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BigGuy wrote:TAM. I think you misunderstood what I'm saying. The best idea is to not be in that position.
Secondly, they are not going to beat you to death, with out what they consider a good reason.
But you need to understand that if you shoot one of those guys, the club is not going to let it go. It's not over because you managed to put that one guy down. If fact, you've just upped the ante. Most likely, beating you to death is no longer enough.
The bullet may have put off the beat down you so graphically, and I'm sure accurately, described. But all you have done is defer the inevitable physical encounter with that club. That beating you described is now as likely to land on your wife, children, other relatives, or friends.
I'd far rather get beaten to death than live with somebody I love getting hurt because I didn't have the stones to live with the consequences of my bad judgment. You have to make your own decisions about "curling up." But for me, my "pride" is not worth the life of an innocent friend or relative.
Again, the best advice is don't be there.

No worries about that. I never wanted to go to those places, even when I wanted to go to those places.

I don't know how I missed this thread for the past 10 days, but I'd like to offer a perspective, with all due respect to LEOs, and zero respect for biker gangs.......

1. It has been opined that use of deadly force in reaction to a threat of "a fist fight" is an overreaction that will land you in legal hot water. My answer: that may be true on some sterile intellectual level, but go work in the ER of a level one trauma center for 6 years—not 45 minutes to an hour and a half per visit while working a crime, but 8-16 hours a day, 5 days a week, like I did—and then come back and tell me if you still think that is relevant. Police officers often come in when someone has received a severe beatdown. Often, they were the original officers responding to the scene, but not always. They'll take their reports; interview the victim if he's still conscious (often he's not); and after the victim is admitted to his room or into an OR, those officers leave and go on to the next thing which will confront them during their shifts, which Lord knows, can be complicated and difficult enough without having to deal with defensive shootings.
   
   If the patient dies as a result of his injuries, it may be many hours or a couple of days later. IF an individual officer is involved beyond that point, he or she may be told that the patient died of....for example....respiratory failure due to flail chest—meaning that so many of his ribs were broken that he lacked the mechanical ability to breathe, and a week later pneumonia took him from us. Or, he or she may be told that the patient died from a subdural hematoma—meaning that he had a depression fraction of the skull at one location after repeated stomping, and the resulting pressure from bleeding under the dura matter and general cerebral edema compromised circulation to a large enough portion of the brain that brain death occurred. If the beating was thorough enough, the patient's lungs were punctured by rib bone, his kidneys were contused, his liver was lacerated, his heart because ischemic for long enough that a large part of the muscle infarcted and died, and his corneas became detached as his orbits were fractured.......and none of his harvestable organs can even be used to salvage some other poor soul's life.
   
   In other words, he was beaten to death......with fists and feet......and it wasn't a "one punch" killing.
2. When this happens, the police officers involved—all good, honorable, decent people—have a much different perspective than either the victim, the victim's family, or the medical staff—including the orderly who wheels the barely human-looking corpse to the hospital's morgue until it can be claimed by the corner. I am NOT saying that these officers are not human, or that they cannot empathize, or that they do not bear their own emotional bruises after years and years of dealing with this stuff. But what I am saying is that their jobs require them to maintain a certain clinical distance (for lack of a better term); partly for their own emotional well-being; partly to maintain control over the scene of the crime; and partly in order to be good collectors of evidence, witness statements, and any other factual data necessary to the pressing of charges if the perpetrator(s) is ever caught.
3. That clinical distance means that, in some cases as texanjoker has demonstrated here, they are more likely to judge circumstances by standards different than the person who, in that terrible moment, is faced with either defending himself with lethal force, or surrender to the possibility of obliteration.
4. I've seen the results of one of those beatdowns that BigGuy refers to when he says:

   BigGuy wrote:4) The beat down hurts and you may even carry permaniate physical reminders. But it will be over.

