What would you do?

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tepin

tepin

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Something worth posting once is worth posting twice. Maybe this version will make it past “moderation”. I believe it’s a legitimate question and worth some consideration. :rolleyes:
This post was inspired by the guy in IL that got busted with the unloaded gun in the mall.

First Account:
http://www.icarry.org/modules.php?na...rder=0&thold=0

Editotial:
http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...=2006108010015


Question:
You are in a mall where carry/open carry is not banned. You are carrying concealed but slightly “printing” and you catch the eye of a watchful security guard (unarmed). The guard jumps you and starts yelling “GUN! GUN! GUN!” and is attempting to disarm you.

Considerations:

1. You know the guard is not armed
2. You believe the guard is acting with good intentions :barf:
3. People are starting to gather and beginning to assist the security guard in order to detain you and take possession of your gun until the police arrive
4. You have a concern that the guard might be untrained with a firearm, another person might gain possession of your firearm or that during the struggle there could be an accidental discharge and you or some innocent person killed

WHAT DO YOU DO?
Click to expand...
 
It's quite simple, you cooperate. You don't escalate the situation and you sort it out with the police when they arrive. Are you going to shoot someone because your pride is hurt that someone would disarm you? Perhaps you could have avoided the situation by doing a better job of concealing your handgun?

You know there is at least one firearm in the fight, the one that you are carrying. What are you going to do if you start resisting and another CCW holder decides to assist the security guard?

Jeff
 
Ahhh, what to do:

1: If you try to fight the gaurd off and other people are getting involved, it wont be long before its 4-7-9-however many to 1, not good odds. If you keep fighting, someone WILL get a hold of you gun, in which case they may verry well shoot you because there in 'fight mode' (fight or flight)

2: There is aways the AD concern in a strugle, with a crowd forming odds are good that someone will get hit unless the AD is upwards, someone could still get hit.

3: You could surender and disarm yourslef, but with a crowd around its nothing for things to of out of hand, just imagin if someone yelled 'BOMB' right after you put your gun down.

4: What I guess I would personally do, surender to the secuirty gaurd ASAP being that he is already on-top of me trying to diss-arm me. Atleast the gaurd has some traning in handling "evdience". The cops have poebably allready been called, strighten it out with them, the gaurd was just doing his job. The important thing is to try and keep the general public out as much as possible.
 
I'm gonna be Mr. Nice Guy. Later, I'll check later with my lawyer to see if the guard's "good intentions" deserve some good intentions of my own.
 
Jeff, you ask good questions.

You certainly don’t shoot but are you really comfortable turning your gun over to another private citizen (security guard). Security companies have different hiring standards so what if the guard has a felony conviction in his past? Am I liable for turning my weapon over to an unauthorized person? What if the guard accidentally discharges the firearm while attempting to unload it (making it safe for the police that are soon to arrive)? Am I a contributor to a death or injury because of a security guards mishandling of my firearm. I can honestly say I don’t know what I would do in this situation.
 
The way I see it, you ultimeatly have 2 options fight or flight.


Fight
There is no way, acording to the orgional post, you can fight off the gaurd and the crowd. The thing about crowd fights, the crowd fights, they dont stand there usually.

Supose you start fighting, what happenes when the armed gaurd come ofer to see you fighting with his buddy and a bunch of other people?


Flight
You can try to run, dont really know how that would work out.
You can give up, comply and stright everything out with the cops.


Now matter what, dont get made.
 
tepin,
I'm not sure how you could be liable turning your weapon over to a security guard. Do you run a NICs check on all your shooting buddies before you hand them one of your weapons to examine or try out? I don't see how you take on any liability by handing your weapon over. I also can't see an unarmed guard trying to disarm someone but I suppose it's happened.

I can't see any good coming of trying to resist. Even if you are 100% in the right, you're very liable to end up being charged with battery for resisting. Then there is going into a fight with a handgun on your hip. Maintaining control is hard enough when you're using a holster designed for retention. I can't imagine trying to keep control of a handgun in a typical open top concealment rig. Are you in any better shape if you lose control of your weapon in the scuffle?

