but don’t call me stupid. Let me clarify that I’m not suggesting that we turn students into a ballistic army of retaliation and unnecessary sacrifice. Rather, balance the city’s suggestion of inactivity with activity. Let the passive people be passive and active people be active.

For those arguing against action

Now let me take hold of the other side of this conversation. A Madisonian, Sean Kennedy, shared his experience with me on Twitter. Kennedy had a friend that was held at gunpoint in his own driveway. He fought back and was shot in the head: killed over less than $500 worth of stuff, according to Kennedy.

After conversing with him and arguing with my coworkers, I can’t write and say what I would do if I was in the same situation as Kennedy’s friend. I support Kennedy’s friend in trying to fight back and I think I would do the same as him for two reasons:

1. If injured or killed, I will not have died in vain. My sacrifice would send a message throughout the city that muggings and burglaries are not tolerated here. If someone is considering holding a knife up to someone else to steal $50, they had better think twice.
2. I might be wrong on this one, but the city and state would be more focused on hunting down a thief that hospitalized or killed someone more than it would someone who mugged a student. Simply put, the former is a higher priority.

There is a way to prevent the type of frequent crime that is occurring in Madison. There is also a way to increase the type of crime that is occurring. Unlike others, the only thing I fear is that Madison is asking for more crime, not less.

Garth Beyer ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.