   Death is a permanent reminder to the victim's survivors, and it is NEVER over. With all due respect to BigGuy, I'm not going to submit to that possibility. He may have seen the beatdown administered, and the victim might have still been alive when the ambulance carted him away. But he will not have a single clue if the victim was still alive 4 hours or 48 hours later. Nobody can convince me that this is a better outcome than defending myself with a firearm. If they want to come after me or my family afterwards, we'll deal with that. My son has more guns than I do, and he is similarly inclined. His wife packs—a Kimber Pro Carry in .45 ACP, and she's not very patient with nonsense. My wife packs, and she is similarly inclined. If I have to move or go into hiding, that's fine. That's what we'll do. But I am NOT going to submit to a beating I do not deserve that may result in a painful lingering death for me just because some savage with tribal colors on thinks people like me are beneath notice. Guys like that are no better than wild dogs, and they should be dealt with accordingly. Avoid them when you can; and when you can't avoid them and they come for you, deal with them.
5. I'm a 60 year old man with hardware in his spine, and an 8" long scar up his back. I take pain killers first thing every...single...morning, just so I can get out of bed and get moving. I sometimes need a cane to walk. I'll be go-to-hades before I will submit to one single ounce more of that from some dirtbag who has more ego than brains. I would rather be shot dead than live with one more day with any more pain than I have to. I would rather be shot dead than beaten to death. I'd rather be shot dead than spend the rest of my days on a ventilator because my head was caved in by some crap-for-brains's boot. I would rather be shot dead than spend time in prison for shooting someone who REALLY needed shooting while in the commission of a crime against my person. And if texanjoker arrests me for that, then I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6, even though I have no real confidence in the intellectual horsepower of the 12.
   
   I've seen all of those things, up close and personal, and I've gone home and washed a victim's blood out of my scrubs. (This was in the old days, when ER staff didn't wear aprons and spray visors to protect themselves from blood born pathogens....AIDS had just recently been discovered.) I will shoot somebody first. Period. And I'll deal with the consequences afterward. Regardless of what some clinically detached responding LEO with the best intentions in the world thinks about that. Because HE wasn't in MY shoes when it went down. I'm an adult, and I'll deal with the consequences whatever they are. But regardless of those consequences, the legal determination may not always be the moral determination, and the moral determination is that I have a fundamental human RIGHT to defend myself, by whatever means necessary, and NOWHERE is it written that I must submit to a beating because some dirtbag's cranial vault is interchangeable with his colon.

Now, since A) I am categorically unwilling to lay down, curl up, and take the beating from BigGuy's friends on the one hand; and since B) I am definitely going to defend myself with a firearm from someone who advances within 20 feet of me threatening a beatdown, and that will put me at odds with texanjoker when he shows up to arrest me instead of the criminal(s)—a very bitter pill courtesy of the "justice" system—what must I do to avoid putting myself into that situation?

I avoid, to any reasonable extent possible, those places or people where such things have a higher probability of happening than in other places or with other people. Parking lot of a topless bar at 1:00 a.m.? Very high probability. Parking lot of Wal-mart at 2 p.m.? MUCH lower probability. Parking lot of my church? Lower probability yet. Friends who drink late at night in topless bars? Very high probability. Friends who have a beer at a backyard BBQ? Pretty low probability. If an LEO cannot see the reasonableness of my decision to defend myself, particularly in a place where I have every right to be and where the agressor has zero right to be a predator, then those are the breaks.

In the end, I have no faith in most of mankind, including those who make up the justice system. They serve the law, but the law does not always serve justice, and justice is the higher standard. It is absolutely and inarguably unjust to expect the victim of a crime to not defend themselves—EITHER the perspective of BigGuy's cynical "you might as well lay down and take it," OR from the perspective of texanjoker's "defending yourself with a pistol from a threat of fisticuffs is probably not legally defensible."

I answer to a higher authority than either cynicism or the law. I answer to justice and to God. If I do everything in my power—within reason (I'm not going to hide under my bed all day and refuse to leave the house)—and I live a sober and thoughtful and prayerful life, then I am completely comfortable with accepting the consequences of any decision I make to defend myself. I refuse to live in slavery to the bondage of fear. There will always be enemies at the gate. There have always been enemies at the gate. The mongol hordes have always been outside those gates, whether they ride rough coated ponies or rat bikes. LEOs have the power to make that harder or easier to bear for the rest of us. It may not be my job to dispense justice, but neither is it the LEO's. I'll take my chances with the system if texanjoker feels like he has to arrest me because I shot the dirtbag who was assaulting me in my church parking lot. God may call on me to surrender my life for my brother or for His own glory, but He will never call me to surrender it for nothing. It takes humans to pull off that kind of insanity.

I'm not having any of that. Put me in prison....whatever makes the LEO heart happy....I don't care. I'm not going to sit and take a beating, and I am going to defend myself. End of story.

Beyond that, I have no particular opinion.