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Old July 12, 2019, 11:26 PM   #7
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,833
Quote:
Not engaging in a gunfight may have been the correct call but just because he didn't start shooting people does not necessarily validate the decision.
Nor does it invalidate her decision. We weren't there, she was. No short news story can give us all the details needed for an accurate analysis.

Based on the what we're told, what do we know ??
People were threatened with a gun.
No one was shot. No shots were fired.

The rest is opinion. Consider what might have been going through her mind. ALL kinds of different things. Consider she might have thought "he hasn't shot anyone, yet, he might not, if I shoot so will he...." things like that.

Also there is the after the fact thoughts that probably didn't clearly occur to her during the short time, but are worthy of consideration when discussing this kind of situation.

Like other people, later on, deciding you weren't justified shooting. Possibly the personal horror of lifelong doubt afterwards that your action triggered harm to others that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't opened fire.

There are many, many possible things to consider, literally no time to do so, and I am of the opinion that if you aren't convinced you have to shoot, you shouldn't shoot.

I make a distinction between being legally justified shooting and "having" to shoot. In this case we have someone armed and in a situation where they would have been legally justified, but didn't feel they HAD to shoot, and so they chose not to. In this case it worked out no one was injured. Had that changed, she might have changed her mind and shot.

Its a judgement call, what you or I think she did right or wrong, we need to remember that just because you can (and be in the right) doesn't always mean you should.
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