Where is the line?

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P5 Guy

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http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=311193
I have seen many threads just like this one and all of them have had many thoughtful answers, but where is the line and how and when should it be crossed?
I have heard that money, car, jewelery and etc are not worth taking a life. But, there is a time when this should be stopped so that others do not have to suffer. I do not want to sound like a vigilante with this and I have given a lot of thought as to what I would do if I had to give up something of great value to me. Or in giving up the property I would be causing harm to myself or others at another time.
No armed robbery is a "good robbery" and many times these criminals go on to do more violence in future crimes. I am troubled by having to make the choice between passive and aggresive responce in a situation like the one in the post above or the threads in past posts. I know what the law says, but what would a reasonable person do?
 
P5 Guy

I understand your feelings, it is very difficult to figure out what is a reasonable response vrs what would be a reckless or criminal response.

The last thread had some posts with a preemptive flavor to them. In that I mean people may be advocating engaging before a clear cut life threatening event has occurred. Preemptive strikes, by white knights saving the day seem a correct line of action. In reality they are folly and very seldom are the correct action.

Guess I will trot out the old 3 prong test, again, it may be dusty but in 37 years it has not let me down.

A predator must have or reasonably appear to have:

the ability to inflict serious bodily harm or death upon me. (He is armed)

the opportunity to inflict serious bodily harm. (distance, body type, position)

his intent indicates that he means to inflict serious bodily harm or death upon me. (mere words are not enough)

When all 3 of these element are in place simultaneously, THIS IS A THREAT STIMULUS!

I believe this is the only way to view events as they unfold, as much as we would like getting ahead of the clear intent portion of the test, as defensive shooters we can not.
At no time am I suggesting that we give up additional advantage to the enemy, but trying to help out humanity thru preemptive attacks is not what defensive is all about.
 
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I don't think there's a 'reasonable' solution in an 'unreasonable' situation.

It probably boils down to how far you are willing to stand up for your beliefs, ie. shooting an armed attacker, and how willing you are to accept the consequences of that act.

If you shoot someone to prevent the loss of your posessions or dignity, then there's a real possiblity that you will wind up in prison. Now, you can either accept that fact and deal with the consequences or you can roll over and let anyone that wants to--rob you of everything. BTW, I'm not advising that you should shoot someone soley on the fact that they are robbing you.

There's not going to be a 'right' answer to whether or not taking a life is justified in most any situation.

Personally, I think the world would be a much better place if these murderous criminals were shot dead on the spot; instead of processing through the joke that is our legal system. Maybe people would think twice about their actions when they cross the line to commit criminal acts if this were the case.

I hope you get some good answers to your question....I'm still looking for good ones too.
 
When you fear for your life or that of any innocent person you shoot.
In AZ you do not have to take a beating from anyone. An older person beaten might never recover from the incident.
 
Ive heard of CCW instructors saying that if they brandish a weapon, act like he (she?) intends to use it...
Its hard for me to understand how, when someone points a weapon in your direction and demands property, you aren't justified in shooting. Just because you hand over money doesn't mean the threat to your life has ended... Now im not saying you should shoot in ever robbery case, im just saying i feel you are totally justified if you do end up shooting.
 
Crossing the line?

What about using common sense to answer this question (if that can be done in situations like this)

First of all, if someone is attempting to rob your person (a felony of course), you have the right to defend yourself and/or protect your property. Now of course you have to use your head and make a quick decision on whether you are going to respond to this action or just be passive and let it just happen.

No way am I just going to just let it happen with no recourse (unless I already have a weapon drawn on me by the bad guy).

You need to respond (if you are carrying a weapon) to prevent further problems that do happen on a regular basis. A lot of thugs nowadays, shoot you or stab you after they rob you..... How do you know that they are just going to rob you and walk away? You don't, period!

Least of which, they are going to go on and rob someone else down the road and/or maybe shoot or stab them. We have a responsibility to prevent this if at all possible. Not only to yourself but others who may suffer at the hands of these criminals.

Solution: If you can, draw your weapon and stop the threat. Allow them to surrender and stop threat on your person. No one is saying draw and shoot the perp without other options. If the bad guy continues what he is doing and or threatens you in any way, USE YOU WEAPON and thats it. We try and make too much about being "correct" in doing the right thing when someone is actually taking your rights away and your property and even maybe your life. To hell with their rights. They started this and we can end it by having them arrested or worse (if they decide to go that way and force your hand). Thats my view and my action I plan to take.

I think about it all the time when out (especially at night) so I will be prepared and know what to do. Good luck to anyone out there who has to ever experience this. It happend to me in a hotel parking lot in Macon, GA a few years back and I was cut on the neck with a knife when attacked by 5 muggers. From then on, my outlook changed on how I would handle this. I got my carry permit and decided what I would do, (if it ever happened to me again). I plan on going home to my family each day and not end up in a morgue because I let some scum bag take my life during or after a robbery...........Think about it.
 
First of all, if someone is attempting to rob your person (a felony of course), you have the right to defend yourself and/or protect your property.
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Where I live, one cannot legally employ deadly force to protect property.

