First of all, result. While many of you who would have preferred to see the armed robber suffer lethal lead poisoning, the “good guy with a gun” stopped the robbery before any innocent person was injured or killed. Second of all, I make the following comments from a place of love. Any American brave enough to stand up to a criminal gets my respect, no matter how well or badly he or she does so. OK, so . ..
Our armed protagonist was perfectly within his rights to shoot the robber. The gun-toting bad guy posed an imminent, credible threat of grievous bodily harm or death. That said, how much of a danger was he? We don’t know if the robber shouted threats or appeared agitated, but we can see that he didn’t physically assault anyone in the store. Was the CCW holder itching for a fight or being appropriately proactive?
There’s no getting around the fact that the good guy with a gun returned from a position of relative safety to initiate a gunfight with someone who hadn’t [yet] been violent. A ballistic conflict that made the CCW holder a bullet magnet. Which put the people behind and around him in harm’s way. Which didn’t include his companion, whom he’d already led to concealment and possible escape.
Regardless of the defender’s tactics once push came to shove, ignoring his gun handling faux pas, what do you reckon? Was he a hero or vigilante? All things being equal, allowing yourself the luxury of armchair quarterbacking, imagining an ideal world where you can think clearly and act decisively, what would you have done?