[jimhelm]

It's really hard to say what you might do in that kid's position. The adrenaline that hits you might well change your opinion, spexx. Intellectually, it's correct and easy to say that violence is never the answer. And then someone hits you in the mouth.

It's a unique scenario. He's clearly much larger than his tormentor, and stronger. You usually don't see this played out this way. Also, the way the smaller kid was behaving made me think that he had been doing this for a while. I don't think it was the first time he had picked on the larger kid. He had become bold, it would seem. And the big kid finally had enough.

I had a smaller kid (my best childhood friend) hit me in the face once. He got scared and ran away as soon as he did it, and stayed out of reach long enough to let me cool down and apologize over and over. I never hit him back. Had he stood there and tried to give me 3, I am pretty certain I would have acted similarly to the way that this kid did.... actually, I started toward Dan after the first shot....