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Posted: Jan 02, 2013 10:25 PM
by RangerGress
m-racer wrote:I am settled down. I don't speak for any police. I just happened to know one in the OP's state and thought I would actually pose the question. You are a smart guy. That represents an educated opinion by an expert. Sure. I may well be a better driver and a better shot than the average police officer. Lots of people might be. So what? I am not trained to interject myself into a police action. Neither are most people Unless you can quote a reliable source, I am not sure about your non-zero comment. I cannot think of a single analog, though it is certainly possible. One might think that the more apparent issue is the mindset of someone who wonders if they should carry a gun incase the police needs their help.
I tried to explain "why" early on. It certainly wasn't "in case the police need help". Your misunderstanding is genuine or just being obstinate?
Your buddy reacted to the scenario as you presented it to him. Any scenario has endless details and subtleties. You want to really discuss it or would you prefer to remain excited?
A good scenario is officer down and bleeding. That one is clear cut. Do you help or not?
A more difficult scenario is officer is taking fire. The problem with helping him there is that you cannot enter his "zone of concern" without his explicit permission. He doesn't know you so he doesn't want you as an uncontrolled, potentially deadly, variable. Under most circumstances I can imagine the cop would prefer that you entirely stay away. So you call 911 and do the reporting of the situation that maybe the cop is too busy to do. The scenarios where you would actually be at the cop's side with your own weapon out are so unlikely as to be best left to TV.
You did not answer my question. Cop is laying on the ground bleeding. Do you get out of your car and go to his aid, or do you let him bleed out?
Jeremy wrote: If a situation arises where you need the weapon it's nice to have it, but don't go intentionally putting yourself in places or situations where you shouldn't be or wouldn't already be if you weren't carrying.
A fair point.
Posted: Jan 02, 2013 10:35 PM
by mooseheadm5
RangerGress wrote:
You did not answer my question. Cop is laying on the ground bleeding. Do you get out of your car and go to his aid, or do you let him bleed out?
That is not really germane to the original post though. Not aiding in this situation is pretty much malicious behavior. The cop would never not be comfortable with you attempting to assist in that situation. In the situation described in your OP, it is very difficult to believe that your mere presence would not add to the cop's war game scenario that you are part of an ambush. If you are so far away as to be outside of the envelope of his concern, it would be very difficult for you to lend any useful aid or accurately assess the situation with the naked eye and ear.
In the end, I would say that if you possess any useful skills and tools that can keep help people and keep them safe and are responsible and prepared to bring these skills to bear when they are warranted, it is your duty as a citizen to do so. You must not, however, insinuate yourself into a situation where these tools and skills may be gravely detrimental to a situation. I understand. I like to fix things too (in case you couldn't tell.) Think along the lines of being a psychiatrist. You wouldn't necessarily jump into every situation and offer your advice simply because you might be able to help. Not everyone needs the help. Not everyone wants it and may view you as hostile for attempting to provide it.
Posted: Jan 02, 2013 10:45 PM
by RangerGress
I remember when that happened. Amazing story but has to be darn rare for a civilian to genuinely get involved in a police gunfight. Good for the old guy tho. Don't know if I can buy multiple hits with a handgun @165yds on a target of prob 8" width. Most hunters can't do that with a rifle, iron sights, in the "off-hand" position. He had to be closer. 165' would have been hard enough, much less 165yds.
Posted: Jan 02, 2013 11:01 PM
by RangerGress
mooseheadm5 wrote:RangerGress wrote:
You did not answer my question. Cop is laying on the ground bleeding. Do you get out of your car and go to his aid, or do you let him bleed out?
That is not really germane to the original post though. Not aiding in this situation is pretty much malicious behavior. The cop would never not be comfortable with you attempting to assist in that situation. In the situation described in your OP, it is very difficult to believe that your mere presence would not add to the cop's war game scenario that you are part of an ambush. If you are so far away as to be outside of the envelope of his concern, it would be very difficult for you to lend any useful aid or accurately assess the situation with the naked eye and ear.
