jorgelito

Here is a good case of a lawful gun put to good use:

Based on the information gleaned from the article, I am happy the deliveryman was not charged with a crime but I am a bit concerned that they construed this as vigilante justice. This seems more like self-defense to me. In any event, to me at least, this illustrates the constraints placed on lawful gun-ownership versus the unlawful variety. The criminal in this case, had a history of violence and crime and a "unlawful" gun. I get the impression that no amount of gun laws would have kept a gun out of this criminal's hands.

For me, it is nice to see that law-abiding citizens were able to defend themselves. I just hope the police don't harass them too much.

raeanna74

I'm glad to see that someone posessing a gun lawfully had the wit and calm to use his weapon in the right place and time. If offenders were aware of more people who are capable of this sort of defense then perhaps we'll see a little less crime of this sort.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Mrs Master

Ahhh but imagine if there were no guns in the first place.

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one............

scottstall

Oh, I will, I will. I'll support illegalizing guns when they find out how to get them off the street after their illegal, and how to keep them from being imported, and how to prove our military won't be used against us should it come neccesary to overthrow.

When gun's are made illegal things will get alot worse before they get better at all, and even then, I imagine it'd take a world wide effort, not a nationwide. Especially not a nationwide that isn't an island.

Imagine is simply that. Imagining. It is an intellectual excercise, the cat is out of the bag, and there will be blood before it can be put back in. You willing for it to be your blood? Oh, and the perfect circle cover is my favorite, rather than the original.

zed wolf

I like guns, I think everyone should have several. It is my opinion that if everybody had a gun with them at all times there would be less criminal use of guns. I mean really, A guy isn't going to pull a gun to rob a store if he knows everyone else there has one too. The same goes for other crime too, car jacking? if the driver has a gun too, along with everyone else on the street....







The only good form of gun control is using both hands.

dksuddeth

There is no such thing as an illegal gun.

The military has been used against civilians in the past, i'm sure they will be again. we are doomed to repeat history because people refuse to learn from it.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

krwlz

The sad part is that it was only a few centuries ago that the military was used against us... you know, revolutionary war, and there were damn good reasons for good ole number two. Philosophies that were discussed in its making that predate guns. Example after example of the need to protect oneself, and ones own.

And for those pro-gun law folks, did you know that the "militia" that constitutes part of that amendment, by definition, can have no government influence. In fact, that militia is charged protecting us from any hostile government, including our own, on our turf, by that same amendment.

Betcha the people of germany in the 30's and 40's wished the Nazi's hadnt banned all their guns....

Back to the OP, I love hearing stories like this. The NRA's publication National Rifleman runs a column where these type of stories are printed pretty much every month. Happens more often than most people think.

MuadDib

Just as an aside; simply because charges weren't filed does not mean he acted legally. In fact, I'd wager that had they been filed they would've stuck. All the more so if the shot robber dies.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

krwlz

And that right there, is the flaw in our legal system. Our criminals have too many rights.

jorgelito

This is what intrigues me. Presumably (we don't have ALL the facts) he acted lawfully, that is in self-defense right? If so, why should he be the one in trouble? It just seems odd to me that we would protect the criminal and punish the victims.

cj2112

His entering the restaurant with his gun, if he knew the other guy was inside, is not self defense. He went looking for the accomplice. At least that's the way the law has previously looked at actions such as this. He could have left, and found somewhere safe to call the police. Shooting at the first guy was self defense.

MuadDib

Wow, I don't want to morph this thread into a criminal rights thread so I'll just say I completely disagree with our system being flawed because of criminal rights. However, I don't think either of our assumptions about that issue necessarily need to influence a discussion about this case.

