"This is a hold-up, put the money in the bag karate boy and be quick about it. Chop Chop."

the CPS would be all over this prosecuting the victims...

If there was video footage, then this is what YouTube was made for.

Shame there isn't footage, tho.

Would he have had a better chance if he was a ninja or a Shaolin monk? The world needs to know.

But leave the pirates out of it.

story of the day, brilliant. I shall be discussing this at length in the pub later.

Is that realy his name?

Meanwhile back in something like reality that comment would be vetted for accuracy and relevance.

Dan you receive ....Nil point (polite applause)

again, what's the IT angle?

Darwin wins again. Now this id10t's cellmate, "Big Juan", will explain the finer points of prison dances.

Anyone seen my coat...?

will all the anonymous knob-cheeses stop complaining about a lack of IT angle in what is clearly a human interest story that is

a) funny

b) ironic

not to mention is in the section called 'odds & sods'.

I think I speak for many when I say I'm getting tired of seeing this type of comment.

The IT angle is that it's God Damned Funny!!!

Would you lot finally leave off on the '...but where's my IT angle? How can you have a story without an IT angle?" bit?

Forget the IT angle, what's the Paris Hilton angle? Enquiring minds need to know!

:o)

look for pimp slap on youtube, its one of those police camera action programs...

but what's the Paris Hilton angle?

Any martial arts school that teaches you to tackle an armed robber should be looked into very carefully.

Karate doesn't teach you any techniques to tackle an aggressor armed with a firearm (as far as i know anyway), so whoever tackled this guy must've been very lucky, or managed to get the drop on him from behind (most likely the former)

The IT angle is OBVIOUS.

If there where more CCTV camera's around, this smack-down would be on Youtube, but there aren't.

Jeeze, do you guys have to be spoon-fed ?? :)

Wavelength Five!

I don't know but I'm sure it's obtuse...

According to popular rumour, 90 degrees from the horizontal.

+/- for variation

...against an assailant armed with...

A banana!

The estate tweed, third from left, thanks.

More important, is exactly how many sheep did this guy expect to purchase with his ill gotten gains and how many finches did he manage to get into the establishment before being "dealt with".

My grandfather worked for Hoover at the FBI. One of Hoover's policies was this: If you were a minute late from lunch, your vacation was docked accordingly. Therefore, when the FBI agents were paid on Fridays, they would skip lunch and run down to the local bank to deposit/cash their paycheck during lunch.

One day, my grandfather was at the bank doing the Friday check cashing routine with many of his coworkers. Unbelievably, a man stepped up to the window and pulled a gun on the teller. Needless to say, he didn't have a chance what with a lobby full of armed FBI agents.

Talk about not scouting out the premises beforehand.....

If this happened in my country, every student would be in prison, and the criminal would be suing them in civil court, and win. No joke.

Ian,

Yes, he would have fared a bit better.... Since they would only attack one at a time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMJ_b9uV1Lo

Frank

This would be perfect for applying the ultraviolet inks M$ has developed for tagging the hands and heads of it's genuine MCSEs!

Dave, I can't think where you got that idea from. But then, I live in Texas.

If that had happened in Texas, the robber would, most likely, be dead.

Even though they reffered to it as a karate school, im betting it was actually more like a brazillian jujitsu school. In which case the poor robber with probably always be walking with a limp.

The IT angle is that he was robbing the place to get money to rent time on a botnet to spam. The real question here is what's the iPhone angle?

Also, how large was the school in picoWales?

"Karate doesn't teach you any techniques to tackle an aggressor armed with a firearm (as far as i know anyway), so whoever tackled this guy must've been very lucky, or managed to get the drop on him from behind (most likely the former)"

Um, just as a note... we're not talking about 1 armed robber against 1 hyped up karate kid. More likely than not, we're talking about 1 DUMB armed robber (if nothing else, he proved he was dumb when he went after a target group that was far more likely to force him to shoot to maintain control of the situation than your typical citizen) against a fair number of martial artists, average skill unknown, but at least a few pretty high up. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point the idiot lowered his gun to shove his loot in his big burlap sack, and received half a dozen heavy objects flung upside the head in less than 1/5th of a second. Followed shortly by a lot of feet and fists to his assorted body parts.

This is NOT to say that I recommend fighting with people with guns - quite the opposite, as you're probably going to get yourself (or worse, someone else) killed. But seriously, it's easy to see how this happened. Even trained police officers get nervous about handling more than a small number of hostile people when they're all alone - they know that it really is possible for the tables to get to get turned.

-daniel

Reminds me of the news story I heard while traveling in the US. "A would be armed robber has died of multiple gunshot wounds in Texas after he entered a gun store and demended cash, while brandishing a knife"

The owner must have been so pleased to be able to demonstrate his wares for his customers..

You first learn to use your hands and feet but from there many martial arts have weapons training and if you are slow to shoot you may as well be holding a banana most guns don't hold enough rounds and most robbers don't shoot their victims this man had no chance he is indeed lucky to be alive most of the serious Karate people I know would have injured him severly they do that because thats part of the sport and they train to act instantly as part of competition.

