Store owner in critical condition after killing robbery suspects

theangryamerican said:

If they didn’t want to kill anyone, the way out of the store is always faster than staying and exchanging shots.

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That's a really quaint and convenient way of looking at it when you aren't in a situation where tensions are high and adrenaline is flowing. The fight or flight response is really strong in such situations and people could choose to do either, even at random.

theangryamerican said:

No hypocrisy whatsoever. The store owner was defending himself against armed assailants. No one in their right mind waits to see if someone with a gun is going to shoot them first.

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Wait wait... so you're saying if an assailant has a gun and you know his motives are to rob your store, you should always shoot to kill?

theangryamerican said:

Surprise is a huge tactical advantage. Moreover, why should I sympathize with robbers who knowingly broke the law and were held to account when the store owner met force with force. Color me broken hearted that these BGs won’t be victimizing or shooting anyone else. Btw, I never said they "had it coming." :2razz

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Saying you don't sympathize with robbers is not that different from saying they had it coming, especially if you haven't even waited to hear the results on who fired the first shot. If the store owner fired first then it he was he who escalated the danger of the situation, not the robbers.

I am surprised you are drawing conclusions without appropriate evidence.

theangryamerican said:

Immaterial. Again, will you wait to be shot before you fight back when someone pulls a gun on you?

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Your question is a loaded one. It really depends on the situation, but if the person with the gun has specific demands, then they are only using the gun to enforce those demands, and not to kill you. The threat of death is just a device to get you to comply. Robberies almost always go down that way.

If someone comes up to me on the street with a gun and demands my wallet, I give them my damn wallet and let them be on their merry way. My response would not be to draw a firearm and shoot at them, potentially committing murder OR getting myself shot back at in the process. You may feel righteous about it, like you have a right to punish them, but that is simply foolish. Your wallet is meaningless compared to your life.

theangryamerican said:

What guarantee did the owner have that he would live if he gave up his property? Also, it can still be ruled self-defense if he fired first. I suggest you review your laws.

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When it comes to that kind of situation, there are no real guarantees. But if the owner fired first, then he's the one who made the situation more dangerous, not the robbers, and he is to blame for his own injuries as well as the deaths of others.

theangryamerican said:

No one is saying that we want to shoot anyone we please. I’m not advocating a Wild West scenario. AGAIN, I’m simply stating that when someone approaches you in a threatening manner with a gun, you DON’T wait. That hesitation can be the difference between you living and dying. Self-defense is NOT using my gun as I please.

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And AGAIN, I'm saying, that just because someone is holding you at gunpoint does not mean they are necessarily going to shoot you. In fact, complying with their demands will probably lead to you surviving the situation. Your advice of shooting automatically is completely stupid. That just puts you and bystanders at risk.

Any police officer with training will tell any member of the public that if someone pulls a gun on them and demands money, to just give over the money and not fight back. You may be trained in how to use a gun but that doesn't mean you are trained in diffusing hostile situations, and just because you have the ability to fire the gun first does not mean you will get out of it alive.

That is just arrogant and stupid.

Goshin said:

Been there, done that, but in America we do not consider the police to be the sole custodians of the public safety. All American citizens are responsible for helping protect themselves and their community. American citizens have citizen arrest powers, including the right to use force in carrying out a citizen's arrest under certain circumstances. Americans have the Constitutional right to be armed, and the established tradition of defending self and community from human predators.

Makes me wanna yell OO-FRICKIN'-RAH about right here, how 'bout you guys... :mrgreen:

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Not me, but that's only because you would not be able to hear me, since this is an internet forum, and there are no microphones here. I will thank your post instead. :mrgreen:

The store owner's actions are defensible, but killing other men (even in self defense) is always at best a necessary evil.

Orion said:

Wait wait... so you're saying if an assailant has a gun and you know his motives are to rob your store, you should always shoot to kill?

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You always shoot to kill. Well, legally you shoot to "stop", but pragmatically it is the same thing. Center mass of the torso. Shooting to wound is legally dubious and tactically stupid.

