Self-Defense

View on twitter

So, there’s this tourist—Mohammed Fadel Dobbous, born in Kuwait but holds Irish citizenship—who ended up in quite a mess. Apparently, he was just at a corner store in Istanbul, trying to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

The thing is, the shop owner lost his cool because when Dobbous opened those glass doors, he basically sent every single bottle flying off the shelves. Just total chaos.

In the footage, you see the owner charging at this former boxer with a wooden stick. Dobbous tries to defend himself by grabbing the stick and tossing it aside, but then a whole crowd starts swarming in, backing the shopkeeper up.

Once that clip hit the internet, the local police swooped in and arrested Dobbous immediately. He was facing some pretty serious charges—assault and causing grievous bodily harm.

But Dobbous isn't buying any of it; he’s maintaining that the whole situation was just one massive misunderstanding.

"When the bottles fell, the guy in the shop tried to swing at me with a stick," he said. "I grabbed him and threw him off. I was disoriented. Then someone else came after me. One guy even tried to stab me in the back. I knew if I went down while they were attacking me, I was finished."

Ultimately, the judge cleared Dobbous of all charges, ruling it self-defense. Meanwhile, the shop owner, Senol Punel, was sentenced to three and a half years—though he’s already served that time.

Looking at that first YouTube video—the one where the guy is protecting his girlfriend—it looks totally intentional how he provoked her, sort of "soothing" her, then hitting and pushing her away. You can see them approaching, and when they were still a few feet out, he glances to his left to gauge the distance, and then just as they reach him, he turns slightly and hooks her with his arm to move her. If the guy is just high-strung and views the situation as a threat to his girl—you know, those low-life thugs who mess with couples while they're walking—then honestly? It makes sense to me that he stepped up and handled them.

Anything can happen, sure. The question is how often. People survive plane crashes without parachutes sometimes, so we don't exactly live by those odds. From what I’ve seen, most physical fights over territory boil down to some idiot provoking other idiots in a sketchy dive bar, and then things escalate. You might see that kind of provocation-reaction dynamic in more sober places, but it's rare. I’ve never heard of anything unprovoked happening second or third-hand, at least not here in the States.

If you're looking for a fight, you'll find one—that much is obvious. But that isn't self-defense. By acting that way, he actually put himself and his partner at a higher risk than if he had just ignored it and walked away (like drawing a weapon or knowing how to scrap). It would only qualify as self-defense if the thugs kept attacking even after they tried to de-escalate. Plus, if this ends up in court, it could easily be ruled as excessive force.

Brian Alvarez34 said:I just saw that first YouTube video—the one where the guy is supposedly "protecting" his girlfriend. Honestly, it looks completely staged. He absolutely provoked the situation, then went ahead and "soothed," hit, and pushed her. You can see them approaching him on the footage; when they were still a few yards away, he glanced over his left shoulder to gauge exactly how close they were getting. Then, the moment they reached his line of sight, he just casually turned and hooked his arm around her. If this guy actually had guts or felt like she was being threatened by those little thugs trying to mess with a couple walking down the street, he would have reacted differently. This just felt calculated. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that he stepped up and took care of business.

🤦🤣🤣🤣

Your logic is a bit flawed. If we follow that line of reasoning, you could just pick up a baseball bat tomorrow, beat someone to death, and then claim you were just acting in self-defense because they attacked you first.

It’s the exact same pattern you see with the American right. Look, they were justified regarding Rittenhouse, but then they go and drop a video like that.

I just caught this video on YouTube, and honestly, it’s one of those pieces that really makes you stop and think about how much our perspectives can shift depending on the lens we're looking through. It’s quite a thoughtful watch, though I sometimes find myself overanalyzing things more than I probably should. If you have a few minutes to spare, it’s definitely worth checking out.

He literally hid the knife and then just stabbed the guy in the ice.🤦She’s just talking about self-defense and that underlying fear that someone out there might be carrying a weapon.🤦

He literally just swiped it and walked out.🤔

Kyle Lopez2 said:🤦🤣🤣🤣

That logic just doesn't hold water with me—I mean, if you follow that line of thinking, you could basically grab a baseball bat tomorrow, beat someone to death, and then try to spin it as some sort of self-defense move because they "attacked" you first. It’s a slippery slope, really.

It isn't about logic for me, honestly—it's more about understanding that reaction... that raw, split-second reflex. We all have different personalities, right? Some people might handle a situation like this much smarter or stay calmer and just walk away without any drama. But I’m pretty convinced that if you put a lot of former or current boxers, MMA fighters, or kickboxers in that exact same spot, they’d probably react in a very similar way.