Then there is the added risk of an off duty officer or another armed civilian seeing the scuffle and jumping in. Now you have another gun in the mix, this time in the hands of someone who sees you fighting over a gun with a uniformed security officer. What conclusions do you think the other armed person is going to draw in the second or so he observes before taking action? That you are a CCW holder being wrongfully attacked by an overzealous security guard probably won't be the first thing that pops into his head......

This is a situation that is similar to dealing with a police officer who's in the wrong. Argue in court. you're not going to win on the street and in fact the entire criminal justice system is weighted so that you don't win on the street.

Most likely you'll soon be worried about storefront occupancy at your new mall if you cooperate and fight in court.

Jeff
 
You are in a mall where carry/open carry is not banned.
Click to expand...
This is an important point - both carry and open carry are not banned, so in the situation as described you ARE 100% legal.
The guard jumps you and starts yelling “GUN! GUN! GUN!” and is attempting to disarm you.
Click to expand...
Under these circumstances, the presumed mall security guard who "jumps you" is committing assault and is attempting strong arm robbery by trying to take your personal property. Defending yourself when you're 100% legal is not going to draw battery charges in TX if you resist an unprovoked assault like the one described. Under TX law you can even resist an LEO if he's using excessive force. (But you better have video from multiple angles, as well as six priests, twelve nuns, and four lawyers as witnesses willing to swear you were in the right if you expect to win that one in court.)

Back to the scenario . . .

IS he GENUINELY a security guard? His actions as described are SO out of character I would have reasonable doubts, as unarmed mall security guards simply do NOT repeat NOT "jump" people in my neck of the woods.

If he were a sworn peace officer - a legal term in TX - he'd be armed, and obliged to identify himself, in which case co-operation is indicated. (Fight with cops in court, not on the street.)
 
Sworn peace officer? Heck no, I'll fight in court, not on the street.

One man, not a sworn peace officer, who rather than questioning me like any normal person would do has instead chosen to initiate a violent physical assault? Yes, I'll fight.

Crowd?

Unlikely they'd jump in, but if they did, I'm not good enough to fight a whole swarm of people - even Jet Li and Jackie Chan only do that in the movies. If the crowd got involved I'd be yelling something like "HELP! POLICE! HELP! HE'S ROBBING ME! HE'S NOT A COP! LOOK! LOOK! HE'S NOT A COP!" at the top of my lungs.
 
Here's the main problem:

If you're walking through the mall, carrying concealed, and come upon a man wrestling a uniformed security guard for possesion of a firearm. The trend, in my mind, would be to back up the unarmed guard, even if based solely on the assumption that the gun in question is his.

I've seen the same thing, except it was for a knife, and there was already a lot of blood on the floor. The police came and pepper-sprayed/kicked/buldgeoned/cuffed the guy NOT in uniform. Turns out it was a man using his Spyderco folder to cut his apple at the food court in Crossgates mall (Albany, NY). The uniformed, unarmed, guard came over and told Regular Joe to put it away. Joe (rightfully) told him thanks but no thanks, it's legal, I'm not hurting anyone, not even threatening to, and mind your business. The guard reaches down and grabs the knife, which was still in the hands of Regular Joe. A deep cut in the hand, followed by angry, bleeding guard tackling Regular Joe. Fight ensues, another pretty bad cut to the butt cheek (seriously), and the cops arrest Joe. (after a pretty bad beating. One of the police had nunchucks, and the other a PR-24. Really) . The case makes the papers, barely, but all in all, Joe gets convicted of resisting arrest, but NOT convicted of anything else.
This was thirteen years ago. I was not carrying (19 back then) and the cops were basically right there when I got there, BUT....
I assumed the worst, of course. I figured Regular Joe was trying to kill this security guard, and I would probably have shot him at the time. I would today be living with the consequences of that, and it would probably really have messed me up.
He was fighting the guard who, in my opinion, was totally in the wrong. He was defending himself and his possessions. He was rightfully angry when the cops came and peppered him. He was just trying to eat an apple.
This whole thing really sucked then, and would again, especially here in VA where MANY more people have CCWs.
 
I would be using my right hand applying downward force to keep my 1911 in the holster and using my left arm/hand to try and ward off the attacker. My opinion is that its my first responsiblility to make sure that weapon doesn't fall into thr wrong hands. My thought is the "wrong hands" includes everyone except me and a peace officer (not a renta cop).
 
