What would you have done?

[dihappy]

Hello all. This is my first post on the forum, and I felt compelled to comment on this issue.

I like the comments above, and wanted to offer a small piece of advice...be careful. I stopped my neighbor from beating his wife by standing on my side of our property line with my pistol behind my back. Had already called the police, and when they showed up, she turned on me and claimed I threatened to kill everyone. I was arrested for Deadly Conduct.

I won't get in the middle of a fight between others, but I will call the police and let them break it up. I enjoy the site...

See, but this is different, or can be.

It all depends. If i was walking the same way and see 4 dudes beating a couple and the girl and/or guy is calling for help, or i see the guy get knocked out and then his girl get knocked out, then i see people come to their aide and then they too get assaulted by the 4 guys, im going to have to do something about it.

I cant just stand there and let a couple get beat on by 4 guys. What if i later learned one or both were killed, or stabbed and i did nothing about it :(

Im not saying charging in with my 1911, but maybe yelling that your armed or telling them in a "nice" way to get the hell out of there. Dont know, im just saying that if my brother, sister, daughter, mother, father were being beat id want someone to help.

[dihappy]

Often, in these situations, just the display of a firearm, without open threat or pointing at anyone, is enough to end the encounter.

Were on earth did that statistic come from?

Its a normal assumption that not too many people come at you when you have a gun in your hand.

[03Lightningrocks]

Often, in these situations, just the display of a firearm, without open threat or pointing at anyone, is enough to end the encounter.

Were on earth did that statistic come from?

Its a normal assumption that not too many people come at you when you have a gun in your hand.

I didn't say it wasn't true, I wanted to know the source of the statistics. The internet abounds with jail house lawyers and experts in every aspect of everything...LOL. I just wanted the source for the stated data. I have heard that producing a weapon can escalate an encounter, so I really hadn't considered how many criminals take off running when seeing the weapon.

One item of interest to consider before waving your gun around in a threatening manner would be the very real possibility of being charged with aggravated assault. Now before all the legal "experts" around here climb all up in my tree, I didn't say it was probability...I said possibility. I know this from personal experience...like they say...sometimes you can beat the wrap but you can't beat the ride.

[brian704]

if i did not have my gun on me i would of called 911 give the description of the 4 men. then i would of gotten involved i fight criminals for a living and love to fight so heck ya i would of jumped in to help out the victims. would i of won? probably not but i could not stand by and do nothing

[kd5zex]

Often, in these situations, just the display of a firearm, without open threat or pointing at anyone, is enough to end the encounter.

This is what I call the "Direct Approach", it can be applied to many situations in life and it is a very effective way of bringing a situation to closure. For example, in the context of the post, you witness the assault and decide to intervene. You draw your weapon and order the assailants to cease the assault. At this point you have removed all but two possible outcomes. Either the assailants will freak out and run away or they will turn their aggression in your direction probably forcing you to utilize your weapon.

When using the Direct Approach you must realize you force yourself and the other part(y)ies into one of two outcomes and you must be prepared to accept both.

I will not comment on what I would do in the aforementioned situation as I was not there. However, generally speaking, if I see someone being assaulted to the point of causing death or extreme injury I would probably intervene. How I would determine the severity of the assault I can't say but I am sure I could tell the difference.

[tfrazier]

...At this point you have removed all but two possible outcomes. Either the assailants will freak out and run away or they will turn their aggression in your direction probably forcing you to utilize your weapon...

I believe there's one more: They ignore you and continue beating the victims. Then what do you do?

[tfrazier]

After reading through this entire thread, I think the best thing to do would be to spray them all with a cold water hose...

[stroo]

"by 03Lightningrocks » Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:18 am

dihappy wrote:
03Lightningrocks wrote:
E10 wrote:
Often, in these situations, just the display of a firearm, without open threat or pointing at anyone, is enough to end the encounter.

Were on earth did that statistic come from?

Its a normal assumption that not too many people come at you when you have a gun in your hand.

I didn't say it wasn't true, I wanted to know the source of the statistics."

Google Lott. He has studies showing that just displaying the firearm stops the the encounter 90%+ of the time.

You can figure this out for yourself by looking at a variety of studies that show that guns are used in self defence from 500,000 to 2 million times a year. Yet if you look at FBI or other stats, self defence shootings are in the 1000-10,000 range per year.