We are talking about two acts here. The second act, his gunfight with Lee, is likely legal, though there is some question about self-defense since he chose to get involved, but in most states it would fly. The first act, him firing at the outside gunman, is legally questionable. That act was clearly not self-defense because he was personally in no danger either before he chose to involve himself or when he shot at the criminal. As you said, we don't have all the facts, but that situation could be problematic for the delivery guy because he essentially assaulted that robber. In most cases, that is alright to a level of necessity and it very well might have been necessary in this case. But the question then is if it was necessary for their protection or if his actions actually heightened the danger through armed conflict and made it more likely innocent people would be harmed. Luckily it didn't turn out that way, but that is part of the inherent problem with vigilantist behavior. If he had not been their the robbers would've gotten their cash and escaped leading to a police investigation that may or may not have apprehended them, still no one is harmed or dies. However, what if the outside criminal didn't run at the shot, he did after all have a guy essentially shielding him, but returned fire or moved his victim into the delivery guy's path? What if he missed Lee and/or Lee didn't miss? These events would have led to at least the deliverers injury and would have made it much more likely more innocents could be harmed. He would at least have been somewhat liable for that. Again, luckily that did not happen and everything worked out well. Nonetheless there are good reasons that this sort of vigilante action frowned upon and often illegal.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

jorgelito

Could he be construed as protecting or defending his friends/co workers though? In other words, what is the burden of self-defense? Is it only ok to defend yourself? Can you defend others? In the article, it says he say guns pinted at his friends/coworkers. Is gunpointing enough of a hostile or endangering/threatening act?

For example, if a robber is holding your family at gunpoint and you come home, then I would think you are well within your rights to take action (with a gun).

Was it vigilantist behavior or was it justified self-defense? It's this grey area that is problematic (at least for me).

Considering that people get off for shooting trick-or-treaters* under the guise of "trespassing", then I would think an actual self-defense case like this one would not give the guy a hard time.

*There was a case of some kids (foreign exchange students) that went trick-or-treating (on Halloween) in Louisiana and were shot by some homeowner who claimed they were trespassing (there was no sign or fence, they just walked up to his front door). One of the kids died and the guy got off scot-free. If this is ok, then the robbery case should definitely be ok.

MuadDib

Self defense is ONLY defending your own life from imminent danger. However, there are other defenses for retaliation to protect others. Different states treat this sort of thing differently, but that really doesn't matter here. This is just a symantical issue about the legal term self defense.

The real issue here is if, regardless of the outcome, he actually reduced the danger to the employees/customers by his actions or if he actually made the situation worse for them but it worked out.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Ustwo

Based on reaction and outcome there is only one word anyone should be using to describe this guy.

Hero

He went out of his way, and put himself in danger to save others, and he did so competently. At worst you can go with the 'what if' whines, but there are no what ifs, the guy is a hero, no doubt about it.

So here is to you armed dilvery guy, I'll drink it in your honor tonight.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

stevo

no orange slice?

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Ustwo

Hey I took the first one I could find

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

kutulu

Yes, what he did was heroic and he was lucky nobody else got hurt. Because nobody else was hurt, the 'what ifs' don't matter. It would be an entirely different situation if the first guy had returned fire and then the guy inside started blasting people but that didn't happen so forget about it.

It should be clear that you are allowed to defend yourself and others if possible. However, you should be held responsible for the outcome, good or bad. If you fire 10 rounds and one hits a bystander, you should be charged with negligent homicide.

krwlz

Amen to that

Gonth

I totally agree with this. If by chance the delivery man had hit someone other than the robbers he should be held accountable.

On the flip side if he had headshotted the robber outside and then waited for his buddy to come out and killed him too, he should be a citywide hero and given a medal. I drink with Ustwo. Or I would, if I liked beer, but I think I'll bring my rum instead. ^_^

__________________
You are the most important person in your world

Intense1

The case you're writing about is that of Yoshihiro Hattori, who was shot by Rodney Pears (sp?) in the early 1990's. Yoshi was an exchange student and new to the US, and didn't speak very much English. He and a friend went out on Halloween looking for a party, and when they got lost, went to a house to ask for directions. Mr. Pears saw the two walking up to his house and called out for them to "Freeze", but Yoshi didn't understand that word, so he was shot.

Here is the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori

Mr. Pears was arrested and brought up on charges, but was exonerated. It caused a great uproar in Japan, and I had to answer numerous questions, as I lived there at the time.

