🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1p7vnn$nbi@sol.TIS.COM> mjr@tis.com (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
>>But you didn't hear a WORD a couple months later, when
>>a customer with a license to carry in Alabama saved about 20 people from
>>armed robbers...
>
>	This is where the art of armchair generalship shines. Who is
>to know that if the armed robbers had been left alone, whether they
>would have just taken a bunch of money and left, to be apprehended
>later? Who is to know if the guy with the license to carry might have
>provoked a losing firefight and gotten several innocent people killed?

In the incident I described, which occured in Anniston, Alabama, the
robbers were herding the customers of the restaurant into a freezer.
The guy who shot the robbers had been hiding under a table; one of the
robbers made a sweep through the restaurant and discovered him there.
At that point, he shot that robber and, when the other robbers shot at
him, he fired back.

In my opinion, his approach was very well executed.  If he hadn't been
discovered, he could have released the other customers from the restaurant
or attacked the robbers if they began executing people.  The robbers
might have been just putting the people someplace that would be safe for a
short period of time.  On the other hand, they might have started shooting 
people.  Even if they'd intended to call the police and have them release
the people, which I believe was their modus operandi, they might've had 
an accident and the people could have frozen to death.

In my opinion, the customer who shot the robbers acted with real morality.
On the other hand, if the crooks had started executing people, those
victims would've died for nothing.

>	I'd rather lose my wallet and have to cancel my credit cards
>than to have some self-appointed saviour pull a gun in my behalf and
>hurt someone. That's just money. Granted, if the attacker is intent on
>injuring, raping, killing the victim, it's another story - but I don't
>really feel comfortable knowing that someone might play Clint Eastwood
>on my behalf without asking me first.

Maybe you feel that way; I do not.  A crook who steals food to feed his
kids is one thing.  One who threatens ANYONE innocent with grave physical
harm should, IMO, be stopped by any means necessary.  I would rather live
someplace where that approach was taken than in a place that was overly
worried about the longevity of violent criminals.

    don