Jesus Christ, I am sick of whiney little TURDS who jump on the comments section and whine about "but this is not an IT thread". Well boo-hoo you mouth breather.

Firstly, on the whole less than 10 percent of El Reg content is non-IT humour. Go on, count them.

Secondly DON"T OPEN IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ IT

Thirdly DON"T COMMENT ON IT IF YOU DISLIKE IT.

In other word F-off and go engage in your petulant troll-like antic on another board. Twat!

obviously, the twit failed to case the joint properly.

a common guideline in martial arts sparring practice is that nailing your opponent by surprise from behind is not good form. this guideline does not apply to opponents wielding firearms, and pretty much any other weapon.

one kidney shot, delivered with serious intent, and this guy would forget about anything he was holding in his hand, firearm included. he would be too busy writhing around on the floor, puking. it usually feels like your guts are about to fall out.

the funniest part is that any student above a white belt, knows how to apply this method. not everyone would have the presence of mind to use the knowledge in a situation like this, but it only takes one person.

"as you're probably going to get yourself (or worse, someone else) killed."

Nope ... getting myself killed instead of someone else is definitely the worst scenario from where i'm standing!

"as you're probably going to get yourself (or worse, someone else) killed."

Nope ... getting myself killed instead of someone else is definitely the worst scenario from where i'm standing!

Oh, I get it, half of you "Armchair Warrior" geeks are probably creaming yourselves on this.

Does everything HAVE to have an IT angle? Aren't our daily lives swamped enough with servers, printers, people who should not be allowed near computers and idiotic management enough to allow us 1 story of some moron getting 7 shades of sh*t kicked out of him?

It depends on the style, pure Karate probably won't, but you get many styles of it which cross it with others, such as Bushido and Aikido (the style I tried a long time back). In my case it wasn't guns that were the subject of avoidance, but knives and bottles, but many of the same techniques would be used to disarm any hand held weapon. And many of the same techniques would then be used to bitch-slap said attacker into A&E. ;)

And I wish the IT angle bellends would wind their necks in and enjoy a humorous story as being just that.

Maybe want to lay off the caffeine for a while there, buddy?

I think the site of 30 people "Wax on Wax offing" and "Drumming" like a mental patient in a straight jacket might actually make me drop me weapon.

All it would take then would be a few cleverly placed (yet highly improbably) crane kicks and a bit of nose honking (preceeded by a bellow of "Live or Die"), then of course the obligatory Peter Cetera crooning to lead us up to the final hospitalisation.

Man with the Golden Gun, I think?

The important thing when facing marital artists is to keep your distance. Remember they need to get within limb reach to get you, you only need to get line-of-sight.

IE, play to your advantage.

Or, better yet, hold up a liquor store instead.

I think many of our 'WTIA' posts are meant to be humourously sarcastic i.e. taking the piss. Sadly, we don't have the emoticons for 'taking the piss' in the comments section.

I suggest that we (the readers with a sardonically inclined funny-bone) desist with the WTIAs, and then we will know when to pour scorn on those poor, jocularly-challenged fools who persist in posting the aforementioned WTIA.

while we're about it, I'm getting a little bored with the Paris Hilton references, too. Let's pick on britney :-)

Perhaps some relaxation and meditation is in order for those getting wound up by the IT angle...

Repeat after me:

Do not feed the trolls....

Martial arts do in fact teach you to deal with opponents with weapons

Karate dosn't generally teach techniques for that sort of thing. Other martial arts like Krav Maga (which is includes training for dealing with "street" situations, and hostiles with blades and guns), do.

All martial arts teach you to deal with opponents, armed or not. Sports masquerading as martial arts don't really teach you anything aside from the rules and how to 'fight' within them.

Karate, in its various forms (ignoring above reference to 'sport' nonsense) is *all about* dealing with dangerous, armed opponents. If you had to make sure an opponent was unarmed first they would not have been a lot of use, would they now?

Firearms are somewhat different in that they are a ranged weapon and modern firearms can fire repeatedly at a high rate. That said, many of those who resort to threatening others with them have little or no skill with the weapon and no tactical ability, which means they probably will screw up anyway and someone with some training will indeed be able to capably handle them.

For the record, with a pistol, you need your opponent to be around 6 metres (20 or so feet) away, or you are going to have a hard time shooting them if they want to take you down, as that distance can be covered in a surprisingly short time and it's very difficult to shoot someone at grappling range. With a larger gun the distance tends to be even larger thanks to the increased time needed to take aim and they are useless, near enough, at hand-to-hand range.

Guns do one thing very well; hit targets at range, over and over. They're not a magical talisman and bullets are much less lethal than films suggest (Miami shoot out, anyone?).

"The important thing when facing marital [sic] artists is to keep your distance."

Absolutely. Marital artists could really paint you into a corner, leaving the police with a pretty picture to deal with...