Saying you don't sympathize with robbers is not that different from saying they had it coming, especially if you haven't even waited to hear the results on who fired the first shot. If the store owner fired first then it he was he who escalated the danger of the situation, not the robbers.

I am surprised you are drawing conclusions without appropriate evidence.

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I'll say it: they had it coming. They deserved it the instant they entered the store with guns drawn and criminal intent. I don't care who shot first. I hope the store owner did; if he's smart and quick, he did.

Your question is a loaded one. It really depends on the situation, but if the person with the gun has specific demands, then they are only using the gun to enforce those demands, and not to kill you. The threat of death is just a device to get you to comply. Robberies almost always go down that way.

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No they don't. Actually these days MANY armed robberies end in murder.

When it comes to that kind of situation, there are no real guarantees. But if the owner fired first, then he's the one who made the situation more dangerous, not the robbers, and he is to blame for his own injuries as well as the deaths of others.

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No, the owner is not to blame. That's like blaming the RAPE VICTIM for the rape.

And AGAIN, I'm saying, that just because someone is holding you at gunpoint does not mean they are necessarily going to shoot you. In fact, complying with their demands will probably lead to you surviving the situation. Your advice of shooting automatically is completely stupid. That just puts you and bystanders at risk.

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You don't know their intentions. Robbers often kill cooperating victims. It happens often. It happened to my friend. Stats say it is getting more and more common.

Any police officer with training will tell any member of the public that if someone pulls a gun on them and demands money, to just give over the money and not fight back. You may be trained in how to use a gun but that doesn't mean you are trained in diffusing hostile situations, and just because you have the ability to fire the gun first does not mean you will get out of it alive.

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Antiquated. This was the standard advice 30 years ago. Now, lots of modern cops are telling people that if they are at a disadvantage (ie criminal has them covered) to cooperate UP TO the point that the criminal wants to tie them up or take them somewhere. Statistically, if they tie you up or take you off, you're usually DEAD.

When they entered a store with drawn guns and criminal intent, putting innocent lives at risk, putting "get money!" above the lives of others, they forfeited any right to keep on breathing. I'm glad they are dead. The only way the outcome could be better is if the store owner had ducked quicker and not gotten shot. I consider him a hero. Because of him, a few potential murderers are gone from society, and maybe a few others will think twice before taking up the gun with criminal intent.

Le Marteau said:

Mind that in some situations, I do agree, and that from what I've heard of the particular area in which the crime was committed, this may be approaching one of those situations where that action was justified, or atleast permissible.

However, I do think that, if intent on finding a higher morality in the pursuit of bringing justice to criminals (which is absolutely a noble pursuit), one should join the police force, or some branch of the justice department.

Vigilante justice is sometimes justified, and often times not.

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Indeed; however, this is utterly in the matters of intention, not a question of vigilante attitudes that need to be put down if I may be so bold...but, rather, a question of survival, that renders no quarter in the noble pursuit of making it home to your wife and children.

Iron River said:

What do you thing the percent of criminals is who don’t have a gun on them when the commit their crime of choice?

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Fairly high, if you take property crimes into consideration. For instance, most car thieves, burglars, etc., don't carry firearms. The percentage of criminals who commit a crime involving a firearm (looking at the full scheme of offending, from the lowest level up to homicide) is actually relatively small.

Orion said:

LIVES should always be more important than THINGS. You let the robbers take everything. Your life is more important than stuff, and so is theirs.

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The problem is that you can never be sure, when a person is pointing a gun at you, that they will be satisfied with your stuff. Your best defense, in that scenario, is to defend yourself from the worst case.

Orion said:

Petty thieves never want to actually kill someone. That is criminology 101.

