I don’t know from guns, but I will say that if this person was in full blown psychosis, it would have been extremely difficult for any one person to restrain him.If it was PCP or something else, ditto.
I’ve had to physically restrain little old ladies who have “wigged out” (an official medical term) and even if they are about 90 pounds soaking wet, they can and do fight like demons. I have been kicked black and blue, scratched and even bitten (didn’t break the skin, thank god) by older folks who in their right mind wouldn’t hurt a flea. I have seen adult males rip off restraints as if they were tissue paper, one guy in ER even stood up, with the cart still strapped onto him (only now it was on his back, so to speak).
I am sick about the little boy. I have to say that while I think I would something, I know that there would be very little I could do if faced with this.
Damn. Just, damn. This is one of those things that makes me lose nearly all hope for humanity. (And I didn’t have much to begin with.) I just don’t understand how people do shit like this. Yeah, yeah. Drugs or mental illness or a cult or whatever, stupid logic.
For the life of me I will NEVER understand why people are SO vehemently opposed to private citizens saving their life or someone else’s with the use of a firearm, but are TOTALLY okay when the cops do it. As if police officers are some special breed of superhuman heroes who can absolutely do no wrong.
Do you really have your heads that far up your asses? Do you not realize how many people are shot by mistake, by the cops? How many incidents of police brutality are committed every year? What the fuck is this attitude of “a private citizen with a legal handgun is a vigilante, cowboy, wild-west gunslinger, but a cop with a handgun is a hero?” Do you think there are no clumsy, ill-trained, inept cops? Do you think there are no private citizens who are military veterans and have more firearms expertise than any cop in their city, who carry concealed?
Seriously, where does this unbelievable ignorance come from?
From reading the overheated posts of gun enthusiasts who insist that “everything would have been different if I had been there with my Glock” when tragedies like this occur.
If a group insists upon presenting themselves as badass vigilante cowboys, that’s how I’m going to view them.
(For the record, I have no objection to gun ownership of concealed carry.)
Well, there are lots of different gun people online. The vigilante types are quickly dismissed on any serious gun forum. (Glocks are also looked down on by a lot of people, but that’s another issue.) Anyway, don’t let those people you describe be your only representative of CCers.
What if the passing bystander with a concealed handgun was a former cop? What if he was a decorated Marine? The winner of numerous marksmanship awards? What if he was someone who had previously worked in a very dangerous environment requiring cool thinking and a level head, all the time?
Anyone who continues to say that that person is a vigilante or a cowboy, but a cop is automatically qualified, is a sheep, plain and simple. Baaaaaahhhh.
Hell, I’ve never been in the military, I’ve never been a law enforcement officer, and I have moderate skill with my handguns at best - but I have met, in person, at least one officer in a large city’s police department whose ability to safely handle a firearm was so far below mine, it was alarming. I’m talking “unable to identify the caliber of an M1911 pistol (hint: it’s .45 ACP) the magazine and cartridges for which were in his hands” and “sweep the muzzle over a crowd of people with his finger on the trigger for the purpose of unloading” level of incompetence.
Police firearms training ain’t all that rigorous. It’s certainly better than nothing, but a lot of people have the mistaken impression that it’s some kind of gold standard that sets officers apart from the rest of humanity.
I don’t. It just seems like comments like that pop up a lot, on THIS board.
We could come up with scenarios where a gun-carrying bystander could help until the cows come home. And we could come up with an equally-long list of scenarios where they would make it worse.
I tend to think that such speculation isn’t really useful, except for people to bolster their own beliefs about firearms, and to demonize those who think differently.
Police are not only trained in using their firearms, but they are also trained in the situations that arise where they might need to use a firearm. You, me, and 99.9% of the posters in this thread are not.
Eleanorigby is absolutely right about restraining an adult - it’s an awful lot harder than you think it might be.
And for the record, I stand by my earlier post from my Canadian perspective, where you are NOT allowed deadly force even to save your life or someone else’s. If you could have solved it without deadly force, you will be facing charges here if you as a private citizen kill someone. I realize this didn’t happen in Canada, and all y’all aren’t Canadians, but I think this is a better way of doing things than having everyone running around with weapons doing as they please with no training or clue. All your mileages are free to vary.
You can also do more with a firearm than just shoot miscreants. A firm command to “Put down that baby and calm down, sir.” carries a lot more weight with a firearm in hand than without. The madman might comply, might turn his attention from the child to you, or might ignore you. In the last two cases, you have more ability to save the child and yourself, than the same tactic, sans firepower.
It comes from the sincere but flawed belief that police officers get more training on firearms usage and are better equipped to make a snap decision than the remainder of the population at large.
The difference between a police officer and an ordinary citizen is that the police are empowered to make arrests and to enforce laws. That’s not to say that a regular citizen cannot enforce laws, but they have a much higher standard to meet lest they themselves be arrested for violating rights with such things as illegal detention.
The police have to qualify a minimum number of times per year with their weapon. This entails a qualifying string that v is by no means universal. Some require tactical maneuvers, others are nothing more than holing a paper. Accuracy is checked, scores are tallied, and boom, you’re qualified. That does not make you an expert with firearms.
Nevertheless, there is this mythology that it does. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve told the story about the two alleged police officers that tried to hurt themselves at the range while I was there before, and I (admittedly anecdotally) know that police officers know more than most but less than some about the proper care and handling of firearms. I suppose it stems from the idea that by issuing them weapons they should know better than Joe Average how to use them. Were that it were true.
Most of us have little interest in the demonization of those who think differently. Then again, you will note that gun-control laws do not affect people who think like you do, only those of us that wish to avail ourselves of firearms as a means of self-defense. So, I ask, who demonizes who? Who carries a stigma along with his or her weapon? Who is watched like a hawk and dismissed as a “fetishist”? Who is accused of compensating for a “small penis”?
Who is the target of scorn here? Surely you don’t wish to claim that title for yourself. It’s laughable that you even tried. I get this all the time, and all I am doing is exercising my rights as a citizen of the United States and obeying the law to the letter, and somehow you’re the victim? Please.
Someone offers that as an option, and that’s the end of that. It is indeed a viable option, but private citizens with weapons are anathema here at the SDMB, save for a small minority.
In this case, the hijack, if you will, resulted from the OP story notation that people attempted to stop the assailant, who was undeterred from his assault upon the toddler, until shot by a LEO.
It logically follows that if John or Jane Q. Citizen had happened upon the scene, and being properly armed with a handgun, might have wounded/killed the assailant prior to his having inflicted fatal injuries upon the child.
