A member of TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia emailed a link to the now infamous McDonald’s beat down video. “I fully realize that the general consensus is you walk away, run if needed, rather than enter an engagement. But somehow this is different in my mind because it’s a female on female attack. That prevailing male mentally of ‘protect the women and children’ shining through I guess. Still, it’s a vicious attack all the same. In the ‘role-playing in my mind’ response, I went through constant escalation from yelling, physical contact all the way to presentation to stop the attack. Being relatively new to conceal carry, I have learned volumes by reading what others would do.” Yes, well. did you know that the woman being beat is actually . . .
a male cross-dresser who got into a confrontation with female patrons when he refused to leave the women’s bathroom at the Baltimore Mickey D’s?
This newly discovered fact [via Fox] shouldn’t make any difference as to your response. No one deserves a beating like that, for any reason. Or do they?
Although this video seems fairly clear—a person is being victimized—remember that there are such things as plain-clothes police. It’s entirely possible to come upon a take down that looks like a beat down. Or a store owner beating up a perp to stop the perp perpetrating a crime.
This is why defending an “innocent” life is a highly problematic action for a pistol-packing civilian. Unless you know exactly what’s happening, you don’t know what’s happening. And maybe not even then.
As Gilbert & Sullivan fans will tell you, “Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream.” Do you really want to bet your life and the lives of those around you on your ability to discern the good guys from the bad guys?
Now, as for drawing your weapon to stop a beat down, that’s a really bad idea. Unless the unquestionably innocent beat downee is in life-threatening danger, brandishing a self-defense gun would represent a clear escalation of force, which would no doubt get you in a bunch of trouble, not to mention potentially escalating the violence.
911 is your friend.