In the end, I would say that if you possess any useful skills and tools that can keep help people and keep them safe and are responsible and prepared to bring these skills to bear when they are warranted, it is your duty as a citizen to do so. You must not, however, insinuate yourself into a situation where these tools and skills may be gravely detrimental to a situation. I understand. I like to fix things too (in case you couldn't tell.) Think along the lines of being a psychiatrist. You wouldn't necessarily jump into every situation and offer your advice simply because you might be able to help. Not everyone needs the help. Not everyone wants it and may view you as hostile for attempting to provide it.
I hear you. The point is made well enough that I'm forced to 2nd guess my immediate inclination. I approached from the the direction that the cop faced. It occurred to me that I could have stopped 50m short, left my parking lights on (it was kind of gray early morning), turned on my interior light and just sat there to make sure the cop made it thru the next 60secs ok. My thought was that at a glance the cop would interpret the distance, the big diesel truck, the Ranger front plate, the parking and interior lights and make an accurate snap assessment.
It's impossible to know for certain tho. There are 3 Ranger Battalions in the nation. 2 are in GA and one of them is here in Savannah. For the locals, it's a big deal. I think the cop would have understood what was going on. That doesn't mean I'm right tho.
I grew up in little Pacific NW logging towns. The town cops were your buddies' dads or neighbors. It's a screwed up world when we have to hesitate to even "observe" them when they may be in a pickle, for fear that we will add to their problems. There's no good solution to that so I'm not suggesting one. But there's some real charms to living in a town of <2000. A decent job isn't one of them tho.
Posted: Jan 03, 2013 12:47 PM
by Tammer in Philly
The other aspect of carrying is the threat of escalation. Not on the original poster's part, but when questioning what is the best course of action, it is worthwhile to ask yourself "What would happen if everyone did what I propose to do?" Perhaps carrying in and of itself is low-risk, but paired with laws that alleviate responsibility for a fatal shooting for fairly subjective reasons, it becomes high-risk.
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/02/167984117 ... =17&f=1001
<insert instant dismissal of all information herein because it's from NPR>
EDIT: I am aware that "castle doctrine" laws vary from state to state so the opening line of the article isn't strictly accurate, but given that "stand your ground" laws only exist in states that already had "castle doctrine" laws, the intention to highlight a transition from private property defense to public self defense stands.
If a stranger attacks you inside your own home, the law has always permitted you to defend yourself. On the other hand, if an altercation breaks out in public, the law requires you to try to retreat. At least, that's what it used to do.
In 2005, Florida became the first of nearly two-dozen states to pass a "stand your ground" law that removed the requirement to retreat. If you felt at risk of harm in a park or on the street, you could use lethal force to defend yourself. The shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., drew national attention to these laws.
Now, researchers who've studied the effect of the laws have found that states with a stand your ground law have more homicides than states without such laws.
"These laws lower the cost of using lethal force," says Mark Hoekstra, an economist with Texas A&M University who examined stand your ground laws. "Our study finds that, as a result, you get more of it."
Advocates for the laws, like Republican state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored Florida's version, says such legislation allows good people to defend themselves.
"They're doing what they are supposed to do, as a good citizen," he says. "They're stopping a violent act. And that's what I want the statute to do at the end of the day."
Marion Hammer, a former president of the National Rifle Association, said the laws have been effective and are working exactly as designed. A committee analyzing the Florida statute has found no increase in violence as a result of the law.
Because murder is a rare phenomenon, the numbers in any given state can be hard to analyze. It can be difficult, for example, to disentangle the effects of stand your ground statutes from other trends, such as natural fluctuations in the crime rate. Until now, there has been little attempt to rigorously study these laws at a national level.
Comparing States
This chart, based on data provided by Texas A&M researcher Mark Hoekstra, compares homicide rates in states that have stand your ground laws with homicide trends in states that don't have the laws. The vertical y-axis represents an adjusted homicide rate that takes into account a state's population, pre-existing crime trends and other factors.
