Which is better? Protect yourself/family or remove criminal from face of earth?


NavyLCDR

New member
In yet another open carry vs. concealed carry discussion on another forum, a die hard concealed carry only person makes the following statements, with my replies:

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but I chose to conceal carry for if that day a criminal decides to attempt to make my family or myself a victim, if given the oppurtunity, they will be in the body bag.

There you have it folks, the latent desire of this concealed carrier to be executioner. I don't carry my firearm to remove criminals from the face of the earth with. I carry my firearm to protect myself and my family from criminals. If the criminal chooses not to attack me because he sees my gun, I have accomplished my goal AND I have spared my family the trauma and cost of the attack, the shooting, and the court proceedings.

It is not to just push the criminal to murder, rape, rob etc a less prepared law abiding 19 year old girl that knows nothing about firearms.

I refuse to take responsibility for the criminal actions that a criminal takes on another person. They are responsible for those acts, not me.
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So, here's my questions:

Do you feel, as gun carriers, is it better that we simply prevent a criminal from attacking us and our family, and protect ourselves and our families from criminal actions; or is it better for us to execute the criminal?

Do you feel that, as gun carriers, some of the responsibility of the criminal's future actions falls upon us if we are presented with the opportunity to kill the criminal and we choose not to?

I believe my responses to the person above will indicate where I feel on this issues.

There was a poster on here (usacarry) a while in tha past that admitted his reason for conealed carry vs. open carry was the he hoped to have the opportunity to execute a criminal. I'll try to find that and post it as well.

NOTE: I believe the desire to execute criminals only exists in a very, very small minority of people who carry guns.... so please, don't think I am trying to make a blanket statement applicable to most concealed carriers.
 

i carry to protect my family and myself. if someone attacks my family and dies for doing so i would not shed one tear. but we shoot to stop. but when you shoot someone there is the chance they will die.
 
Well, I do not speak for everyone on this forum, but it is my desire to protect my family. I agree, a legal shoot is very traumatic to young family members and is something they do not soon forget.Let alone a home invaision. But if it had to be done. So be it. We do not ask for them to slip into our home while we are sleeping, their decision, and the wrong one at that. So.... with that said. I carry open when I carry. I hope that day never comes, but if it did... Then I hope they know god, because they will see him shortly.
 
It's less a question of better than a question of legal. Self defense and defense of others is legal. Execution isn't.
 
I have no problem with killing what ever needs killed, however the assumption that the mere sight of an openly carried firearm is in and of itself a deterrence is as false as is the assumption that a concealed firearm gives one a "tactical" advantage.

While I firmly believe that an individual who practices SA and displays an openly professional appearance while openly armed does provide deterrence I also believe an individual who is openly armed and situationally unaware increases their chances of becoming a victim.
 
I carry to protect myself, my family, my property, my friends and neighbors, the property of my friends and neighbors and those that look to need help. As far as to just execute criminals, that makes one criminal themself. I am on the line that too shoot until the criminal is incapacitated and no fight is left in them and if they are still breathing and have a pulse, then I will call 911 and start performing lifesaving measures on the criminal. Should criminal transpire during those measure, I won't shed a tear. If criminal makes it until emergency personnel arrive and take over and criminal transpires under their care, I wont' shed a tear. If criminal makes it to the hospital and transpires under the care there, I won't shed a tear. If criminal becomes well enough to stand trial and somehow is allowed to go free, then I will shed tears.
 
Remember the pharmacist in Oklahoma that shot the BG (which stopped the threat), got another pistol and executed him. He now is convicted of murder!!
 
Guess what? With very few exceptions, none of us are cops or lawyers. We don't get to decide who is a "criminal." And that "criminal" may be an average, honest person like you who was just having a really bad day. Do you know this guy's history? Do you know all his priors? What, exactly, makes you qualified to call someone a criminal? How many people here have NEVER committed a crime? That BS Dirty Harry mentality needs to be kept off the forums and off the streets.