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I've worked with a lot of criminals, and a person who carries a firearm into a store to commit an armed robbery, first and foremost, is not a petty thief. A petty thief is a guy who burglarizes empty houses, who steals stereos out of cars, who breaks out your passenger side window to steal a plainly visible wallet or purse. Petty thieves are non-violent offenders. Petty thieves do everything in their power to avoid being confronted by the owner of the property they are stealing. A petty thief is NOT a person who arms himself, and puts together a group of associates, and commits an aggravated robbery at gunpoint. That ups the ante by a considerable degree. I have years of experience with criminology 101, and I've never seen a single study that suggests what you're trying to say here. Aggravated robbery IS NOT petty thievery.

And, if you find yourself at the point of a gun, being told to give that person everything you have, I wish you the best with Pacifism 101. Because the fact of the matter is that people don't arm themselves with weapons that they don't have any intention of using.

A person who starts carrying a gun is a person who's already decided to use that gun.

In my city, we looked back at the careers of 100 perpetrators of homicide. The first warning sign that we saw with each of those individuals was that they started carrying a weapon. IN fact, almost all had gun charges on their records before they committed a homicide.

When you combine young men (who have poor impulse control, as a rule) with a loaded gun, the implications are almost always dire, and they go far beyond "petty thievery."

A person in a store like that who is confronted with a pistol, in my experience, should shoot first and ask questions later. I've seen too many unarmed store owners shot/killed in robberies to say otherwise.

I appreciate your pacifism, Orion, but I seriously doubt that you've had much face time with violent felons. I have, and the reality is vastly different than what you think it is.

Morality Games said:

The store owner's actions are defensible, but killing other men (even in self defense) is always at best a necessary evil.

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Killing people who pose a threat to other human beings, and demonstrate this threat through their actions, is a difficult, but commendable, action.

Orion said:

Any police officer with training will tell any member of the public that if someone pulls a gun on them and demands money, to just give over the money and not fight back. You may be trained in how to use a gun but that doesn't mean you are trained in diffusing hostile situations, and just because you have the ability to fire the gun first does not mean you will get out of it alive.

That is just arrogant and stupid.

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I've never worked with a cop that would give someone this kind of advice. A cop understands that people are required to protect themselves. Cops clean up the mess after the fact, but are rarely able to respond quickly enough to intervene in this kind of situation.

I worked for a gang unit, and we responded to MANY scenes where business owners or convenience store clerks were shot and killed. In one case, a gang member robbed a little taqueria in our community, shot and killed the owner and an employee and wounded two other employees. His take was $17. I'm pretty sure that I speak for my entire unit when I say that we wish the owner had been armed and could have defended himself and his employees.

Goshin did a great job of addressing all your points already, but I'll chime in just so you don't think I've lost interest.

Orion said:

That's a really quaint and convenient way of looking at it when you aren't in a situation where tensions are high and adrenaline is flowing. The fight or flight response is really strong in such situations and people could choose to do either, even at random.

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Forgive me for not being sympathetic to the individuals who CREATED the situation by walking in to the store carrying guns with criminal intent. The wrong decision they made was not deciding whether to fight or run, it was deciding to be law breaking hooligans. It’s not the store owner’s fault they weren’t prepared for resistance.

Wait wait... so you're saying if an assailant has a gun and you know his motives are to rob your store, you should always shoot to kill?

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Yes. Period.

Saying you don't sympathize with robbers is not that different from saying they had it coming, especially if you haven't even waited to hear the results on who fired the first shot. If the store owner fired first then it he was he who escalated the danger of the situation, not the robbers.

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I don’t sympathize with a lot of people, that doesn’t mean I wish them dead. You’re not paying attention. The store owner firing the first shot is NOT escalation, it’s self-defense and common sense.

I am surprised you are drawing conclusions without appropriate evidence.

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I’m surprised you’re drawing conclusions about offering passive acquiescence without doing your homework… Your facts are off. I’ll elaborate when addressing the next quote.

Your question is a loaded one. It really depends on the situation, but if the person with the gun has specific demands, then they are only using the gun to enforce those demands, and not to kill you. The threat of death is just a device to get you to comply. Robberies almost always go down that way.