Hoekstra recently decided to analyze national crime statistics to see what happens in states that pass stand your ground laws. He found the laws are having a measurable effect on the homicide rate.
"Our study finds that, that homicides go up by 7 to 9 percent in states that pass the laws, relative to states that didn't pass the laws over the same time period," he says.
As to whether the laws reduce crime — by creating a deterrence for criminals — he says, "we find no evidence of any deterrence effect over that same time period."
Hoekstra obtained this result by comparing the homicide rate in states before and after they passed the laws. He also compared states with the laws to states without the laws.
"We find that there are 500 to 700 more homicides per year across the 23 states as a result of the laws," he said. There are about 14,000 homicides annually in the United States as a whole.
The fact that more people are being killed doesn't automatically mean the law isn't working. Hoekstra says there are at least three possible explanations.
"It could be that these are self-defense killings," he said. "On the other hand, the increase could be driven by an escalation of violence by criminals. Or it could be an escalation of violence in otherwise nonviolent situations."
But which is it?
Hoekstra checked to see whether police were listing more cases as "justifiable homicides" in states that passed stand your ground laws. If there were more self-defense killings, this number should have gone up. He also examined whether more criminals were showing up armed.
In both cases, he found nothing. There were small increases in both numbers, but it was hard to tell whether there was really any difference.
So if the numbers on justifiable homicide and criminals using lethal force don't explain the rise in homicide, what's causing the increase?
"One possibility for the increase in homicide is that perhaps [in cases where] there would have been a fistfight ... now, because of stand your ground laws, it's possible that those escalate into something much more violent and lethal," says Hoekstra.
It's important to remember that the data Hoekstra is analyzing depend on how police classify shootings. Police guidelines likely vary from state to state, and police in different places may be interpreting shootings differently in light of stand your ground laws.
Still, based on the available data, it appears that crafters of these laws sought to give good guys more latitude to defend themselves against bad guys. But what Hoekstra's data suggest is that in real-life conflicts, both sides think of the other guy as the bad guy. Both believe the law gives them the right to shoot.
In a separate analysis of death certificates before and after stand your ground laws were passed in different states, economists at Georgia State University also found that states that passed the laws ended up with a higher homicide rate.
That study also tracked the increased homicides by race. In contrast to the narrative established by the Trayvon Martin shooting — many people believe black men are more likely to be the victims of stand your ground laws — this analysis found the additional deaths caused by the laws were largely concentrated among white men.
The NRA, which has backed these laws, referred a request for comment to Howard Nemerov, a gun-rights activist who often represents the NRA viewpoint on television. Nemerov offered a technical analysis, which has not been reviewed by academic experts, in which he said concerns about the law were flawed.
Stanford law professor John Donohue, on the other hand, praised the study done by Texas A&M's Hoekstra. Donohue has been studying crime and violence for more than two decades and is working on his own independent analysis of stand your ground laws. So far, he says, he's getting the same results Hoekstra did.
"The imperfect but growing evidence seems to suggest that the consequences of adopting stand your ground laws are pernicious, in that they may lead to a greater number of homicides — thus going against the notion that they are serving some sort of protective function for society," he says.
And in murder cases, Donohue says, the laws might end up being a refuge for some defendants.
"I've been hearing from defense lawyers around the country that if they happen to have a criminal defendant in a stand your ground jurisdiction, pretty much no matter what happens, you can say, 'Well, I shot the guy, but I felt threatened and had a reasonable basis for fearing injury to myself,' " he said.
Posted: Jan 03, 2013 12:56 PM
by WildKarrde
An armed populus is a polite populus. If criminals knew the majority of people were packing they would be less likely to attempt such brazen crimes, and mass murders.
Posted: Jan 03, 2013 4:00 PM
by mooseheadm5
WildKarrde wrote:An armed populus is a polite populus. If criminals knew the majority of people were packing they would be less likely to attempt such brazen crimes, and mass murders.
