Good shoot example and bad shoot example

[hso]

Chicago (AFP) - A woman in suburban Detroit opened fire on a shoplifter after seeing a security guard chase him out of a Home Depot store, police said.

The shoplifter in Tuesday's Home Depot incident was not injured, the Detroit Free Press said.

It was not clear if the woman, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon, would face any charges for taking the law into her own hands.

The woman, 48, was in the parking lot when she saw a security guard chase a black man in his 40s out of the store. The man jumped into a waiting sports utility vehicle and the woman opened fire when it began to pull away. Police believe she shot out one of the tires.

***

The incident comes just a few weeks after a bank customer in a neighboring Detroit suburb shot a robber as he was fleeing the scene.

The local mayor said the 63-year-old man, who also had a license to carry a weapon, acted within his rights because the robber threatened him on his way out the door.

The robber, 43, was treated in hospital after being shot once in each arm and once in a leg.

"I'm happy that no one was seriously injured," Jim Fouts, the mayor of Warren, Michigan, told the Detroit Free Press at the time. "He apparently exercised some caution by not shooting the robber in a vital area."

Here we have examples of a bad shoot (idiotic CCW shooting at a fleeing vehicle without immediate danger) and a good shoot (older man responding to direct threat from bank robber).

Note that there was a reasonable perception of a threat to life and limb in the good bank shoot and no such threat in the Home Depot shoot.

CCW doesn't make you an auxiliary police officer and you have no deadly force authority for apprehension.

 

[Sam1911]

"He apparently exercised some caution by not shooting the robber in a vital area."

Yeah, YEAH! That's it, it was "exercising caution." That's why I didn't hit him in the vitals!

I'll have to remember that line, it's a good one!

 

[Jim K]

It bears repeating: a CCW license allows you to LEGALLY carry a firearm. Period. It does not allow you to violate the laws, any more than a driver's license allows you to run down pedestrians.

The laws on the use of deadly force in defense of yourself or others do not change whether or not you have a license to carry. There have been many cases in which an armed person was tried and acquitted for killing in self defense, but convicted of illegally carrying the gun he used. The two issues are separate.

Jim

 

[Speedo66]

CCW doesn't make you an auxiliary police officer and you have no deadly force authority for apprehension.

Nor indemnification. You can, and probably will, be sued.

I stopped looking for bad guys when I retired.

 

[strambo]

The best thing about being a civilian is freedom from duty. I can "pick" my battles and don't have to engage with undesirables verbally or physically. I can just observe and avoid. If they put me in a corner or jump me, then I can't avoid and we'll see who prevails.

I would definitely take action to protect myself and family against imminent serious bodily harm. I'm 99% sure the same goes for an active shooter. All the rest, depends on the circumstances but erring on the side of avoidance by default.

 

[Bobson]

Shooting to wound and shooting to kill are equally poor choices. Shoot to stop a threat, or don't shoot at all.