Seriously, how do selfish, cowardly, sociopaths like yourself continue to operate in this world. The last people on Earth thst should be given weapons are people like you.
I didn't once advocate for, or even once mention, guns in this situation (obviously shooting at a crowd of people on a busy train is an absolutely terrible idea for a whopping number of reasons) - but now I - a person you have never interacted with previously - am a "selfish, cowardly sociopath" for simply explaining the attitude that accepts the fact that, as you put it, "robbery happens", that it is better to let 50 teenage gang members assault and rob a train full of passengers than to threaten a single one of them.
In fact, I never even actually disagreed with you! I'm just trying to explain to any other Europeans reading this the context of how your comments could possibly make sense, because outside of the Bay Area bubble, they seem quite shockingly absurd.
That's the robber's call to make, not yours.
When you have such stark financial and class inequality in a dense urban environment like the bay, being mugged of your iPhone occasionally is literally seen as a kind of moral tax that you pay for your gentrifying presence. To defend yourself from it would be politically incorrect, both individually to the "victim" of your self-defense, and to your class as a whole, as you should essentially accept the mugging as a tax on your privileged position in the cultural landscape.
I know many tech workers who live/lived in Oakland who have been mugged (including pistol-whippings), who essentially just accepted it. Some did not even report it to the police, as in their world-view, to do so would be to enlisting an inherently oppressive, violent and racist force.