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Statistics show you are far more likely to survive a violent assault if you defend yourself with a gun. In episodes where a robbery victim was injured, the injury/defense rates were:

Resisting with a gun 6%
Did nothing at all 25%
Resisted with a knife 40%
Non-violent resistance 45%

Still want to just stand there while you’re getting a gun pointed at you?

If someone comes up to me on the street with a gun and demands my wallet, I give them my damn wallet and let them be on their merry way. My response would not be to draw a firearm and shoot at them, potentially committing murder OR getting myself shot back at in the process. You may feel righteous about it, like you have a right to punish them, but that is simply foolish. Your wallet is meaningless compared to your life.

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If someone is already holding a gun, you have no guarantee of surviving, no matter what you do. To quote you: “That's a really quaint and convenient way of looking at it when you aren't in a situation where tensions are high and adrenaline is flowing.”

When it comes to that kind of situation, there are no real guarantees. But if the owner fired first, then he's the one who made the situation more dangerous, not the robbers, and he is to blame for his own injuries as well as the deaths of others.

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Again, the robbers created the situation. The owner was simply reacting appropriately to a dangerous situation.

And AGAIN, I'm saying, that just because someone is holding you at gunpoint does not mean they are necessarily going to shoot you. In fact, complying with their demands will probably lead to you surviving the situation. Your advice of shooting automatically is completely stupid. That just puts you and bystanders at risk.

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It does not mean that they are NOT going to shoot you if you comply either. See the above statistic I quoted.

Any police officer with training will tell any member of the public that if someone pulls a gun on them and demands money, to just give over the money and not fight back. You may be trained in how to use a gun but that doesn't mean you are trained in diffusing hostile situations, and just because you have the ability to fire the gun first does not mean you will get out of it alive.

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See the above statistic.

That is just arrogant and stupid.

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Thank you for your opinion.

jamesrage said:

Unlike the UK the US pretty much does not have any sympathy for criminals trying to rob and possibly rape and or kill innocent people.



If you are capable then the most moral thing to do is to stop the criminal regardless if it cost the criminal his life.


There is absolutely nothing immoral about killing a scumbag who is threatening you,your family, someone else or your property or lively hood.

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Eh, as a former member of the military, I feel strongly that killing is (almost) never the "moral" option -- only the necessary, and perhaps correct, option, in some cases.

Le Marteau said:

Eh, as a former member of the military, I feel strongly that killing is (almost) never the "moral" option -- only the necessary, and perhaps correct, option, in some cases.

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Ah! I get to disagree with you. What a relief.

As a former cop, I think that killing, while it is rarely ever something that sets easily on the mind, is indeed the moral choice when the choice is between 1. Allow criminals to commit violent crime unopposed and escape to strike again, vs 2. shoot them.

As has been well noted, in these types of scenarios, passive compliance isn't even close to being a guarantor of survival.

Catz Part Deux said:

Killing people who pose a threat to other human beings, and demonstrate this threat through their actions, is a difficult, but commendable, action.

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I don't know if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.

Goshin said:

Ah! I get to disagree with you. What a relief.

As a former cop, I think that killing, while it is rarely ever something that sets easily on the mind, is indeed the moral choice when the choice is between 1. Allow criminals to commit violent crime unopposed and escape to strike again, vs 2. shoot them.

As has been well noted, in these types of scenarios, passive compliance isn't even close to being a guarantor of survival.

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Unfortunately, I'm afraid we WILL have to be in agreement again.

To be honest, from what I've heard of the area this took place in, a violent crime may have been committed, whereas if someone tries to rob you in, say, Gloucester, violence is quite rare -- which leads me to say that the shop keeper is more justified than I originally believed.

If that wasn't clear, I agree that deadly force ought be used to stop other violence -- but in the event of a robbery, or criminal substance abuse, treason, embezzlement, extorion, etc. (all of which are crimes, and all of which make criminals of the perpetrators), force should NOT be used. I hear a lot of people here saying, if you find a criminal committing a crime, shoot him. And I think that many of those people don't understand the gravity of death there.

