If you carry a gun are you obligated to put your life in danger to stop a shooting?

The gabby Gifford shooting in Arizona gave the perfect answer to that question. And you are correct, it seems that, faced with the actual choice to useaconcealed weapon to stop a massacre in progress, people choose NOT use their gun to stop the shooting.

In the case that happened in Arizona, a man with a concealed weapon first heard, then saw the shooting of Gabby Guiford and the others. He was in an adjacent grocery store and had his concealed weapons on him. He stated that he thought about pulling his gun and shooting the bad guy, buthe decided against it because 1. He was afraid to shoot the wrong guy. 2. He was afraid to shoot others in a crossfire,3. He was afraid someone might shoot him, thinking that HE was the bad guy or an accomplice.

At the end, it is a woman who took advantage of the moment the shooter was reloading his gun to jump on him with the help of another man and they disarmed the shooter.

I think I remember, but I can't be certain of this last detail, that there were at least two more people with concealed weapons who witnessed that shooting and decided not to get their guns out. . . Basically for the same reason.

So. . . It seems that what really stopped more people being killed is the fact that the shooter didn't have a high capacity magazine. . . Which forced him to stop shooting and reload!

And another owner of a concealed weapon on the scene of that shooting:

 

Meh!! The ONLY mass shooting in Australia since 1996 was stopped by an unarmed bystander

However I hear all of these claims about how a CCW would stop a mass shooting but it turns out there is no obligation on the CCW holder to do ANYTHING

 

There is also no obligation for the police to risk their lives to protect people. That doesn't mean that having then around isn't a good thing or won't help.

Just because there isn't an obligation for a CCW holder to step up in such a situation doesn't mean that one won't step up, nor does it mean that the people involved aren't safer if there are CCW holders around, since one of them may act who wouldn't be able to if he was unarmed.

 

Wow, you anti gunners are something else! You guys are twisting around everything that is said and taking things out of statements to fit your own satisfaction.

You know who does that? The media!!!

The question as stands, are you obligated? A very grey term, from what every gun owner/pro gun right advocates answer, it is clear that we are taking "obligated" as legally obligated. Do you mean do you "feel morally obligated?" If you asked that question you would get an overwhelmingly different response.

Instead, you asked an extremely grey question, took the answers apart and crafted your own conclusion based on what your question was made to sound like. What a poor attempt to bring credibility to your side.

Based on your anti gun responses to the answers here, the question should have been as follows,

Would you as a ccw holder feel morally obligated to stop a mass murder?

And you are missing a response in your survey

Yes, only if no innocent people are in my line of fire.

Nice try with the media tactics...

 

the question was is a ccw holder obligated to respond. Everyone is scared when being shot at Mak

 

Part of that comes from our legal environment. Come on trespassers can sue if they get hurt. Try to help someone and you could be libel for something they do. Try to stop a nut case and injure a person and get sued. NYC cops can throw lead though.

You have to decide if it is worth it or not.

Still it is moot for me because I do not carry a gun.

EDIT: The SCOTUS says the police are not obligated to do it either!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0

 

Bowerbird has shown that she will use straw man arguments to indulge any kind of reality that she feels is correct. I don't think I will engage her in arguments anymore because arguing with her is like arguing with overcooked spaghetti.

 

I did a little research earlier. Here you go. MORE cases of SCOTUS that police have no duty to protect individuals, just society at large.

Linda Riss v. City of New
York, Court of Appeals of New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579, 293 N.Y.S.2d 897,
240 N.E.2d 860 (196.
- "[T]here is no warrant in judicial tradition or in the proper
allocation of the powers of government for the courts, in the absence
of legislation, to carve out an area of tort liability for police
protection to members of the public."

686 F.2d 616
Thomas L. BOWERS, Administrator of the Estate of Marguerite
Anne Bowers, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. Robert A. DeVITO, M.D., et al., Defendants.
Nos. 80-1865, 80-2078.
- "The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order. Discrimination in providing protection against private violence could of course violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But that is not alleged here. All that is alleged is a failure to protect Miss Bowers and others like her from a dangerous madman, and as the State of Illinois has no federal constitutional duty to provide such protection its failure to do so is not actionable under section 1983."
http://openjurist.org/686/f2d/616/bowers-v-a-md

-

CAROLYN WARREN, ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
ET AL., APPELLEES; WILFRED NICHOL, APPELLANT, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, ET AL., APPELLEES
Nos. 79-6, 79-394
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
444 A.2d 1; 1981 D.C. App. LEXIS 412
- The absence of a duty specifically enforceable be individual members of the community is not peculiar to public police services. Our representative form of government is replete with duties owed to everyone in their capacity as citizens but not enforceable by anyone in his capacity as an individual. Through its representatives, the public creates community service; through its representatives, the public establishes the standards which it demands of its employees in carrying out those services and through its representatives, the public can most effectively enforce adherence to those standards of competence. As members of the general public, individuals forego any direct control over the conduct of public employees in the same manner that such individuals avoid any direct responsibility for compensating public employees.
http://gunrightsalert.com/documents/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia_444_A_2d_1.pdf

- Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."

U.S. Supreme Court
DeShaney v. Winnebago Cty. DSS, 489 U.S. 189 (1989)
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services
No. 87-154
Argued November 2, 1988
Decided February 22, 1989
489 U.S. 189
- A State's failure to protect an individual against private violence generally does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause, because the Clause imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services. The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security; while it forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, its language cannot fairly be read to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means. Pp. 489 U. S. 194-197.
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/489/189/

- Father puts mentally challenged child into coma after beating him. Mother files suit alleging that the department of Social Services should have known violence was going to happen because of previous allegations of abuse, signs of abuse from several DSS visits, and a hospital report of child abuse.