I didn't think I could survive the attack of the mall ninja.


I cry foul!!! Obviously, an imposter.


A true mall ninja strikes death blows.



Can we close it again now Jeff? This really pushes the envelope of reality.
 
Last edited:
BullfrogKen,
the post by "steveracer" would suggest otherwise. :uhoh:

To address the post by steveracer: in my CCW training we were told that when in doubt, don’t shoot. In other words, if you didn’t witness the incident from the start, don’t shoot because regardless of what the situation appears to be, it might not be reality. Thanks for sharing.
 
BullfrogKen said:
I didn't think I could survive the attack of the mall ninja.
Click to expand...
:eek:

Easy! Use of the phrase "mall ninja" might be on the black-list of forbidden language within this forum :what:
 
Well I must be a real moron. In the question tepin posed, the location was one in which open/concealed carry was legal. The linked incident happened in Illinois, as he noted.

Finally put it together - no kind of carry is legal in Illinois, so the question was quite skewed from the actual incident.

I can not imagine a security person in Texas attacking someone whose carry pistol printed, or whose shirt was caught by a gust of wind, exposing the pistol.

Does anyone reading this thread think the situation in the question - as posed - is likely? In a place with CHL law in place, do you think it likely a guard would physically attack someone who "appeared" to be carrying?

Regards,
Andrew
 
In some places I've been, the security staff was comprised of several criminals that got the job (I personally arrested two of them years before for burglary). The screening process for most unarmed guards isn't that good in most cases, so just because the guy is in a guard uniform doesn't mean his intentions are good. Just something to consider.
 
Did I miss it somewhere but I didn't see ANY of you IDing your self as a legal gun carrier.. He asked about being "in a mall", didn't state that it was against the law to carry in that state. Just that it wasn't against the law to carry open or concealed (banned) in THAT mall. If I owned the security company that idiot worked for, it would have been his LAST day drawing a check from me!! By his jumping me armmed or not, HE endangered everyone in that mall, showing extremely poor judgement. He was a door rattler not a LEO!
 
1979

i was shopping at abot 10 pm in a dat drug in woodbridge va. younf employee apparently saw bulge under my shirt caused by night deposit bad from restaurant and 38 a carried legally. he and another employee grabbed me on sidewalk outside store. dragged me back inside then got most peculiar look on face when instead of stolen merchandise i produced deposit bag the gun and then demanded cops and manager. manager was semi apologetic and cop was a jerk. i had to call for his supervisor. then everyone started apologising.
kid meant well but coulda got his self and others hurt.i still shopped there and he avoided me like the plague i made a point of not holding a grudge towards him but he was screwed
 
bobcat,
sorry for the confusion. my "mall" post was only inspired by the two hyperlinked articles. my post is a "what if" and unrelated in fact. assume the mall is in MN where open carry is okay so printing or slightly exposed wouldnt be a legal issue. thanks.
 
Tepin,

No apology necessary - I read but did not comprehend your post.

Once I did realize it was a "what if" it seemed to me to be improbable, it a state where concealed or open carry was the law, that a security person would physically assault someone because that person seemed to be carrying a pistol.

Actually, it seems stupid for an unarmed security person to physically assault and attempt to disarm someone who actually *is* carrying illegally - better he should call the cops, as long as the illegal pistol is still holstered and there is no immediate threat.

Anyway, you caused me to think through my probable reaction, which may have been your intent. Still thinking about it - a lot depends on whether or not I see a uniform; i.e. who I think is attacking me.

Regards,
Andrew
 
Jeff,

What if this happened to you while you were off duty? Would you surrender your firearm to a security guard because he screamed "gun" and attempted to sieze it?

As long as we're into hypotheticals, that is. I think most people seeing a poorly concealed firearm will assume the person with the gun is a cop.
(At least around here, most cops aren't that concerned with printing if they're in plain clothes.)

And very few indeed would attempt to grab the gun without backup. I think the odds would be much greater that several dozen cops would show up in the mall, weapons drawn, responding to a "man with gun" call.
 
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