Question

Consider a person who is mugged by someone on the street with a gun. The person has an unloaded gun in their own pocket. They could get the gun out to try to scare off the mugger, however, they risk the mugger shooting them instead. If they do not get out the unloaded gun, their mugger has time to search only their left or right pocket, but not both and the mugger will not shoot them. The person has $100 in their left pocket and nothing in their right pocket, and the mugger knows this. Assume that if the mugger does not get the $100, they get no payoff.

Should the person draw their unloaded gun or not? Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Although even an unloaded gun can scare a perpetrator, if the perpetrator knows about it, there are chances of danger. This would mean that it would be safe to hand over the $ 100 to the mugger and move away safely. Most of the life-threatening shootings have occurred while the victims struggle with the offenders. This would mean that the victim shouldn’t get into a physical struggle with the offenders, it would only end-up in a loss to the victim. The offender, whether they get the money or not, would try to harm the victim, especially if they don’t get any money out of their struggle.

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