Hartzler v. City of San Jose, 46 Cal.App.3d 6, 120 Cal.Rptr. 5 (1975)

The administrator of the estate of Ruth Bunnell who had been killed by her estranged husband brought a wrongful death action against the city whose police department refused to respond to her call for protection some 45 minutes before her death. Mrs. Bunnell had called the police to report that Mack Bunnell had called saying he was on his way to her home to kill her. She was told to call back when Mack Bunnell arrived. The police had responded 20 times to her calls in the past year, and on one occasion, arrested her estranged husband for assaulting her. The Court of Appeal held that the police department and its employees enjoyed absolute immunity for failure to provide sufficient police protection. The allegations that the police had responded 20 times to her calls did not indicate that the police department had assumed any special relationship or duty toward her such as would remove its immunity.


Antique Arts Corp. v. City of Torrence, 39 Cal.App.3d 588, 114 Cal.Rptr. 332 (1974)

A silent burglar alarm installed on the premises of the store operated by the plaintiff was, during the course of a robbery by two armed men, activated at 3:32 p.m. and the alert message was relayed to the police department.

The dispatch message to the units in the field was at 3:43 p.m., and a police unit arrived at the scene of the robbery at 3:44 p.m. The delay in the transmission of the dispatch enabled the robbers to complete the robbery and escape with jewelry and merchandise in the amount of $49,000. The Court of Appeal held that Govt. Code section 846 provides for immunity if no police protection is provided; or, if police protection is provided, but that protection is not sufficient.. "The statutory scheme makes it clear that failure to provide adequate police protection will not result in governmental liability, nor will a public entity be liable for failure to arrest a person who is violating the law. The statutory scheme shows legislative intent to immunize the police function from tort liability from the inception of its exercise to the point of arrest, regardless of whether the action be labeled discretionary' or ministerial.

 

Yup they are paid and civilians are not. They are not obligated but if they do act they have protections. If a civilian acts (other than self defense) they may end up in jail.

 

I would like for her to answer her own question.

 

Legally, No
Conciously, No (Depends on how they viewed the incident)

Me personally, (I actually was talking about this thread to the misses) and told her if I can get more people out safely in a situation where I had my gun and could keep the shooter busy id sacrifice my life to get those extra 5 people out because if I got out and someone died, and I couldnt do anything about it. I would feel rather (*)(*)(*)(*)ty about myself. But thats my personal choice, my upbringing, my stance on things, Not my obligation. I could always say "Ha, and walk away"

 

If I did carry it would be a bit different for me and if I did have a weapon I would do what I could without sacrificing my life. Why? If I were to be killed without removing the threat the nut case would be free to kill more people and he would be enraged. If I had a shot I would kill him without a regret and never another thought about it.

 

I fully agree I would like to live out of the situation but worst case scenario and I dont walk away, I wouldnt be mad at anyone if I was the only one shooting back. You know? I carry a blade at all times (Normal knife is a 5.2 inch Benchmade LFK and my backup is usually my Kershaw skyline followed by my leatherman skeletool and my SHTF is a nice 4 dollar stainless steel fountain pen w/tip) lol So for me to want to make sure my misses gets out is priority one, 2 is everyone else, and if im going down that dude is going to be going down with me. lol

 

We could all pontificate about this forever. The truth is than none of us really know what we would do until we were faced with the situation. Every incident is different, and maybe in one situation we would draw and maybe in another we wouldn't. I just know that I am prepared and trained should I need to make that decision. I would rather have my firearm and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

 

But there is no obligation! No matter how you look at it. If my neighbor has an issue with my guns and gets attacked and even man raped I have absolutely no obligation to do anything. Would I do anything? Don't know - all my neighbors are armed (Black and white, gay and straight, dem and repub)!

 

If something happened to my neighbors I dont have the luxury of not stepping up. (Regardless if I had my gun or not, And have gone out there with a knife because it was all I had before I purchased my gun) Looking at my house to the right is my grandmother and uncle, They own a .25 rat gun, a few shotguns and for some reason a bowgun o.0. To my left is my aunt/uncle with their 2 kids (there 3rd is in college) and 6 other children from my other uncle who is locked up. So if something were to happen because I am one of the males in the family it has always been my uncle (who lives w my grandmother and me out there armed makeing sure everyone is safe and ok. Difference is now I own a gun and bulldog.

 

That is family not some snob who badmouths you having a gun.

 

Because enough of us would probably do what they thought was needed, I know I would and I believe some others here would do so also. Some would not, and that is their choice and it might actually be for the best, such as a lady that carries one for self defense but is not really capable or trained to get in a gunfight with another shooter. Just so you know not everyone that carries is some sort of John Wayne looking for a gunfight or a person that has one because it makes them feel like a big man, in fact I have found the opposite to be true. Interesting question though.

 

My aunt is anti guns (which is why he has none) so it took me 2 months before i told her i had actually bought it. lol

 

Still family and blood is thicker than bad neighbors.

 

emotional response and irrelevant to the question since where you lived wasn't one of your options.

 

Yup nobody is obliged, and it's sad you see the world like you do. In my world people come to others aid on a regular basis. While they are not obliged to do so they are inclined to risk their lives for others. Guess it just matters where you live eh?

 

Because we study, we practice, we train. We like the idea of helping those who choose to be sheep instead of sheepdogs. We realize that not helping means someones mom/dad/granny/grandpa/son/daughter/uncle/aunt/friend would die before a LEO arrived. Anything else?

 

Please define posse duties eh