__________________
(none yet, still thinkin')

jorgelito

Thanks for the link, it was very informative. Wow, I am pretty speechless. I don't want to threadjack but, that case, I really don't get. It's completely different than the aforementioned robbery. Those guys had guns.

I appreciate your link but what is your opinion (about either case)? What questions did you have to answer?

Intense1

First, let me say I believe that regarding the OP, the delivery man was absolutely right to take the steps he did. I'm not sure what state he was in, but if he was in Tennesse (where I'm at), he could have had a carry permit, and would have been completely justified by law in what he did. My brother in law has a carry permit, and it saved his and my sister's lives once. He didn't have to shoot, but he did scare a silly a-hole into backing down from further beating up his own girlfriend in my brother-in-law's and my sister's presence. This guy was nuts and was out of control - who knows what he would have done if not for the appearance of my b-i-l's Sig...

As far as the questions I had to answer in Japan - they were the basic ones; how can a normal citizen have a gun like this? Why would they shoot someone just coming up to their house? In Japan, firearms are regulated, and only hunting guns are sold and must be registered. Crime rates are low there, and it is difficult for them to conceive that someone coming up to their door would be dangerous. Ususally, they're safe in their homes.

But they don't live in a place like New Orleans or LA, where such gang activity exists. They can't comprehend it, so it's hard for them to see why someone would feel unsafe seeing an Elvis impersonator coming to the door on Halloween.

It was hard to explain and I don't know if I did a very good job of it.

__________________
(none yet, still thinkin')

MuadDib

I agree that this guy was a hero. But it's silly to say the 'what-ifs' don't matter. First off, though this guy is undoubtably heroic, but as a society we don't want to encourage this type of action. In most cases vigilantism makes a situation worse and when the difference between the guy being a hero and him being responsible for the deaths of others is a matter of luck, well that's not exactly heroism we want people engaging in.

No, on the flip side if he waited for the other robber to leave the store and headshotted him while escaping he would be a murderer. Lethal force is not acceptible in preventing a robbery, it is okay to protect the lives of people. Once those people were no longer in danger and he was just leaving with the money then shooting to kill him would not be heroic, it would be homocidal.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

stevo

i thought this happened in florida, which would make this perfectly legal. florida, the new texas.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

dksuddeth

This is where I have to disagree. Why should you not hold the guy who initiated the crime with any resultant after effects, responsible? After all, if a group of 4 initiate a bank robbery and anyone dies, including one of the bank robbers, the surviving bank robbers would be charged with that murder.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

MuadDib

Again this is going to differ from state to state. What we are talking about here is the felony-murder rule which, essentially, holds criminals liable for deaths caused in the furtherance of certain felonies (including armed robbery). The problem with deaths caused by others is that it is not in the furtherance of the crime and the robbers wouldn't be liable then. Some states have drafted new legislation in the last decade or so that makes any deaths within the foreseeable risk of the commission of the felony fall under the rule. I know that New York, Wisconsin & New Jersey have adopted such laws and there it doesn't matter who did actual killing while in states that haven't enacted specific legislation the common law would still stand.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Gonth

I'd have to say I would love to be in a society where this is encouraged. I don't see this as being a vigilante type of act. Vigilantism to me is actually going out and wandering around in known areas with a high crime rate and looking for bad guys. This is protecting innocent people.

I foresee someone asking whether or not I'd agree with it if I was an innocent bystander in a robbery and someone else pulled a gun on the robbers and one of the robbers killed me because of it. I would still agree. Hopefully the guy took the advantage and killed the robbers, thus saving everyone else. No one can know if the robbers would have killed without the provocation or not. Admittedly it's not the standard procedure for armed robbers, but I'd want to encourage people to protect others rather than be frozen because they could get in trouble for escalating the situation. I believe if it was encouraged crime rates would go down because robbers would be hesitent to attack people that can fight back without wondering if the law is on their side.



By the rule of the law, yes, you will get in trouble for shooting someone fleeing the scene of a crime and not currently endangering anyone. I don't agree with the law. My problem with this, in this situation, is that you just saw the guy waving a gun at people. Who's to say he doesn't do it again tomorrow night and kill someone? I think if you see an armed robbery take place the robber should be fair game. Less risk to everyone if you can get him when he's not endangering anyone.

I do think this should only apply to ARMED robbers though. If he doesn't have a gun then the danger to innocents is greatly reduced and therefore killing him is an overreaction.

I get the feeling your hesitent to allow joe public that kind of leniancy with firearms and I can see where your coming from. I can easily see how it could go very badly, and undoubtedly it does sometimes. I just believe that encouraging people to protect one another is the best way to decrease the crime rate. Nothing against police, but they are hardly ever at the scene of a crime when it happens and there's no way they could be unless every other person was a cop.

__________________
You are the most important person in your world

Mrs Master

Thats one of the stupidest things Ive read on this forum. Heres the facts my gun toting friend.

A Global Arms survey done in 2003 found that the U.S. has the largest number of publicy owned firearms in the world. Where there is one gun owned for every American.

Heres the link

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0709-03.htm



Hmm now I wonder what country holds the highest death rate for gun related deaths in the world. After doing a quick google I discovered a study done in 1994. Guess who's first in line.

Here are gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994: United States 14.24; Brazil 12.95; Mexico 12.69; Estonia 12.26; Argentina 8.93; Northern Ireland 6.63; Finland 6.46; Switzerland 5.31; France 5.15; Canada 4.31; Norway 3.82; Austria 3.70; Portugal 3.20; Israel 2.91; Belgium 2.90; Australia 2.65; Slovenia 2.60; Italy 2.44; New Zealand 2.38; Denmark 2.09; Sweden 1.92; Kuwait 1.84; Greece 1.29; Germany 1.24; Hungary 1.11; Republic of Ireland 0.97; Spain 0.78; Netherlands 0.70; Scotland 0.54; England and Wales 0.41; Taiwan 0.37; Singapore 0.21; Mauritius 0.19; Hong Kong 0.14; South Korea 0.12; Japan 0.05.

A link to verify
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html


And just in case you were interested, in Australia once gun laws were tightened beginning in 1996 and concluding in 1998 gun related homicide deaths dropped by 30% from 1997 to 1998. There was also a drop in other gun related deaths. If you interested in reading more heres the link.

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm

I've got one question, when you watch the news at night and hear about another child being killed by a gun in your country, does your heart hurt some or are you just thinking about whats for dinner?

MuadDib

Gonth, come on man. You have to see why the law can not protect using lethal force on criminals after they've stopped endangering lives. The fact of the matter is that armed robbery is not a capital offense and as long as it stops at there I doubt many people think that it should be. But by okaying citizens to gun down armed robbers once its clear that they aren't threatening others any more is essentially the same as passing a death sentence on them. As for the 'whose to say... tomorrow' argument, I think you have to see how the law can not be about possible future crimes. At the point that citizens are allowed use lethal force against criminals after the crime then at what point does that green light to kill them end? There are plenty of similar questions that could be asked. Now I think it's good for people to have the attitude about this that you do, but as a matter of law I would hope we could agree that it couldn't be that couldn't fly.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Gonth

oh boy! lets play "Have fun with statistics!"

I was waiting for this post. ^_^

This is intended to be read in a friendly and sarcastic manner by the way. I'm not trying to be mean. I just really don't like statistics.

According to a NRA website in a post from 9/26/2006.
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactShe...=206&issue=007

There are more guns than ever before.
- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) estimates there were about 215 million guns in 1999
- The National Academy of Sciences puts the 1999 figure at 258 million

There are more states with Right-to-Carry laws than ever before. - 40

Right-to-Carry states had, on average, lower violent crime rates.
- total violent crime lower by 22%, murder by 30%, robbery by 46%, and aggravated assault by 12%.
--Here's a huge excel doc with crime rates from all 50 states, from the FBI site, that they apparently got these averages from. I didn't verify them because I'm lazy. ^_^ http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/d...ts/05tbl05.xls

According to the FBI website Violent crime rates from 2000-2004 have decreased by -8.1 percent.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offen...violent_crime/

So, along with an increase in the number of people with guns, and laws allowing them to protect themselves. There has been a decrease in the overall violent crime rate. I arbitrarilly claim these are related so I win. Not really, thats a lie, but you see what I mean.



To MuadDib, yea, I do understand why the law is in place and that it could never possibly be the way I said. Admittedly, I was thinking about the time directly after a crime when they are still at the scene and not considering farther along. I suppose the irony of my pro gun stance is that I really don't think capital punishment is right. I didn't think of the fact that, in essence, killing them after the crime has been commited and they are leaving is captial punishment. Thanks actually, I now have a valid reason for stopping my "kill the bugger" stance where I should. I love TFP. Arguments are fun.

Where are you on using lethal force to prevent a robbery in general? Although I don't know how you'd rob someone without threatening them and therefore giving them the right to use lethal force to protect themselves....

holy science!, my posts are getting too big.

__________________
You are the most important person in your world

MuadDib

Lethal force to prevent a robbery, in general? Well you can rob someone with the threat of non-lethal violence or even aggravated theft involving extortion. I suppose if there is no danger to anybody outside of the loss of property of some kind then attempting to kill the perpetrator to prevent the crime is too much. At that point I think we would unquestionably be talking about vigilantism; taking on the role of judge-jury-exectuioner without even the defensibility of trying to protect another life.

By science, I'm starting to sound ridiculously soft-on-crime and I'm really not. I guess that while I understand that our legal system is far from perfect that it really is the best in the world and that while I can disagree with the outcomes of a fair number of cases its still preferable to leave 'justice' to the various arms of law except when life is imminently threatened. In those cases we need people to act heroically.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

zed wolf

I was waiting for someone to be offended by that and am actually surprised it took as long as it did. Dont read that the wrong way though it wasn't written only to be offensive. I will stick to my opinion though on everyone having guns. After all, if countries with strict gun control laws still have people getting killed by guns then that isn't a real solution. Statistically I would be more interested in how many deaths by guns there are in relation to how many guns there are in the country.
As to when a child is killed? I don't regard a child's life as any more or less important then any other.

dksuddeth

any 'global' arms survey is automatically suspect, simply by looking at the group responsible for the survey.



Many people try to bolster their gun control argument using this particular statistic, but the reality is that crime would be just as high using other means because of the number of criminals the current sytsem does not keep incarcerated. If guns were truly responsible for all the gun crime, then with over 200 million guns in the country, our population would be wiped out in 2 years.


while every other crime, rape, assault, and violent robbery has nearly doubled or more. Is it any concern to people that the unarmed populace is victimized and terrorized more than ever, now that they have no means of adequate defense?

Every death is tragic, whether it's by a gun or some other weapon, but the gun control groups conveniently ignore the true problem and that is the person behind said weapon.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

jorgelito

I remember watching Bowling for Colombine and a statistic was mentioned that Canada also has lots of guns (per capita?) on level or even more than the US but had significantly less crime. I thought that was very interesting.

The problem (in my opinion) isn't "lawful" guns owned by ordinary Joes, but rather, the ones by criminals.

Mrs Master

Waiting for someone to react but not wanting to be offensive in the same line? If you are going to write what you did in the narrow minded form you did, how could you not expect someone to take an offenensive approach to what appears to be total ignorance. As for the statistics you want to see, I suggest if your'e that interested, look it up.

I am aware statistics aren't always 100% accurate, they were put there purely as to point out the obvious. I can see you like your guns more than me so I'll rest my case and say no more.

cj2112

Did you even read the statistics you quoted, or were you hoping we wouldn't? Those aren't the gun death rates for all the countries of the world, only those who fall into the category of "richest in the world". I notice that "rich" isn't defined.

As far as your argument about the children? We call that trolling.

Mrs Master

As for your rich comment, it would have been helpful for that survey if they had defined rich, a fair point, I had failed to notice this lack of information myself, but that doesnt mean I didn't read it. I'm sure you can pick anyone to pieces if it suits your cause, believe what you choose, I wont force you to think any differently.

If Im a troll your a banana, I've seen a hell of alot worse written on this forum than what I've written in this thread, and havent seen the troll accusation thrown around as lightly as you have. Settle petal.