TexasCHLforum.com

Gracegarden wrote:Wow! The Annoyed Man , You did not get the story correct at all!
I do truly appreciate your input though. Things to think about and to help reinforce my beliefs.

I do not place belongings, inventory, precious photos, anything, above the life of a person. Nothing is that important!

The reason for the "chase" was to "do the right thing." "Not let the BG get away," To get dangerous people off the street.
I could not care less about Academy inventory.

Thank you for your concern and for taking the time to post your opinion, really.
I guess it isn't my job to "get dangerous people off the street" but I seem to be hard-wired that way. To be completely honest I'm not sure I want to change that part of myself. I have been this way since being a young child. Perhaps it is self-esteem issues (everybody deserves a chance to live - at my personal sacrifice) or maybe I just can't stand being forced to watch a 'wrong' anymore.
We deserve our sense of security, our self-respect, our right to walk our children down the street in safety.
Helping to eliminate the threat is all I know to do.

In that case, I apologize for not understanding the situation. Fortunately, Skiprr let me know the origins of the story in his post previous to your response. My point about property wasn't so much whether or not property = human life, but rather, does property = my life, or your life. I don't really care about the perpetrator's life so much. The issue was whether or not property was worth dying for.

But that apparently wasn't the issue in your story.

Like I said, I admire your passion for justice. I only question the wisdom of putting yourself at risk by chasing down the perps. For instance, I don't know if you and your husband have kids, but if you do, then if I were in your shoes, coming home to my kids alive and safe would take a higher priority than chasing down bad guys if doing so would put me at risk. I don't get paid for that.

I think that pretty much everybody on this board wants to do the right thing, not let bad guys get away with it, and get dangerous people off the street. That being said, the percentage of members here who actually have actually had (and more importantly, maintained current certification in) tactical training, including shoot/don't shoot scenarios, etc., is probably a minority percentage. That would certainly count me out. I'm a somewhat overweight, out of condition, 56 year old fart with a bad back, bad knees, and a bum left ankle. I'm sure as heck not going to go chasing people down. I'm not sure I would know what to do if I caught them. It's like that parable of the dog chasing the car. What's the dog going to do when he catches it? Nope, runnin' and gunnin' ain't for me.

That being said, I'll do what I have to do when trouble comes to me. I'm just not going to go looking for it.

I would say that my primary responsibilities are, in this order, 1) defend myself if necessary; 2) be a good witness; and 3) stand back and let the professionals do their jobs. But that's just me.

Welcome to the board.

First a question... I'm a little confused about what happened because of the way you describe it. Chalk that up to me. I've got "halfheimers." Do I understand correctly that you work in a business that was robbed or had merchandise shoplifted, and you pursued the thieves; and that while pursuing the thieves, you actually considered engaging them in a gunfight in order to recover the stolen money/property?

What follows is based on the assumption that what I've written above is correct.

First, I am very glad you're alive.

Second, pursuing them was not the smartest thing you've ever done.

Third, engaging the CVAs in a gunfight would have likely been the last thing you ever did.

There have been lots of debates on this board over whether nor not property is worth either killing over, or dying for. But in each of those discussions, the items in question were the personal property of someone with a CHL. In those cases, the property owner/CHL holder has to make the determination for themselves as to whether or not their property is worth a human life. But, one of the inescapable truths is that the human life in the balance may be your own, not the perpetrator's, if things go wrong. In that light, you have to reassess the question of whether or not property is worth a life.

But in the case of property belonging to a business which most likely has insurance exactly for that kind of reason, pursuing the crims and putting both yours and someone else's lives at risk over stolen property was, in my opinion, a foolish thing to do. I admire your passion regarding justice, but in this particular case, I think it was misplaced.

If I haven't properly understood what went down, please forgive me, and I'll take back what I said here.