Brian Alvarez34 said:It doesn't make logical sense to me, but I get the reaction—it was purely reflexive. You all have different personalities, so you might have handled it more intelligently or stayed calm enough to just walk away without an issue. Honestly, I'm pretty sure a lot of former or current boxers, MMA fighters, and kickboxers would have reacted in much the exact same way.

You're probably right, but if that's the case, it's not self-defense anymore. It's just a street fight.

Regarding those recent clips, I was mostly focusing on the technical application of martial arts and sports within the context of street fights—those unpredictable encounters you typically see out in public.
It felt like things were relatively manageable during the mid-to-late 90s, though the volatility gradually subsided as the environment became more stabilized... more or less.
My own limited understanding of certain combat principles at the time wasn't entirely misplaced, actually...

As for how those situations unfolded, that's a long story, given that I found myself in similar scrapes quite often—perhaps five to ten times during that specific era.
In my experience, there are no rules to follow... neither regarding how an altercation begins, nor how it progresses, or how it eventually ends...

Is this person actually going to finish the report?

https://twitter.com/MrBeatdatass/sta...M9Jre-XGw&s=19

This guy seems to be waiting until everything hits 100% before making a move 👍

https://twitter.com/MrBeatdatass/sta...25193697415168

View on twitter

The right side of the pistol started working just like some kind of high-tech robot...

Honestly, I’m not losing much sleep over how meticulously these reports are being filled out. Look, sorry bluemason3—I truly value your posts and the insight you bring to the table—but I think you might be overthinking this one. You’re adding layers of unnecessary complication by dissecting every single post-incident explanation. When someone is just trying to decompress after a high-stress situation, they aren't exactly sitting down to draft a legal brief. Let's just take a breath and dial it back a notch.

How about this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...illed-shooting

You can always cherry-pick an isolated incident to support any side of an argument, but that doesn't make it proof of anything.

There are times when people in a car crash are actually saved because they weren't wearing seatbelts. But those are exceptions. It’s much more common—and what the law requires—to be buckled up.

Using outliers as an argument isn't valid unless you can prove first that it's a representative example of a typical conflict, rather than just a freak occurrence.

I already mentioned that it's possible, but for most people, it's highly unlikely.
Take this last example, for instance:

- Brawling with idiots at some crowded meetup location.
- Likely professional thugs working for a club.
- If someone pulls a gun on you, it's hard to argue that a knockout wouldn't be considered excessive force, so I don't see how that's relevant. Excessive force is when you keep swinging after the threat is gone, or if you use way more violence than necessary to neutralize the danger. Though, once an attack starts and the adrenaline hits, it's hard to think rationally. That’s why the first step should be avoiding idiotic situations in the first place if it's not your job.

Also, the guy with the gun is an idiot who's just posturing; he doesn't have serious intentions and clearly doesn't know what he's doing with it. A decent shot would have settled that easily. It reminds me of those dojo stories about defending against knives. Sure, in maybe 1-2% of cases, some martial arts practitioner might disarm a drunk, but again, those are outliers. You aren't going to deal with street criminals or gang members where knives are common and the threat is real; you're more likely to deal with some "master" who has a flawed premise—like many people who train with weapons briefly without street experience. They act like they're handling a Mac, when in reality, it's more like a cheap toy, or even closer to a pellet gun (though some styles, like Aikido, act like a pellet gun is a Mac).

Being a bouncer or security is a different story entirely, and I always separate that from "civilians," so it doesn't belong in this discussion. When someone consciously chooses to hang out in high-risk environments without being paid to be there, it's not self-defense; in my opinion, it's just looking for a fight.

Here we have examples of hooligans. In real life, I know all sorts of low-level thugs, loan sharks... people who frequently get into scraps, but they choose that lifestyle and I don't count them. There are plenty of them in functional combat sports like boxing, kickboxing, or Judo, but that isn't self-defense, just like it isn't for a guard, a cop, or a soldier.

To me, self-defense is about avoiding physical harm and legal trouble. The first step in that is not intentionally putting yourself in these situations if you're a civilian.

As long as 100% of the real-life cases I know involve falling for provocations or actively seeking out trouble, posting YouTube nonsense isn't a counterargument unless it's backed by data showing how often these things actually happen.