Le Marteau said:

Eh, as a former member of the military,

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I was in the military too,I was an 11b(infantry) and 11b(mechanized infantry), I do not see what military service has to do with killing those who would attempt threaten your life to get what they want.

I feel strongly that killing is (almost) never the "moral" option -- only the necessary, and perhaps correct, option, in some cases.

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If it is necessary and correct then killing is indeed moral. Like taking out a robber,attempted rapist or killer, executing a scumbag on death row or some other valid reason for killing someone else.

jamesrage said:

I was in the military too,I was an 11b(infantry) and 11b(mechanized infantry), I do not see what military service has to do with killing those who would attempt threaten your life to get what they want.


If it is necessary and correct then killing is indeed moral. Like taking out a robber,attempted rapist or killer, executing a scumbag on death row or some other valid reason for killing someone else.

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Read my post above yours, I suspect we agree more than you know.


As well, I included the bit about the military as proof that I'm not some sort of pacifist hippy-type saying "killing's evil, maaaaaan".

Le Marteau said:

Unfortunately, I'm afraid we WILL have to be in agreement again.

To be honest, from what I've heard of the area this took place in, a violent crime may have been committed, whereas if someone tries to rob you in, say, Gloucester, violence is quite rare -- which leads me to say that the shop keeper is more justified than I originally believed.

If that wasn't clear, I agree that deadly force ought be used to stop other violence -- but in the event of a robbery, or criminal substance abuse, treason, embezzlement, extorion, etc. (all of which are crimes, and all of which make criminals of the perpetrators), force should NOT be used. I hear a lot of people here saying, if you find a criminal committing a crime, shoot him. And I think that many of those people don't understand the gravity of death there.

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Well, of course one doesn't normally shoot non-violent criminals. Bad sport, old chap. Sitting ducks, wot? :mrgreen:

Morality Games said:

I don't know if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.

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Well. Perhaps you should reread until you do.

Le Marteau said:

If that wasn't clear, I agree that deadly force ought be used to stop other violence -- but in the event of a robbery, or criminal substance abuse, treason, embezzlement, extorion, etc. (all of which are crimes, and all of which make criminals of the perpetrators), force should NOT be used. I hear a lot of people here saying, if you find a criminal committing a crime, shoot him. And I think that many of those people don't understand the gravity of death there.

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Interestingly, you've lumped robbery, which in the U.S. is ONLY a crime of violence, with a bunch of non-violent crimes in an attempt to downplay the seriousness of robbery. A robbery here is a serious crime, committed under the threat of violence. It's not just stealing someone's goods, a snatch & grab or petty theft. It's threatening to harm someone unless they give you their belongings. Perhaps there is some confusion with our terminology and yours.

So, in the U.S., it is commonly understood that if someone waves a gun in your face and threatens to kill you or wound you unless you give him your stuff, that you're allowed to defend yourself up to committing deadly harm. And frankly, in most circles (aside from some people in the northeast who've been indoctrinated with the idea that self-defense is evil), it's approved of.

Le Marteau said:

Shot them.

I'm not all I want to be.

He did what I would have done, and he did what most of us think was the acceptable solution to the situation.

That doesn't make it right, nor legally justified.


Now, that raises another question -- to what extent should your life be governed by your laws and society's morals? I could say more, and answer it myself, but hopefully, if I don't do so, we'll have more of a discussion.

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yeah it does make it right and legally justified.

Catz Part Deux said:

Interestingly, you've lumped robbery, which in the U.S. is ONLY a crime of violence, with a bunch of non-violent crimes in an attempt to downplay the seriousness of robbery. A robbery here is a serious crime, committed under the threat of violence. It's not just stealing someone's goods, a snatch & grab or petty theft. It's threatening to harm someone unless they give you their belongings. Perhaps there is some confusion with our terminology and yours.