I agree to a certain extent. Predators will always prey on the weak. However, insane people do not always think things through or if their aim is to take as many people down with them as possible, they will simply choose a tactic that will be met with less resistance, i.e. improvised explosives or incendiary devices. The motives and methodologies of insane people are different from those of murderous thugs, which are different again from those of ordinary property criminals.
Property criminals want to steal shit and will take if from wherever they can get away with it. They are the ones easily scared by alarms, threats of resistance, etc.
Murderous thugs want to take shit and don't have a problem killing to get what they want. These sorts of people are relatively rare. They may be deterred by resistance, but they may simply set up their situations so that they always get the drop on their prey.
Insane people are generally willing to die. There is no real deterrent available. You may be able to stop them early (this is where having armed people around may help) or you may deter them from taking up a ranged weapon and simply shift them to a different sort of attack. These people are very very rare, and because of it they get the most press. In an open society, it is difficult to say what the best cure for this is.
On balance, people may be more polite if they think you might shoot them if they are rude (like I so wanted to do to the last guy that cut me off and then flipped me off when I got mad), but there is no guarantee. I mean, hell, we already live in a country where you can safely assume that anyone around you could legally be armed. Is everyone around you polite all the time?
Posted: Jan 03, 2013 4:06 PM
by mooseheadm5
RangerGress wrote:
I hear you. The point is made well enough that I'm forced to 2nd guess my immediate inclination. I approached from the the direction that the cop faced. It occurred to me that I could have stopped 50m short, left my parking lights on (it was kind of gray early morning), turned on my interior light and just sat there to make sure the cop made it thru the next 60secs ok. My thought was that at a glance the cop would interpret the distance, the big diesel truck, the Ranger front plate, the parking and interior lights and make an accurate snap assessment.
I definitely understand where you are coming from. He might have immediately assumed you were a friendly, and felt more at ease. What is important is that you know you are the type of person that is willing to help. If you feel that you are lacking the tools you would need to help, I say do what you can to get those tools. If that also means working with LEOs to figure out what they would want from a helpful bystander, armed or not, do it. I would like to note that in GA, open carry in your vehicle is legal, so you would not need a special permit to have been useful in that situation, you would simply have to have your firearm in the vehicle.
Posted: Jan 03, 2013 6:16 PM
by Brad D.
As many know I am a huge proponent of concealed carry and do so daily without fail. My wife is now on board with this lifestyle. I am of the mindset that I will almost always avoid inserting myself into a situation that I do not fully understand. Situations are usually complex and inserting oneself into one can only complicate things more or lead to disastrous results. At the end of the day, it is my duty to protect myself and my family and to ensure that I return home to them each and every day. Avoidance is one way of ensuring this. Going to the gun is not always the solution, however I wouldn't carry it if I didn't consider it an option.
With that being said, there are truly obviously heinous acts of evil, and these acts are usually very apparent for what they are. If I were to ever be in a situation where I were witness to this evil and am as sure as I can be of the situation and could somehow make a difference through violent action, then I have made the decision to act.
Posted: Jan 04, 2013 11:39 PM
by tones
My former hapkido teacher once came to the help of a women being beat by her boyfriend in public. When he "saved" her his reward was the bf and gf beating the shit out of him.
Posted: Jan 04, 2013 11:44 PM
by wkohler
I have a Nolan Ryan license plate.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 12:00 AM
by OcCoupe
wkohler wrote:I have a Nolan Ryan license plate.
I know someone that would want that. Pm me.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 11:32 AM
by oldskool
tones wrote:My former hapkido teacher once came to the help of a women being beat by her boyfriend in public. When he "saved" her his reward was the bf and gf beating the shit out of him.
Man, he must have been really shitty with the Hapkido. If he had a pistol he could've popped a cap on dem fools.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 1:06 PM
by tones
oldskool wrote:tones wrote:My former hapkido teacher once came to the help of a women being beat by her boyfriend in public. When he "saved" her his reward was the bf and gf beating the shit out of him.