How many "ordinary," non-confrontational people do you know who were attacked out of nowhere for no reason? Compare that to how many fights you know involving people falling for drunken provocations in some dive bar, or being part of a subculture that thrives on fighting—usually low-income groups. Back in my day, it was the punk and metal crowds, but even within those groups (in my case, the metal scene), you could avoid fights entirely without any issues.
And those who didn't avoid them, no matter how good they were with a shot, usually ended up as beaten-up wrecks as they got older, if they survived at all. Because nobody is skilled enough to handle an organized ambush or a knife in the back. Fortunately, in our generation, that happened less often. The real heavy hitters were mostly in the previous generation; today, they're 50+.

If you want to help a bullied kid in elementary school, get them into martial arts. If you want to help someone obsessed with fighting who constantly finds themselves in scraps, give them a book or pay for their therapy. They have bigger problems in life that will cost them much more in the long run than a broken nose (unless they're talented enough to turn it into a professional career).

bluemason3 As requested:
There is nothing quite like being completely uninvolved and having absolutely zero dealings with idiots... 😬

Absolutely... 🙂
My circle from my old heavy metal days was generally peaceful. We rarely clashed with anyone else—not even the punks or the grease monkeys, who were a whole different breed back in the late 90s over in the States...

There were a few isolated incidents, of course, but they remained largely sporadic... Fortunately, they were easily managed—either through a tactical retreat or a blitzkrieg...
☕

What Peter Morgan3 said was actually pretty interesting. Back in the eighties, the first generation was all about that gritty street toughness, but eventually, it morphed into this massive nerd subculture 🤔

I’m not sure if any other group went through a similar transformation 🤔

I don't think so—at least not to that extent... though trends have always existed everywhere.

Back during that era in the 90s and early 2000s, those of us in the metal scene were in a bit of a transitional phase, I suppose.
We weren't aggressive or destructive, but we weren't nerds either. Regarding the topic, quite a few people from the opposing crowds actually seemed pretty friendly toward us. I remember once on a subway, we got cornered by some drunk guys from the South, and they just deadpanned a whole speech about how they used to be just like us before they "settled down," blah, blah...

In the end, they apologized for the intrusion and went on their way.
Imagine the chaos if we had been, say, goths instead...
😬

Later on, seeing old crew members around Apple, Sound, or maybe even Moćvar—it was somewhat sad, because they had turned into such soft nerds.
But I suppose everything eventually drifts in that direction—including dirty metal.
🤷

It was probably easier for us because we weren't really defined by any political subcultures—you know, the punks or skinheads—and we didn't have that intense tribalism you see with sports fans. Back then, the metal scene was mostly just about the music itself.

Still, those folks in the eighties seemed to pick fights with just about anyone they ran into.😁

You should definitely check out the Warriors if you haven't seen them in a minute. I just rewatched it and man, even thirty years after my first viewing, the movie still hits hard. It feels totally different now, but it's still awesome.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/

Yeah, I don't recall metalheads ever being anyone's specific target either. They definitely weren't getting picked on the way punks or skinheads were.

I’ve been training UFC for a little while now, and I purposely avoided sticking solely to kickboxing because, honestly, just imagine being caught in a situation where some idiot puts you in a sleeper hold
from behind or grabs you in a bear hug, and you find yourself completely stuck simply because you never actually learned how to escape; you spent all your time just learning how to punch, even though back in my younger days I did a bit of
boxing and karate.

So, if I’m going to put in the work, I might as well be well-rounded—after all, even Chuck Norris apparently held black belts in Jiu-Jitsu and Judo according to Wikipedia. 😁

I realize movies are pretty unrealistic, and trying to pull off a lever move like that is almost impossible if a strike is lightning fast, but I do know one
other type of armlock that actually works in real life, and it's something I've spent a massive amount of time drilling.

Anyway, I’m mostly just a huge fan of mixed martial arts; there's so much interesting technique involved, though it obviously takes years of dedication
to truly master anything, and without actual live sparring, you're basically getting zero points—theory without practice is totally useless.

Like I mentioned in my last post, it’s not that I’m looking to go out and start street fights, I just genuinely love combat sports and you never really know when those skills might come in handy.

Say some bully is harassing a girl on the street, obviously I’m going to step in to help, but how can I actually do anything if I don't know what I'm doing? By the time the police
show up, it might already be too late, or I could end up getting beaten down myself; if I know how to apply a sleeper hold or something similar because I've trained, then I have a chance—or if I end up working as a bouncer,
I’ll need at least some fundamentals, even if I hope I never have to use them because I’m not much of a troublemaker, unless I take a job as
security at a nightclub, in which case knowing a wrist lock or an armbar would definitely come in handy for certain situations.