So, in the U.S., it is commonly understood that if someone waves a gun in your face and threatens to kill you or wound you unless you give him your stuff, that you're allowed to defend yourself up to committing deadly harm. And frankly, in most circles (aside from some people in the northeast who've been indoctrinated with the idea that self-defense is evil), it's approved of.

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Robbery and burglary are more synonymous in the UK than in the US, it seems. With the use of 'robbery' on that list, know that it is something of a blanket term for theft, burglary, and in some cases, certain types of your definition of 'robbery'.

I might note that the situation at hand would not have been considered 'robbery', but rather 'armed robbery'. According to English law, the force must be explicitly threatened or used to be called anything but 'theft'.

Anyway, my point was more that one should be extremely wary of using force to counteract crimes that don't use force, and I see a lot of people failing to make that distinction -- that's the heart of my argument.

Le Marteau said:

Anyway, my point was more that one should be extremely wary of using force to counteract crimes that don't use force, and I see a lot of people failing to make that distinction -- that's the heart of my argument.

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On the contrary, I don't see anyone presenting that argument. What I do see is support of using whatever force necessary to protect a victim in a physically threatening situation, and this I agree with.

Orion said:

That's a really quaint and convenient way of looking at it when you aren't in a situation where tensions are high and adrenaline is flowing. The fight or flight response is really strong in such situations and people could choose to do either, even at random.

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The robbers choice. They chose to commit armed robbery. There are consequences for that choice.

Orion said:

Wait wait... so you're saying if an assailant has a gun and you know his motives are to rob your store, you should always shoot to kill?

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You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stop the threat. If the end result is death to bad, so sad, it sucks to be them.

Orion said:

Saying you don't sympathize with robbers is not that different from saying they had it coming, especially if you haven't even waited to hear the results on who fired the first shot. If the store owner fired first then it he was he who escalated the danger of the situation, not the robbers.

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I don't and they did. It is the path the robbers chose.

Orion said:

I am surprised you are drawing conclusions without appropriate evidence.

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The evidence is there. If you're too blind to see it, says more about you. Sometimes things are just black and white.

Orion said:

Your question is a loaded one. It really depends on the situation, but if the person with the gun has specific demands, then they are only using the gun to enforce those demands, and not to kill you. The threat of death is just a device to get you to comply. Robberies almost always go down that way.

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Ahh situational ethics!

Orion said:

If someone comes up to me on the street with a gun and demands my wallet, I give them my damn wallet and let them be on their merry way. My response would not be to draw a firearm and shoot at them, potentially committing murder OR getting myself shot back at in the process. You may feel righteous about it, like you have a right to punish them, but that is simply foolish. Your wallet is meaningless compared to your life.

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When robbers pull guns it's not about stuff anymore. It's my life they are playing with and I do not play that game and they forfeited any consideration I should give them.

Orion said:

When it comes to that kind of situation, there are no real guarantees. But if the owner fired first, then he's the one who made the situation more dangerous, not the robbers, and he is to blame for his own injuries as well as the deaths of others.

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Wrong again. It's who is right and who is wrong. Armed robbery is always wrong.

Orion said:

And AGAIN, I'm saying, that just because someone is holding you at gunpoint does not mean they are necessarily going to shoot you. In fact, complying with their demands will probably lead to you surviving the situation. Your advice of shooting automatically is completely stupid. That just puts you and bystanders at risk.

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Maybe you're willing to rely on their benevolence but not me.

Orion said:

Any police officer with training will tell any member of the public that if someone pulls a gun on them and demands money, to just give over the money and not fight back. You may be trained in how to use a gun but that doesn't mean you are trained in diffusing hostile situations, and just because you have the ability to fire the gun first does not mean you will get out of it alive.

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Not trying to diffuse anything. I would rather rely on my judgment than robbers intentions.

Orion said:

That is just arrogant and stupid.

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Projecting are you?

mtlhdtodd said:

The robbers choice. They chose to commit armed robbery. There are consequences for that choice.

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Join date of Nov 2009 and you're finally making a post? :mrgreen: Welcome to the circus, sir. :2wave: