well, these are all good talking points. my stance is this, do un to others as you would have them do unto you. this is above all else a personal decision that you should have thought out well before something like this happens to you. yes MI law allows for another to defend another life with everything up to and includeing deadly force. i have put a lot of thought into this because this has happened to me, i'll get to that later. some fundemental questions i have asked myself are.
am i willing to
lose my freedom, suffer great bodily harm, risk being sued, be killed, for a stranger whos back story you can't have any foreknowledge of. what ifs are a very valid way to pre-plan a response to something you see to be a threat, not only to yourself, but someone you don't know. are you really willing to risk everything you have for a stranger? it's a tough question, with no easy answer.
so will i risk absolutely everything to protect someone i don't know. my base answer is yes, however there is a "but" circumstances will dictate my response. will i jump into the middle of a fight with 2 equal sized guys? no. will i stop a fight between a man beating a woman. yes.
and thats what happened when i was in a grocery store in my city. i was shopping late for my mom when a very large man and a very petite woman walked into the store the guy was yelling at the woman and calling her ver degrading names, i decided to follow at a distance the guy was over 6 feet the woman maybe 5 feet. this calmed down a bit so i walked off and finnished up shopping i didn't see them again until i was in the parking lot. he was again yelling at her, then he gave her a round house punch to the face. i looked around and saw several people who were looking at what i had just saw one appeared to be calling 911 so i walked around my car and yelled to the man to stop. i wanted his attention on me not her. he started in my direction, i again said stop and put a car between him and myself, and placed my hand on my weapon. he said come out from behind the car so he could "F.... me up" the to which i said the police have been called stop where you are, he kept coming around the car so i backed up to the next one, we did this 2 times total until police arrived and arrested the man.
my plan had been to keep his attention on me and to distance him from her, i had good cover and plenty of witnesses, plus i was fairly certain that i had help on the way. i don't believe he ever saw my weapon, and was thankful that he didn't produce one. in diffrent circumstances things could have gone very badly, for everyone involved. would i do it again, yes "but"
no matter what you can't escape the
1. "what if's" and the
2. "but"
ask yourself what you would do, and do it before it happens, never react, only ACT! this should come as no great stretch of intellingence for those of us who carry a weapon for self defense. IMO
stay safe!
shaun
