Third trimester abortions? C’mon!
You want help, you want the police to come help you. I was a victim without gunplay, I wanted the police to come help me.
I think this is a pretty relevant post that got overlooked. How do we the general public judge someone who was being robbed at gunpoint. Regardless of the video it’s unrealistic to refer to the guy as calm. There’s a good chance he wasn’t thinking perfectly rationally.
Still, we do see him walk by the downed robber and turning his back on him to pursue the 2nd robber. When he returns he walks by the downed robber with his gun held in a non firing position. Maybe it’s empty, I don’t know, but he doesn’t seem to perceive any immediate threat as he walks by to get another gun {or is it reload?} He also doesn’t seem to perceive any immediate threat as he approaches the downed robber to shoot again. I can totally understand and support an “I’m not taking any chances” attitude. I think murder is out of the question and I sure hope it doesn’t come to that. Some version of manslaughter, maybe. We can 2nd guess him and say he could have held the gun on the downed robber or left the premises. I think either of those would have been a better choice. He chose to make sure the attacker wouldn’t get up. Who knows what was going on in his head? The fact that he walks by the downed robber twice and turns his back on him is going to be pretty damning. It seems to show he saw no immediate threat.
In reading the other accounts of the average joe fighting back I can understand the feeling of satisfaction to hear about people defending themselves rather than living in fear. There’s still a danger of things going to far and justifying gun play for any offense. In one cited case a guy shoots a kid who is outside his window because the kid might be thinking about breaking in.
OTOH, if the average joe starts defending himself we can expect some situations like this to arise. Overall is it a reasonable response to violent crimes and a price we as a society are willing to pay let criminals know they may be risking their lives when they choose to commit a crime?
This is true. A local merchant was shot by cops when he chased robbers outside and was so excited he didn’t drop his gun when ordered by the police.
IN the video the merchant walks by the downed robber twice with no sign of alarm or being threatened. He turns his back to him. If he wasn’t worried then about a hidden weapon and feigned or recovering unconsciousness why would he be later?
I’d add that the merchant in the video seems able to think clearly enough to drop the weapon when the cops arrive.
When one fires at an assailant in self-defense, one fires at the center of mass, in other words, the heart. When the heart is hit by anything from a 9mm on up it’s going to kill the assailant. Shooting to “stop the threat” is one of those legal semantic compromises made when laws allowing carrying were passed. If we as concealed carriers have to use our weapons in self-defense we never use the word “kill”. Not when speaking to the cops, not when speaking to a lawyer and not in court.
But when we take those shots, we are defintely intending to kill.
And how did you ever manage to get robbed multiple times when the robber didn’t even have a gun?
Thats true. I support people defending themselves and in the long run I think that will help curb crime. I’m only saying there could be a price to pay in more gun battles or robbers shooting first as in the bank robbery example offered. It isn’t a given that it’s a death sentence for robbers as suggested.
Really? Knowing we could kill is not the same as intending to. Isn’t it possible to just stop the threat to ourselves without wanting to kill?
So murder of anyone who performs abortions is okay? Or just abortion doctors you personally disagree with?
Please clarify.
The guy on the ground might have moved after passing him twice or made some sort of gesture that was perceived as a threat? Perhaps he thought “oh crap, I never checked to see if this guy is armed or not…” Just a couple of possibilities.
Don’t want to hijack but…do you have any idea what a third trimester abortion is like?
Yes. I know. Incidentally, I also support gun control, so…yeah.
shrug I weigh 100 pounds with heavy clothes, am usually by myself, and the only combat sport I ever did was kendo. Which would only really help self defensing if I carried a sword at all times. Which, in turn, would make me amazingly cool, I admit ('cause a shinai just looks wimpy, y’know ? :p)
But mostly, I got robbed because I let myself get robbed, through inattention, naïveté and plain not caring for whatever I have/had in my pockets. I ain’t fighting over a 20 bucks CD-player, a cellphone I loathe, a credit card I’ll lock down an hour later or two packs of cigarettes.
EDIT :
Yeah, that would have conceivably flown for one more startled bullet. Not five at point blank.
wrong. Have you forgotten of the security camera? The same security camera showing him turn his back to the murder victim?
In what world do you turn your back to a threat?
No, instead considering that lets call pointing out an unconscious person is no threat “armchair quartering backing”.
It’s not wanting but needing to kill. A dead perp has 0% chance of hurting you or someone you might be defending. Do you really want to gamble with the life of a loved one?
He never stopped being a victim. Ersland was always a victim in this case. It’s a tragedy. Sympathy is not a finite thing where we have to decide which side we have sympathy for. I have sympathy for both sides, even though I think both sides made incredibly poor decisions. Shakespeare made quite a career presenting us with such conundrums. This is not Shakespearean but it makes for an honest to goodness tragedy with no heroes and no clear cut villains.
Stay alert man!
One where you are not thinking straight? Operating on pure reaction.
You guys act like he was sitting there analyzing everything. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.
The moral of the story, keep a gun with stopping power under your counter, if you shoot someone, you want them to be dead for real.
The question at hand is do you support the vigilante murder of Dr. Tiller?
Possible. He walks right by after coming back in and shifts his gun to his left hand. I have to wonder what he’s seeing to be so casual and not wonder about a threat from what amounts to a wounded robber. Then he brings the gun over and fires repeatedly at point blank range, not from any cover such as behind the counter.
Maybe he heard the wounded man make a sound or try to move and realized he might still be a threat but approaching that close seems to indicate the wounded man wasn’t a threat. I can imagine being scared and high on adrenaline but it’s hard to imagine approaching any perceived threat that openly and getting that close.
In my book, even if he executed the kid out of rage at being robbed it’s still not murder.