I'm having a bit of a crisis if conscience lately.
I've been carrying without incident for about twenty years now, and due to some recent experiences I have had a profound reassessment of the sanctity and preciousness of any and all human life. To that end, for the most part, I have hung up my rig and started packing my rosary.
My distress comes from looking around at my fellow citzens and seeing what a vanishingly small percentage of them are actually prepared to deal with a sudden outbreak of SJS.
Either they conceal a whole lot better than I every did, or they are just going about their business like nothing has changed.
Who does one talk to in order to resolve such conflicts?
"When did bicyclists become subhuman?"
If it's one of those yellow "Share-a-bikes" then just recently.
I don't think I can help you, and I expect you won't get much help on the web. I was an EMT for many years and people literally died in my hands. I am familiar with death. I think I would be able to shoot if there was a life and death situation.
I think you have decided that it is most important to you not to take a life. I respect that, although I don't agree.
Under what circumstances would you find it acceptable to take a life?
A war?
A righteous war, like World War II?
How about a war in which the sides aren't so cut and dried, like Vietnam?
If a pyscho was holding a knife to your child's throat, could you kill that man?
If he was holding a knife to a perfect stranger?
Does your faith give you the strength to go to the funeral of the man who killed your children and pray for him, as the Friends did last year?
If you can answer those questions honestly, I think you'll know what to do. A gun in the hand of a person who is unwilling to use it can make the situation worse if the bad guy takes it away. Good luck and God Bless.