Yeah I just read the updated story.. the girl's 911 call was troublesome to me and still raises more questions.
I can agree that this guy seems to have been overstepping his bounds, but makes me wonder at what point he should have stopped, given the recent break ins and vandalism in that neighborhood.
The thing that leans it in the direction of him being too zealous was the operator telling him that he did not need to follow the person. The cops were on it. He sounds like he let his frustration take it to point of confrontation, a huge no no in concealed carry situations; you're supposed to do quite the opposite.
I think everyone would agree that this guy went way to far by all accounts of the story we've heard so far. The thing is I'm afraid more people who have concealed weapons lean this direction. If we put up a scale and we have highly trained and highly skilled individuals at one end and nutjobs like this guy on the other end, I think the scale would skew more towards this guy than the highly trained end. I'm unsure why anyone would think otherwise. If we put all computer users on a scale are we more likely to find clueless ones or skilled ones? What about smart phone users? Drivers on the highway - more bad or more good? Money management skills - more people who tend to save or more people who tend to spend everything and then some? You can add in any skill you care to think of and I would lay odds that it skews more towards the incompetent than the competent with most people being in the middle somewhere.
If you have a deadly weapon and you're somewhere in the middle, you can get someone killed in a heartbeat which is why, I feel, guns don't belong on the city streets. Take them to the range. Take them out in the woods and hunt. Put it under your pillow if you're frightened and it makes you sleep better. Just don't take them to the store where I'm shopping or the street where I'm driving or the place I'm working. There's a time and place for everything.
I'm not in favour of it being easy to get a weapon, but from what I see that employee was in the right. If someone is trying to attack you, and you are actually at risk, you do something. How was the employee supposed to not escalate the situation? Fill his gun with dust and then try to fire, so that it would jam? I presume the idea of Walgreens policy is that robbers wount presume workers will be armed and wont shoot, but I mean what criminal would presume that in the US?
But yeah, if someone is trying to eriously hurt you, you fight back, with a plank of wood, your fists whatever, within reason. If they're running away though, the best thing you can do is call the police.
The store policy is to hand over the money and whatever they're asking. Why? Because this is generally the most likely to get you out of the situation in one piece. The robber is not there to kill you. He's there to take your stuff. You pull a gun on the robber and suddenly he's there to kill you unless you kill him first. Now you're escalated the situation. You give him your stuff, he leaves. The situation is de-escalated. These are general rules and there are always exceptions of course.
Twice in this thread you said that you would never kill anyone for any reason. Ever. When i read it the first time, I thought it was just hyperbole, but when i read it again, I have to ask: if someone was coming at you with a 10 inch knife and they say they are going to kill you - you wouldn't defend yourself? What if someone was about to kill your spouse? Or your parents? Or a 5 year old little girl selling girl scout cookies?
I don't own a gun, I've never killed anyone, but if someone is about to attack my wife - I will kill them with my bare hands if I have to. Please tell me you feel the same way.
(for what it's worth, if I had a gun sitting in my lap, and someone broke in to my house and said - I'm gonna steal your TV - I'm not gonna hurt you - just let me have the TV - well, they can have the TV. I may fire a shot into the floor (basement, no one down there) to scare them, but when push comes to shove, I'm not going to kill someone over my possessions.)(if they some much as take a step in my direction - all bets are off)
Personally, I've never been in that situation, nor have I ever been in any situation close to that. I've never had someone threaten me with a weapon other than one punk kid shooting at me with a bow and arrow because he thought it was cute. I don't put myself in situations like that. I don't escalate things. If a guy sticks a gun in my back and asks for my wallet, I give him my wallet. I don't see how anything good comes out of me diving to the ground, whipping a piece out of my ankle holster and putting a round or two between the guys eyeballs. Now I've killed a guy and now a guy is dead. Sure he's scum and sure it was justified. He's still dead and I'm still a killer. Are either of us better off? I don't think so. So I take basic safety precautions and I'll physically intervene in something if it's called for, but I'm not going to put myself in a situation where the ONLY out is deadly force. To me if it goes that far you've missed a bunch of ways to de-escalate it. If I happen on a situation where the only way to de-escalate it is deadly force, then I'm not getting involved. I'm calling the cops. I'd expect no more from anyone else.
Again, if you had ANY experience owning or managing a business you wouldn't keep making these statements. You guys that keep falling back on 'insurance' as the reason need to educate yourself on how the whole process works. Insurance doesn't run this corporate world. If an insurance company doesn't like the risk of you buying a Corvette do you buy a Prius? C'mon already people!
You keep falling back on this, but citing absolutely nothing to back it up. People present arguments and your response is "You're wrong." You never back it up. You simply respond that the other person is wrong.
You've made the point yourself. A Corvette is going to cost more than a Prius to insure. A company where every employee is armed is going to cost way, way, way more to ensure than a company that isn't that way. If a Walgreens's employee kills or seriously injures a robber, then that is a huge, gigantic wrongful death suit Walgreen's has to deal with. If they have a no-gun policy, then the employee violated it and the company is in the clear. Worse, if a well-meaning employee injures another employee or even worse, a customer while trying to shoot the bad guy, then that's a multi-million dollar suit on their hands. No company in their right mind wants that. But you'll tell me I'm wrong and leave it at that I'm sure.