You need to respond (if you are carrying a weapon) to prevent further problems that do happen on a regular basis. ... Least of which, they are going to go on and rob someone else down the road and/or maybe shoot or stab them. We have a responsibility to prevent this if at all possible. Not only to yourself but others who may suffer at the hands of these criminals.... If you can, draw your weapon and stop the threat.[/I] [(italics mine)]
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And where I live, deadly force may be used only when the threat of death or serous bodily harm is imminent, not when it is potential or even likely in the future. And the weapon may not be produced until such time.

Allow them to surrender
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Where I live, the concealed carry permit does not grant police powers, and a civilian cannot detain another individual.

All of the above was taught in the state-required course given before a permit can be issued. If such instruction was not provided to you, I strongly suggest consulting an attorney.

I'm wondering if perhaps you already know all of this and were looking for this response.
 
I have heard that money, car, jewelery and etc are not worth taking a life.
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I am continually dismayed at the utter naivete of many gun owners who carry guns for self defense but have some sort of stupid value system in their head that must be reached before the stop a threat. The problem is, they are too caught up in the stupid philosophical and negotiation processes to understand that their lives are in jeopardy. It isn't some homeless guy asking for a handout. It is somebody with a gun, knife, baseball bat, or some other threatening object who is robbing you. There is the implied negotiation that if you comply, you will not be hurt. Sometimes it is stated outright. Negotiations at gun/knife point are not negotiations at all. The problem here is that the threat is has been made and is known. So at that point, it isn't any longer about the stupid material items. It is about protecting one's life! THIS SHOULD BE A NO BRAINER.

You may choose to comply in order to preserve your own life and that is your call at the time. However, the goal is to preserve your own life (and the lives of loved ones, yaddy yaddy yaddy).

But, there is a time when this should be stopped so that others do not have to suffer.
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More philosophical garbage that doesn't help with the current situation. If you are being robbed (which comes with the threat of violence to you if you don't comply), are you so daft as to be more concerned about the next person being robbed than you are about your own life? Deal with the problem at hand that pertains to you and your situation and forget about what may or may not happen at some unknown point in the future! You need to survive NOW.
 
Here is the bright, clear line that will keep you firmly on the sunny side of the law in all 50 states, and keep you alive to tell the story later: You must be able to articulate how an innocent life was in danger at the moment you pulled the trigger.

Put another way, the line looks like this: there is "an immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent."

Everything else is just chatter.

pax
 
but where is the line and how and when should it be crossed?
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First, as the physicians say, "Do no harm." In other words, don't make the situation worse.
Second, as pax said, "an immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent." (emphasis added)

A third point, which really isn't a "when to cross" consideration, but is more of a "keep in mind as you cross" is "What line of action best reduces the loss of resources to me and mine."

Understanding crime and criminals helps to decide when that line should be crossed, BTW. It's interesting to me the number of gunowners that will spend thousands of dollars and hours learing how to attack the enemy but will not spend a single day or buy a single book to learn how the enemy does things.
 
In the overwhelmingly majority of cases, robbery (just like rape) isn't just about obtaining something from that person. It's about power, the power to gain control over another person's life and often that includes inflicting bodily harm upon the person. That's why so many robbers decide to shoot, stab or beat up their victims even though there was no resistance at all. This is also why so many of them end up getting caught. They'll eventually boast about the incident to someone else.
 
Scattergun Bob,

Your Quote: his intent indicates that he means to inflict serious bodily harm or death upon me. (mere words are not enough)
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I hope I am misunderstanding your post. You're saying that an armed individual (has the means and opportunity...you set those conditions) who states that he is going to kill you "is not enough"? Wow. I guess one should wait until bullets are making holes in his or her body to determine that "intent" has been met?




David Armstrong,

Your Quote: Understanding crime and criminals helps to decide when that line should be crossed, BTW. It's interesting to me the number of gunowners that will spend thousands of dollars and hours learing how to attack the enemy but will not spend a single day or buy a single book to learn how the enemy does things.
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There is also such a thing as overthinking things. Many intelligent and well educated people tend to paint a situation as more complicated than it really is if only to justify their use of brain power. Afterall, if it were really so simple that a redneck could understand it, then my higher IQ and longer hours spent in the university library don't matter...and I don't like that. I like feeling that I am the only one who can understand the problem, therefore I make it more complicated than it really is to weed out the rednecks from the "those who get it" group...thus leaving me in a more select few.

Being well read in the Macro aspect doesn't mean a hill of beans when you're in a Micro situation. The best way to learn about criminals is through first hand experience...getting down in the trenches. Most of the time, you'll find that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to know why burglars steal things, why robbers steal things by force, or why drug users use drugs and steal things to pay for them.

There is always room for thought and consideration in any situation, but a real danger lies in overthinking instead of acting. Making things more complicated than they should be is how the best trained special operations units bungle missions. It's happened many times...usually when higher ups get involved in the planning and "think" too much instead of taking "it is what it is" and running with it.

"Keep it simple" applies to thought process as well as action.
 
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As for assigning a property value that is worth taking a life over...why is it that WE always set that bar higher than the criminal?