HOWEVER, when you have been put in a situation where your life is in danger, the individual who did that, whether he is a "criminal" or not, has made a choice. His choice put him at the other end of your gun. You don't really get to say whether he was a criminal, or a choirboy. You do get to say that your life was in danger, and you took the necessary steps to save it.

I'm sure that lumping everyone together into the "criminal" category makes taking a life easier. I'm sure that imagining them all as puppy-raping grandma-kicking welfare-milking fiends makes some people feel like they're taking out the trash. But the reality is, there are very few of us who are innocent. There are also very few of us who are absolute sociopaths who "need" to be taken out of society.

It's all about choice. The choices the criminal, or the bad guy, or whoever, made to get to where he is standing in front of you with a gun. And at that point, you have a series of choices to make. Just remember, the choice you are about to make may very well earn you the label of "criminal" as well.
 
I guess my question is more of attitude rather than willingness to shoot. Yes, I certainly am willing to shoot someone in defense. But it appears as if some people have the attitude that it is less desireable to simply deter the criminal from attacking me or my family than it is to kill the criminal to prevent them from moving on.

For example... a criminal invades your home and you meet them with a gun in hand. They start backing towards the door. Clearly, it appears as if QilvinLEO would have no problem shooting them because he would be doing the world a favor. I'm just wondering how many other gun carriers feel the same way... given the choice, which would you rather do, end the criminal's career permanently, or spare only your family from the attack and let the criminal move on. And if you let the criminal move on, do you think you bear part of the responsibility if the criminal goes next door and rapes the 19 year old girl.

Personally, I feel like QilvinLEO's comments are pretty much B.S.
 
I guess my question is more of attitude rather than willingness to shoot. Yes, I certainly am willing to shoot someone in defense. But it appears as if some people have the attitude that it is less desireable to simply deter the criminal from attacking me or my family than it is to kill the criminal to prevent them from moving on.

For example... a criminal invades your home and you meet them with a gun in hand. They start backing towards the door. Clearly, it appears as if QilvinLEO would have no problem shooting them because he would be doing the world a favor. I'm just wondering how many other gun carriers feel the same way... given the choice, which would you rather do, end the criminal's career permanently, or spare only your family from the attack and let the criminal move on. And if you let the criminal move on, do you think you bear part of the responsibility if the criminal goes next door and rapes the 19 year old girl.

Personally, I feel like QilvinLEO's comments are pretty much B.S.

Total BS.

If life were like the movies, and you were faced with some malicious jerk, and you KNEW his past, and you KNEW the nature of his crimes, and you KNEW the system was going to fail, then morally, I would not object to someone getting all Dexter on a scumbag.

But the danger is in assuming that you know the history and motives of everyone out there.

The guy LCDR was engaging is obviously looking to play out his revenge scenario on the first available candidate. It's just not a smart thing to do. Frankly, it's not even a smart thing to talk about.
 
I carry to keep bad things from happening to me. I never want to kill it harm anyone. I think if the BG just see the gun, in most cases that is all that is needed
 
OK, maybe it is not a criminal per say, but anyone that is about to committ an act of violence to me, my family, or friends, I will stop them by any means necessary. Escalation of Force.
 
If the username QilvinLEO means that person is an LEO, then you can see where he's coming from. Today's LEO's know that so long as politics doesn't get into it, they can pretty much kill anyone, as long as they say the magic words "I believed my life was in danger." Also, the real legal difference between cops and ordinary mortal citizens is that they can shoot a fleeing criminal if they believe it likely said criminal will cause more harm to society. Ordinary folks may only shoot to stop an immediate threat.

I trust we all know that not even the cop "shoots to kill" when he's on a stand in court. We always "shoot to stop." Only a capital court can legally make the deliberate choice to take life.

