The other Dog thread prompted this question, but didn’t want to hijack that one. My wife loves his show, so I’ve been exposed to bits and pieces of it along the way.
I don’t know if it’s a personal choice, or whatever, but he and his team don’t use actual firearms. They have pepper spray or bear spray, and I saw a bit of one episode where they were tooling around with what looked like Paintball guns. With the pellets filled with pepper spray maybe? I’m not sure.
It seems to me that doing that would be even more dangerous than just clearly not having any firearms.
We’re talking a bounty hunter in the US, the gun capital of the Western world, and he’s hunting down people from a section of society that I imagine are far more likely to own firearm’s (legal or otherwise).
With the paintball markers etc, Dog’s team provides the illusion that they are armed, but if someone they are chasing responds with a real firearm they are sweet out of luck. Whereas being clearly not armed is probably less likely to provoke drawing of a firearm by the fugitive.
I just think it’s more dangerous brandishing ‘pseudo’ firearms than none at all (or actual ones)
Small hijack, but can a convicted felon be with someone (in a vehicle or business office for example) who has a firearm, assuming that the person they are hanging out with is legally allowed to have the gun?
While it might not feel “safe” for the bounty hunter, in reality most such work can in fact be done without a firearm. In many parts of the world police officers only have firearms in arsenals or for special teams akin to SWAT units, but regular patrol officers do not carry them. Obviously no other country is as armed as the United States but even here murder is very rare. Peace officers don’t get murdered at a very high rate, and while I don’t have statistics on bounty hunters I would imagine the number isn’t vastly higher for them.
The truth is most people when confronted with being taken to jail will either:
Passively go into detention
Run
Fight back but not with lethal intent
Fight back with lethal intent
I’d say the % of persons who will do each of those things is very high for 1 and gets lower and lower to an almost minuscule percentage when you’re talking about people who are willing to kill another human to stay out of jail.
What you say makes sense, but maybe for those willing to jump bail in the first place, they are more likely to put up a struggle (armed with a lethal weapon or not) than the random guy on the street.
In other words, by definition a bounty hunter is working with a criminal who does not play by the rules, even after their initial brush with the law.
That’s not really true. There is a lot of reciprocity between states. A Florida permit for example is recognized in something like 36 other states, IIRC.
Brian Aitken bought guns while he lived in Colorado. He even…
NJ cops find the guns, in the trunk, still in locked luggage and unloaded. He got seven years. :eek: After serving time and a lot of bad press the governor commuted the sentence. Leaving him a felon and he can never own a gun again.
I can see why bounty hunters don’t carry guns across state lines. You really have to research that states gun laws first.
Plus, Dog mostly operates in Hawaii so it’s not like fugitives he’s hunting just cross state lines willy nilly. (I know he’s also done work in other places, but the show takes place in Hawaii. So it’s not like working in Charlotte and needing to be able to cross the state line to South Carolina all the time.)
I’ll admit to watching the show a few times. (And it is a TV show, Most or all if it could be or probably is scripted and/or staged.) Seems to me like he mostly goes after drug offenders who are too strung out to fight back much anyway.
It’s been years since I’ve watched the show, but knowing what I know about bondsmen, I’d think that carrying guns would be just plain bad for business. Most of the people Dog hunts are clients of his own bail bond business, people he has a contractual relationship with. He talks to them and their family members and friends all the time. It’s a lot easier to get people to trust you if they can see that you’re not going to shoot them if they screw up. And it’s a lot easier to convince people to make their court dates if they think you’re on their side. Less effort than hunting them down, too.
Unlikely, since regular citizens can carry firearms in most of the United States. Something like 7 states prohibit open carry (meaning your firearm is being worn openly), and many others allow open carry with no licensing or restrictions. Even some states with more restrictive laws about open carry will afford licenses for certain individuals. For example I’m not aware of any state in which armored truck drivers/guards don’t carry firearms (I know I’ve seen them going in and out of banks in states that otherwise didn’t allow open carry, and the guards were most definitely armed.)
