Victims making hardest choice (Split-second decision to shoot back changes, ends lives)

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE ^ | Sep 29, 02 | DIANA RASCHKE

[SLB]

A little something to read with coffee this morning.

[GailA]

Hmm maybe 9/11 is also making armed victims think twice about letting the criminal walk away or have a chance to kill their victim?

[Dialup Llama]

>But if an act of defense is deemed out of proportion to the threat, the defender can be charged with a felony.

The British disease is infecting our legal theory.

[SLB]

BTTT

[Feckless]

"Freeze!" he yelled.

First (biggest, and could have been his last) mistake. Once I have identified you as intending to do harm to me, family, etc. the only warning I will provide is the muzzle flash from one or both of my .44's, 12 GA, or whatever is closest to me. I am no longer a a combatant goverend by the Geneva Convention nor a member of law enforcement. I see no up side in taking prisoners or of wounding or subduing an assailant. I want you dead, the deader the better. If I could find bullets I could put in you that would kill the she-wolf that birthed you I'd use them.

There, that's more warning than you deserve.

[Dialup Llama]

>Gaudet said he thought about firing again at the uninjured gunman as he pushed his wounded partner outside.

>"It went through my mind, why not just pull the trigger? But I didn’t feel any threat. He was running," Gaudet said.

I guess people who carry need training in how to keep these personal reflections to themselves and to say certain stock legal phrases.

[spodefly]

A good article and fair from the standpoint of RKBA.

You do have to think before you ever decide to carry what will be the most likely response you will have when you find yourself in a position to have to defend yourself. You will be way more nervous than you think (I know this from experience -- when I was awakened in the middle of the night with someone in the house I was shaking like a little girl, and decided after that that a pistol might not be as good a choice as a shotgun for home defense.)

I carry a Baretta 9mm all the time now, and will do everything I can to avoid all situations where I might get into an altercation ... drive away from the road ragers, walk away from any altercations on the street, etc. But if the time comes that my life is in immediate peril, I hope I have prepared myself to be situationally aware enough to make the right decision, and that I have steeled my convictions enough not to spend the rest of my life second guessing myself.

It sucks that the world is violent to the point that you may have to kill someone else to stay alive, but that is reality ... face it and live, ignore it and die a victim ...

[toddst]

Good get. Bookmarked for re-reading and reference.

An increaseing number of women are requesting personal defense training (along with their CCW.) This is a good article for use with folks who have just recently discovered it's more attractive to be pro-active in their personal protection, as opposed to needing victim services (at the least.)

[SLB]

Agree. The warning sequence should go: "BANG" "freeze" in that order.

[hopespringseternal]

Four weeks later, Gaudet said he still suffers from anxiety, bronchitis and other health problems he never had before.

I know a fellow who had to kill in self-defense. He was arrested and had no problems sleeping that night in jail. He was ultimately aquitted and has never had any physical manestations of guilt. He says he wishes it didn't happen, but he can't say he would do anything differently.

It depends on the person. Some people walk out of simunition training and throw up, and some want a snack.

[Mackey]

Unfortunately, those stock phrases come in very handy in court these days.

I feared for my life.
I just wanted to stop him.

Hit your target, say the right phrases. Practice, practice.

[BlueLancer]

"Taylor grabbed a gun from behind the register and shot the robber in the face. The robber was charged. Taylor wasn’t."

Jeez, what was he using, a BB gun? An air pistol? Believe me, if I shot someone in the face with my pistol, he wouldn't be charged with anything; he would have to be squeegeed off the floor.

[dpa5923]

Gaudet said police assured him he had done nothing wrong, but he still worries other people will think of him as a killer.

Better than being thought of as a corpse.

.357 magnum bump

[Paleo Conservative]

Gaudet didn’t see the second gunman, who fired from a crouch, sending a bullet streaking inches away from Gaudet’s torso.

Gaudet shot back, missing the shooter but killing the first gunman, Charles Patillo, 17. The second gunman ran but was later captured and charged with manslaughter.

This is much superior to British law where the innocent man defending his life and property would have been charged.

[Lewite]

Here in Birmingham, Alabama we did away with the right to shoot at fleeing felons and crime went up a thousand percent. Fried chicken resturants and rib joints are robbed every day and night. The employees are not allowed to have weapons, so the workers are easy pickens. We do have a law that allows citzens to Carry Concealed Weapons so robbery of individuals are not common in the burbs.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

He drew his 9 mm handgun and fired four times at a passenger-side tire.

Over a bottle of cognac? That seems a bit over the top.

Although the perps aren't likely to target that particular establishment again. Or perhaps they might...for revenge.

[Cicero5]

He shoulda used a shotgun...small, short barrel, no misses.

[Space Wrangler]

YESSIR!!!! Warning an identified threat is an unneccesary risk. Once the threat has been identified as potentially deadly, it is time to dispatch that threat forthwith. No warnings, no second chances.

[SLB]

I wonder what the outcome would have been in Nebraska last week if someone in the bank would have been capable of fighting back? Here in Kentucky there is a bank manager who has used deadly force to foil two robbery attempts. His grandfather also used deadly force to foil a robbery in the same bank.