Man, he must have been really shitty with the Hapkido. If he had a pistol he could've popped a cap on dem fools.
it was when he was in highschool and just started. Its was a lesson stay out of people business. If u have ever taken any defense class they tell u 2 vs one you're screwed.
Seems like some of u have a hero complex. Assisting a cop on the highway makes you sound like logic has left you as you got older.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 2:41 PM
by wkohler
Hey you spelled "u" wrong in your last sentence.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 3:49 PM
by RangerGress
wkohler wrote:Hey you spelled "u" wrong in your last sentence.
Dang wkohler, you're a hard character to figure out. One moment you're making me grind my teeth and the next you're cracking me up, lol.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 3:58 PM
by Jeremy
RangerGress wrote:wkohler wrote:Hey you spelled "u" wrong in your last sentence.
Dang wkohler, you're a hard character to figure out. One moment you're making me grind my teeth and the next you're cracking me up, lol.
He's an enigma wrapped in a paradox hiding inside the safety of his wheel fort while listening to low def recordings on high quality analog sound equipment.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 5:12 PM
by tones
So did u help out any cops today ranger
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 5:28 PM
by RangerGress
tones wrote:So did u help out any cops today ranger
Ahh, a little poke in the chest.
I was a productive member of society today. That's enough to be a good citizen. I fear you may have me confused with a comicbook superhero. I get that all the time, no worries.
Burke had it right and the quote is below. But that doesn't mean a person goes looking for trouble. For example, when someone pokes you in the chest, instead of counterattacking, you can roll your eyes.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 5:36 PM
by tones
I think you have your self confused about being a comic book hero.
I don't think i have ever seen a cop doing his work and thought, hey im sure he would appreciate a citizens helping hand.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 6:42 PM
by Brad D.
tones wrote:I think you have your self confused about being a comic book hero.
I don't think i have ever seen a cop doing his work and thought, hey im sure he would appreciate a citizens helping hand.
You don't know when to stop do you.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 7:20 PM
by RangerGress
tones wrote:I think you have your self confused about being a comic book hero.
I don't think i have ever seen a cop doing his work and thought, hey im sure he would appreciate a citizens helping hand.
You pick fights like this in person? I would assume, not. That being the case, what is it about the relatively consequence free environment of the Internet forum that brings this out in you? I'm serious..... Spend some time in introspection and really consider that question. Ask yourself what it is about a person, about a person's basic nature, that makes them behave well in person and less well when relatively anonymous.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 7:23 PM
by wkohler
It's okay. Tones knows tae-bo.
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 7:26 PM
by TSMacNeil
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 7:40 PM
by oldskool
RangerGress wrote:tones wrote:I think you have your self confused about being a comic book hero.
I don't think i have ever seen a cop doing his work and thought, hey im sure he would appreciate a citizens helping hand.
You pick fights like this in person? I would assume, not. That being the case, what is it about the relatively consequence free environment of the Internet forum that brings this out in you? I'm serious..... Spend some time in introspection and really consider that question. Ask yourself what it is about a person, about a person's basic nature, that makes them behave well in person and less well when relatively anonymous.
Shhh! He's watching "8 mile" again up in his room.
I helped a cop once. He dropped his radio as he ran by me chasing a perp. I saw the perp, then I saw the cop. Running. Then I saw a radio skid past me. I picked it up and sat down to play with it when the cop walked back past me and snatched it out of my hand without a single word. Tru story. . .
Posted: Jan 05, 2013 8:33 PM
by Brad D.
wkohler wrote:It's okay. Tones knows tae-bo.
Tae bo > Conceal carry
Posted: Jan 06, 2013 2:26 PM
by mooseheadm5
I was enjoying having a mostly civil and productive discussion about the original post. If you haven't got any useful input, please stop threadcrapping, tones.