Afterall, THEY are implying (by using deadly force or the threat of deadly force) that MY life is worth taking for whatever I have in my pockets. Why is it so bad to think that if someone has to die over the $10 in my pocket, that it might as well be THEM instead of ME? THEY are the ones who set the standard by robbing ME, not the other way around.

Thinking that wouldn't make me uncivilized. It would make me alive. I'll be back to being 100% civilized when it's over.
 
There is also such a thing as overthinking things.
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True. But there is also the problem of underthinking them also, or not be able to correctly think about them because you don't have correct/enough information.
The best way to learn about criminals is through first hand experience...getting down in the trenches.
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That is one way, certainly not the only way. I learned a lot about criminals in 20 years as a LEO. I also learned a lot about criminals in 20 years of university study/work in the area. I've also learned most folks have no idea of what the crime problem really is, how criminals think and why they do things, and so on.
"Keep it simple" applies to thought process as well as action.
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"Know your enemy" is also a nice cliche to keep in mind.

To bring this back to the topic, the more you know about the BG and how/why he does things, the more you understand how these situations tend to work out, the greater your understanding of the potential ramifications of your actions, the better you will be at figuring out where that line is.
 
I have thought further on this... I haven't changed my stance, rather just a bit different way to look at it...
Bad person has a weapon and demands my goods. Promises if I comply no harm will come to me.
Now for a bit different view... Bad person has a weapon and demands my wife or daughter give him a piece of tail, promises to use protection to prevent disease and if they comply no harm will come to them...
Heck I just ain't about to try to teach my family when it is okay to comply with a thug and when it isn't...
If a weapon or threat of violence is present it is okay to use violence to prevent harm. Gotta love a state that says you do not have to try to flee!
Brent
 
As I said, the Macro aspect doesn't have much application in a Micro situation.

Knowing why the terrorists/insurgents are attacking you (do they hate America? are they being paid by someone to do it?) with a combined IED/SAF ambush on Route 1 in Iraq isn't going to help you out any. Knowing IADs for an ambush will.

Knowing "how criminals think and why they do what they do" might help you curtail crime in a large area over a long period of time, but it won't help you out if you're being robbed. You don't know what THAT criminal is pointing THAT gun at you, or what THAT criminal is thinking at THAT moment. At that moment, he's not criminal "X23" in a study. He's a guy with a gun in your face and he poses a threat to your life.

Macro vs. Micro. Your arguments have all been the Macro version. They might help prevent a robbery and/or murder at a Waffle House 10 years down the road through community outreach/community policing, but it's not going to help you as much as you think when you're in the middle of one, right then and there.
 
They can take everything of physical value from me, it is not something which I care that much about.

If they want the SUV, they can have it.

When it comes down to physical damage being inflected then it seems to me personally that the use of force is justified.
 
shoot them.

I feel that anytime a criminal picks up weapons to steal that deadly force can be used.
The criminals are not generally stealing to pay for college. They are not going to become productive citizens. By the time they decide to kill someone it will be too late to react. This can be seen in several videos of robberies where the last act is to shoot the clerk.
Most criminals don't commit one crime. ("long rap sheets")

Imagine a society where when during a crime armed citizen pull weapons and shoot the suspects. One would suspect that robbers would reconsider hitting the local waffle house.
 
As I said, the Macro aspect doesn't have much application in a Micro situation.
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Sure it does. If you know that 95% of the members from Group A want to kill you, and 90% of the members of Group B want to be friends with you, and 75% of the members of Group C are only concerned about seeing if they can get some money from you (all macro); when you identify a person as belonging to a particular group it gives you guidance in what to expect from them and how best to interact with them (micro).
Knowing "how criminals think and why they do what they do" might help you curtail crime in a large area over a long period of time, but it won't help you out if you're being robbed.
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Sure it does. See above.
Knowing IADs for an ambush will.
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Yes. Just like knowing how most IADs are rigged in your AO (macro), where and how they are commonly set (again, macro) will also help to work at that micro level.
You don't know what THAT criminal is pointing THAT gun at you, or what THAT criminal is thinking at THAT moment.
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Nope, but I do have a pretty good idea, and that will allow me to more accurately determine what my response needs to be to maximize my resources. You don't know what ANYBODY is thinking, but based on numerous interactions with others you can come to some conclusions about how to react in most social situations. Sometimes you are wrong, but the more you know the more you reduce the chance of being wrong .
He's a guy with a gun in your face and he poses a threat to your life.
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Everybody poses a threat to your life. Understanding how much of a threat can be pretty helpful.
Your arguments have all been the Macro version.
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Let's see now---watch what the bad guys are doing, use the knowledge and cues that you have to determine the probable outcome of the event, then engage the BGs in a non-confrontational, deceptive, or aggressive manner as appropriate. Sorry, that sounds pretty darned micro to me.
but it's not going to help you as much as you think when you're in the middle of one, right then and there.
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We'll disagree. I've dealt with a lot of bad guys, in a lot of different situations, and every little scrap of knowledge I had about how BGs think, what they want, how they act, etc. was helpful.
 
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