If a looter sees that someone has a metal baseball bat and doesn't decided to walk away, then they are responsible for what happens to themselves. Anyone with two braincells to rub together knows that if you go up against somebody with a giant metal club, you might die. Let's be honest here, these are not sniper rifles, in order for someone to be killed by someone wielding a bat defensively they have to opt-in.

What I find more disturbing than anything else here is the prospect of a violent individual too stupid to properly analyze such a situation.

I agree. I would add that any kind of rioting opts you in to the possibility of death and dismemberment. Be it by bats, rubber bullets, trampling underneath fellow rioters. Responsibility for a wide range of consequences should lie with the rioter.

You make a good argument. If the looter still comes after you after noticing your bat then you should be really scared. If he manages to get the bat away from you he will probably use it to beat you to a pulp.

In my experience of these London kids a lot of them are smoking heroin during these types of violent events, so I would be unlikely to trust their rationality.

A shortgun would be a better choice than aluminum bat in that case.

In order to kill someone with a baseball bat, you must aim for their heads. It's possible to incapacitate someone with a baseball bat without aiming to kill them.

You also are assuming that all of these confrontations are done face-to-face, and that both parties have plenty of time to think about what they're doing first. It's already pretty clear few of these looters are analyzing anything.

If the looter is alone and there is police squad nearby - there is no need to even beat the looter - catch him and send to prison.

Unfortunately looting mob during mass riots puts store owners into totally different situation. They basically have only two options: run vs fight.

I'm not sure if I personally would choose to fight in that situation, but if business owner chooses fight option, I would support him even if he kills looters during that fight. In part because that would make my neighborhood safer.

I would have imagined that a baseball bat isn't good in a one vs group situation. As you hit one person the others grab you and wrestle the bat off you. Consequently the bat would probably be turned on you. As one parent commenter further noted: once you get riot mentality the mob/riot is entirely unpredictable. I'd imagine you would be in a perilous situation.

Considering the example: If you were a shop owner in your shop vs a mob, I'd suggest that if you had to fight tere's a good probability that you were fighting for your life anyway. You would most likely be trying to permanently disable any threat. Perhaps a blow to the knee? I don't know how anyone would react.

The thing you need to consider is this: in the UK you aren't encouraged to buy equipment designed to hurt people (for example there's legislation on knives (length) and for guns you need licenses which are very hard to get). Also the law tends to be unfavaourable if you simply kill an intruder. You really have to be using due force. Now consider you're home alone and a mob arrives at your door/flat. What do you do to protect yourself? What equipment (that you can easily justify was used in self defence or with appropriate force) should you use that might just persuade them that it's not worth the effort?

Perhaps getting the aluminium one to put them off?

I did not advocate _not_ fighting. I advocated not _killing_.

Creating novelty accounts is a practice best left at the door here. This isn't reddit.

How do you plan to defend the looters? Just on the Internet or actually going into action and trying to reason with store owners?