A gun isn’t the answer to every violent threat. And being armed is no guarantee of success; you can do everything right in a gunfight and still die. So when I flag an incident It Should Have Been A Defensive Gun Use, sometimes I’m simply pointing out that a firearm would have increased the victim’s chances of avoiding or reducing injury or death. Here’s an example . . .
A “talented and dedicated” journalist with the Financial Times is being mourned by friends and colleagues after he was pulled underwater and killed by a crocodile in Sri Lanka on Thursday.
Paul McClean, 24, had wandered away from his friends to locate a toilet and was reportedly seen waving his hands in the air when he was attacked at a lagoon called Crocodile Rock near Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka.
The owner of a surf school in the area told The Sun that a local fisherman had witnessed a man being dragged into the river by a crocodile.
The aforementioned Sun reports that “The lagoon, known to be crawling with crocodiles, is yards away from popular surf spot Elephant Rock near Arugam Bay on the southeast coast” (as above).
Neither news org reveals the reason Mr. McClean was at Elephant Rock; he may have been riding the waves. So . . . surfer carry? In a foreign country? By a Brit?
Yeah, this one’s a stretch. The idea of shooting and killing a hungry reptile that’s busy dragging you to your death is wishful thinking. Still, they shoot crocs, don’t they?