Today they finally returned my pistol to me. So the case of the century, "On the shooting at Gogol Club", can now be considered successfully closed. The police investigator didn’t hide his joy at finally being rid of both the pistol and the case. The file itself looks far more impressive than any ordinary murder case: 137 pages of documents. Not surprising, considering that at the top of the folder someone had penciled in "political material" (my lawyer saw it with her own eyes). The police (militsiya, the former Russian police force) issued a decision refusing to open a criminal case four times (!!!), at every level. But the prosecutor’s office, also at every level, overturned that decision four times and ordered a new review. This whole mess dragged on for six and a half months—those familiar with criminal procedure will appreciate that. Very Well-Informed People told me a number of curious versions of who exactly was giving the orders to "keep the case going." I’ve taken note. We will neither forget nor forgive.
It was very interesting to read the testimony of this very Tiziev. I quote almost word for word: "We came to Gogol Club and didn’t know there would be a debate there. On stage I saw a girl, thought she was pretty, so I went up on stage and gave her a rose that one of my friends had given me.... We drank a lot of vodka, I felt sick and went to the bathroom. I came out, I felt bad and didn’t understand anything. Then Navalny came up to me and said, ‘who the hell are you,’ and also called me a ‘churka’ (a racist slur in Russian). That insulted me deeply, so I stepped toward him. But Navalny pulled out a traumatic pistol and emptied the whole magazine into my head. After that, two men standing behind him threw me to the ground and started kicking me..." Instructive reading. I promised many people I’d give my opinion about the traumatic IZh pistol, and about the use of traumatic weapons in general, and in this case in particular. While the case was under review, I refrained from commenting. Now I’ll say this: I am certain that I acted absolutely correctly and with full legal grounds. Self-defense weapons exist precisely so that you can protect yourself from creeps who "drank a lot of vodka with friends." The shots were fired a) outside the hall b) not at the head c) from an acceptable distance. I got a lot of advice along the lines of "you could’ve beaten the crap out of him without a pistol" or "you should’ve carried a knife." There are plenty of people I could beat the crap out of without a pistol. And there are also plenty of people who could beat the crap out of me without any pistol at all. For every force, there’s a greater force. But we should remember that we are not a pack of bandar-logs in the trees (a reference to Kipling’s monkey tribe), but civilized people. And if I came to a debate clean, well-dressed, and in a good mood, I have absolutely no desire to get into a fight with some drunk freak who "drank a lot of vodka with friends." I find even touching him disgusting. Even if he’s 144 cm tall. For people like that there is supposed to be a) club security b) the police (militsiya, the former Russian police force), and if none of that works, then c) the law gives me the right to use a self-defense weapon. There’s hardly anything to say about knives. Carrying a knife for self-defense is basically a ready-made prison sentence. You have to understand that the stopping power of a knife is fairly low—if you only make a light cut. But if you stab properly, then you instantly move into the territory of grievous bodily harm. I do not believe that in a real fight you can calibrate your force and "stick it in just right so it hurts but doesn’t kill." Once the adrenaline hits, you’ll start slashing with that knife like in a Hitchcock movie. Of course, the sight of a knife often makes the right impression on an unfriendly counterpart, but overall, it seems to me there are more minuses than pluses. On the effectiveness of traumatic weapons. I state with full responsibility: this traumatic stuff is complete crap. "Makarych," "Jorge," all the rest of them—regardless of muzzle energy. I’d give this example: suppose you take a plastic fork and jam it into someone’s arm as hard as you can. Will it hurt? Yes, it will. It may even draw blood. If you did that to an acquaintance at dinner, he’d be shocked and fall off his chair. But if you jabbed a drunk hooligan with that fork, he simply wouldn’t feel a thing. Anyone who has ever been in a fight knows perfectly well that scrapes—even serious ones—broken fingers, and so on are not felt at all during the fight, or in the first minutes afterward. A wound from a traumatic pistol is about the same as one from a plastic fork. Just with noise and smoke. And that’s only if the attacker is wearing a T-shirt or shirt. A sweater will seriously reduce the impact. Winter clothing will nullify it completely. So in the event of a serious attack, you’d have to shoot only at the head. And that is illegal. There’s also the Osa. It hits harder. But that’s not the main point. The hard limit there is shooting at the head—you really can kill someone. And go to prison. Of course it’s better to go to prison than be killed yourself, but you don’t want to be faced with that choice. Advice. You should buy one anyway. "Russians, arm yourselves" (quote). I’d advise getting both an Osa and something like a Makarych. If you’re afraid of someone in particular, then you need to consider special options, but for walking the dog in the evening, it’ll do. There are exotic options too, of course—one acquaintance of mine carries in his bag a metal shoehorn, the kind used to put on shoes. It has a long handle and weighs about 400 grams. The edges are fairly sharp. You could crack a skull with it easily, and no one could prove you prepared a weapon in advance or had criminal intent )) At home, though, you should have a shotgun, of course. There are plenty of excellent options now. belyh told me some homicide statistics for Perm Krai (a region in Russia). So: 1,200 people are killed there every year in the course of criminal attacks. Out of a population of three million. Four people a day. The police (militsiya, the former Russian police force) are capable only of taking note of it. So the NAROD movement is absolutely right: handguns should be legalized.