Since the 13th century, and better codified in the 15th, a part of British common law (from which our law is descended - notwithstanding the Napoleonic Code in Louisiana) was the duty of the citizen to kill a felon if possible. Somewhere in the mid twentieth century this vanished -- and a few years later, so did the guns of British subjects (I'll no longer call them citizens).

Insert favorite British quote here: "That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
--George Orwell


Many of us, in our hearts, subscribe to varying degree to Col. Cooper's "duty to society" to stop the goblins. But, today, we don't have the legal authority to take that that far. If my daughter is raped and mutiliated by a known serial monster, and I come upon him as he's stabbing her, I may shoot him to stop him. But if my first shot stops him without killing him (and though I'm certain modern emergency medical care will ensure he survives my inadvertantly low shot to his gut), I have no legal right to put him down with a coup de grace through the head. No matter the horrors he perpetrated, my legal right to shoot ends the instant he ceases to be a threat. (I will not comment on what actually might happen in such a situation.)

Priority One is survival of Family and Self.
In this "Age of the Wimp," as the good Colonel put it, you may expect to be vilified and likely prosecuted if you defend yourself. The odds vary with the politics of your location.
If you end up in jail, that does not help your family's odds of survival - or yours.

That's the bottom line.

As to what might REALLY happen, given criminal attack in the middle of nowhere, with no witnesses, I'd say each person here must make up his or her mind, and face the consequences of his or her decision.

(Officer) Masaad Ayoob often gives the legal and correct advice to call police immediately and tell them the entire truth. But his recent article in Combat Handguns, detailing several wrongful "witch hunt" prosecutions (and, incidentally how famous Expert Witness Ayoob helped some of the wrongly accused be acquitted - but all of those defenses cost a great deal of money), certainly makes it easy to understand why people sometimes try to hide defensive shootings instead of disclosing the truth.

In my heart, I believe in a duty to society to stop the goblins, to TAKE OUT any monster who would threaten the lives of my family or my friends. But in my head, I know the legal reality of the matter. And I intend to maximize the survival odds for my family and myself.
 
Yes, QilvinLEO is a LEO. Here's the deal with him, though... without getting too much into another open carry v. conceal carry debate. And this is the crux of my question. He prefers to conceal carry when he is off duty because he would RATHER kill the criminal, "for the benefit of society", than to simply deter the criminal from attacking him/his family and moving on to another, less prepared victim.
 
Yes, QilvinLEO is a LEO. Here's the deal with him, though... without getting too much into another open carry v. conceal carry debate. And this is the crux of my question. He prefers to conceal carry when he is off duty because he would RATHER kill the criminal, "for the benefit of society", than to simply deter the criminal from attacking him/his family and moving on to another, less prepared victim.

Something tells me he got into law enforcement for all the wrong reasons.
 
The idea of carrying a weapon is to protect yourself and your family. Beyond that is beyond the scope of concealed weapon carry. If you want to do more than that, become and LEO.
 
I carry for similar reasons that I qualify for CPR. To render aid until authorities/medical personnel arrive on the scene. If I can avoid a fight, I will. Don't attack me or my family, don't have to worry about my gun.
 
Open carry may or may not act as a deterrent. But: It can also act as a catalyst. A criminal who wants a pistol sees the Open Carrier and knows who to assault to get one. It's the same thing as flashing a big wad of hundred dollar bills. Advertising.

Deterrence is fine in theory. But it is rarely 100% effective. Not all criminals, or potential criminals, will act in a reasonable, sane or rational manner. And it is pure insanity to expect them too.

I will never Open Carry unless that is my only legal option. Why advertise.

I'd rather flash the wad of bills than open carry. At least the bills act as a distraction allowing me some more time to bring a concealed pistol into play if necessary. (I'm not advocating this strategy. I'm just making a point).

Don't misunderstand me. I am painfully aware of the disadvantages of Concealed Carry. But I will always choose the element of surprise. I feel the disadvantages of Open Carry are too great to bear.
 

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