Sad day in IL.

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I feel sorry for the family of the mother and daughter involved, but the question is raised:

Would the outcome have changed, if the IL citizens in the car had CCW permits.

"She was running to cars saying 'Please help me! Please help me!" said Scott Cross, 38, of East St. Louis. "We were going to help until we saw that gun."

O.K. Here is a question to ponder.

Ifyouare sitting inyour car and see a lady being chased by a armed nutjob and your locked and loaded. What do you do ? I would get involved.

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I want to know all of the facts before I jump out of my car, point my gun at another human being and possibly shoot him, to "defend" someone I've never seen before. Too many variables that could land you in serious trouble, for example, how do we know who the bad guy really is? How do we know this woman didn't just commit a murder and the guy chasing her is a off-duty LEO? How do we know that she wasn't the initial aggressor and somehow this guy chasing her was able to disarm her and turn the tables on her? How do we know it's not a ploy to get us to let our guard down for a moment while her and her partner (the guy chasing her) then victimize us?

I readily admit that there may have been some mitigating circumstances surrounding this particular incident that may have made some of these unknowns a little more cut and dried. I haven't read the article that you are apparently quoting from. But I think we must keep our knee-jerk reactions in check and apply some critical thinking skills before we decide to try to be a hero. It may turn out to be something totally different than we think it is in the heat of the moment. We need to know some facts before jumping in with all guns blazing.

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It always seems that whenever you read about one of these events in the first report, so little of it is true by the third report, you have to wonder.

It also would never apply as I never enter PRIL without stopping on Koch, Riverview, or 7th and put weapons and ammo into the safe.

You would also likely find by polling a few LEO's that far too often the real danger in a domestic type of dispute is in fact being attacked by the victim when you go after the aggressor, particularly when booze is involved.

Without living it to some degree, I do not think anyone can answer that question, the visual is far too different for everyone when developed from words.

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I forgot the link.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/6A3C16DEAEA75112862577480071BEB0?OpenDocument


1. I don't think jumping out of the car and shooting is the right answer.

2. But, sticking your head in the sand is the wrong answer too. Watching a lady get killed in front of you and not doing anything, I couldn't sleep at night thinking I could've saved her.But that is something they teach in the military- during our "weekend in bootcamp" called - intestinal fortitude.

3. If it is a LEO, and you are in his path, he will let you know he is a LEO.

These are MY thoughts only.

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Still way way way too vague.

In the quest to be first, the news crews today are far too open to report whatever someone says as gospel.

If you assume the story is remotely accurate, she was "banging on hoods" then this implies traffic was indeed stopped.

Between the car duck and cover shooting stuff makes for great TV but a very poor situation to engage. While the story has the damsel in distress element to it, if you would not do the same for a 20 something male with tattoos on his arms and face with dredlocks half way down his back, you are probably engaging in an emotional response instead of a thought out tactical response.

I think some folks might in fact step out and draw their weapon, but pointing it at the girl pounding it on their hood rather than the bad guy. The educational merit of this situation is simply that there is almost nothing that could have been done as the young man killed him self, he was hell bent on doing this and putting a bullet into someone whom interfered would be of no coincidence to him.

While it might make for fantastic and entertaining debate, the bottom line is there is no way to apply rational thought to an irrational person and the young man was lost from reality, he killed someone and himself, it will happen again as it has happened before.

So in an answer to your question, I do not know what I would do, if would be more concerned with getting my family down below the windows to decrease their risk. I would in fact draw my weapon and I would peek around to see if there was any opportunity to have a tactical advantage as the lean over and shoot from the car is not something I have practiced nor is it easy to exit the car and maintain cover. My risk evaluation is one of my own personal safety, hers is secondary.

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Yes, still a lot of details missing from the story. The bottom line is that it would be nearly impossible to make heads or tails out of this situation in a split second if you happened to come across it while driving down the highway or if it happened to come across you while you were stopped in traffic on a highway. There is no amount of training that will allow you to see into the past or predict the future and make a snap judgment that you can be sure is just and right in this situation. That is the problem with intervening into a situation you are not a party to; you simply can't have all of the relevant information to the situation prior to being too far into it that there is no turning back.

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There seems to be enough evidence here to warrant getting involved should one choose to do so......

....but too many times I've asked fellow carriers "You're going into the store after pumping fuel to pay for your gas. You see a man pointing a pistol at the clerk, but he is unaware of your presence. Do you shoot him?"

All to often I hear, "Sure!" "Yes!" or "Absolutely!"

Who's to say an undercover cop did not walk in on a robbery and make the robber, standing over the corpse of the clerk behind the counter, put down his weapon?

"Pow!" You just shot a cop.

There are many, MANY variables in dynamic situations. If, for God's sake, you are going to potentially end someone's life, the least you can do is be absolutely certain you completely understand them. This is often impossible, yet folks seem to still be willing to jump into the middle of things.

I'm not saying NEVER do it. I'm just saying if you do, make damned sure you are aware of exactly what you are getting into.

I agree with cshoff, 100%.

I want to know all of the facts before I jump out of my car, point my gun at another human being and possibly shoot him, to "defend" someone I've never seen before.

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None of this would have mattered....it would have been illegal to have a weapon on that side of the the bridge....As LMTD has said...I would have already had my weapon in the trunk....

I feel for the girl and the family, but until Illinois changes the rules, we will never know what or could have happened.

Z

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YuppieDog wrote:

Would the outcome have changed, if the IL citizens in the car had CCW permits.

Ifyouare sitting inyour car and see a lady being chased by a armed nutjob and your locked and loaded. What do you do ? I would get involved.

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If they had ccw ? was thefirstquestion ?

The second was would you get involved ?

I guess I assumed a forum of people that are willing to get arrested for their 2a rights, would be willing to stop a attacker without calling a lawyer to see if it was OK. :what:

I think you could assume if a guy is chasing girl (and the girl is beating on cars to get in ) "is not a lady running from a LEO". You jump out and yell to stop, a LEO will annouce he is a LEO.

Also, putting yourself between an attacker and victim is not the smartest thing to do.

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YuppieDog wrote:

YuppieDog wrote:

Would the outcome have changed, if the IL citizens in the car had CCW permits.

Ifyouare sitting inyour car and see a lady being chased by a armed nutjob and your locked and loaded. What do you do ? I would get involved.

Click to expand...

If they had ccw ? was thefirstquestion ?

The second was would you get involved ?

I guess I assumed a forum of people that are willing to get arrested for their 2a rights, would be willing to stop a attacker without calling a lawyer to see if it was OK. :what:

I think you could assume if a guy is chasing girl (and the girl is beating on cars to get in ) "is not a lady running from a LEO". You jump out and yell to stop, a LEO will annouce he is a LEO.

Also, putting yourself between an attacker and victim is not the smartest thing to do.

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I guess I assumed you wanted an answer based upon the very minimal information posted in the paper. For me, there was not enough information provided to say with any certianty whether I could make a life and death decision.

While you may see some comparison in knowing an activity is perfectly legal and risking that a police officer might indeed mistakenly arrest you for it and the life and death decision one must make to involve themselves in a life and death situation they have no knowledge of or involvement with prior to someone pounding on their hood are dynamically different decisions and thought processes.

Considering the events from the press and the standard response many people have to high stress situation described, I would liken it to "buck fever" and say that many people whom would think they would jump out and give the guy a 230 grain lead injection would far more likely be victim number 1, she would be number 2 and he would still commit suicide.

I have no problem saying that I am not going to jump into a situation I do not know enough about to determine if I could make that life and death call. I am not willing to pretend that things should be different just because I know the outcome. Like I said the first time, I am sitting in my car, windows up, ac on, tunes playing and bam someone starts pounding on my hood, I may well have been killed as I would most likely have addressed her asking her WTF she was doing and he would have shot me in the back.

Sometimes you just have to not like the answers to the questions I guess.

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LMTD wrot

I guess I assumed you wanted an answer based upon the very minimal information posted in the paper. For me, there was not enough information provided to say with any certianty whether I could make a life and death decision.

While you may see some comparison in knowing an activity is perfectly legal and risking that a police officer might indeed mistakenly arrest you for it and the life and death decision one must make to involve themselves in a life and death situation they have no knowledge of or involvement with prior to someone pounding on their hood are dynamically different decisions and thought processes.

Considering the events from the press and the standard response many people have to high stress situation described, I would liken it to "buck fever" and say that many people whom would think they would jump out and give the guy a 230 grain lead injection would far more likely be victim number 1, she would be number 2 and he would still commit suicide.

I have no problem saying that I am not going to jump into a situation I do not know enough about to determine if I could make that life and death call. I am not willing to pretend that things should be different just because I know the outcome. Like I said the first time, I am sitting in my car, windows up, ac on, tunes playing and bam someone starts pounding on my hood, I may well have been killed as I would most likely have addressed her asking her WTF she was doing and he would have shot me in the back.

Sometimes you just have to not like the answers to the questions I guess.

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Well said, LMTD.

Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, gathering enough information about a situation like this in a short period of time, that you will be able to make a solid judgment call before you've already got yourself in past the point of no return, is going to be nearly impossible. That is the problem with jumping into a situation that involves people we've never met before; we simply can't be sure of what is happening, why it's happening, or who is really the good guy or the bad guy in the situation. If it was our sister, wife, or mother running across the road with a gunman chasing them, on the other hand, we could be pretty darn sure who the bad guy is.

I am always very cautious about involving myself in conflicts that are happening between people I do not know, especially any kind of domestic conflict. In a lot of cases, the person you seek to help will quickly turn on you when you become aggressive towards their attacker.