Uh oh Joe Mixon

[*rfaulk34*]

(03-20-2023, 07:17 PM)PDub80 Wrote: Some questions here regarding the bold....

- Defend yourself from what? Teens walking with wooden toy guns?

- And, the moment you react is when you have utmost certainty. Not scared suspicion.

I understand vigilance. I understand proactive awareness. I understand keeping eyes out..... I don't understand shoot first and figure it out later in the instance you just described. I don't understand brandishing a weapon without KNOWING the situation or what is happening. Acting in that way is completely fear driven and irrational. In most life situations (to steal a quote from my favorite book) "Haste is a poor counselor".

That was just a real life, recent example of a split second encounter. Nothing came of it. To give more detail, one of my co-workers was on a ladder, working on something on the front of our shop. His back was turned to the guys walking down the street and he just happened to be coming down and turned around as they were right next to him. He doesn't carry a gun and i'm not going to just pull mine if i was in his shoes, but the sight of something that looks like an assault rifle, right next to you, in an instant is going to at least startle most people. 

I wasn't saying, and i don't believe, shoot first ask questions later. It's way to easy to sit here on the computer, with hindsight and say "he should have done this...i would have done this...etc, etc". In the moment, any given situation could require a split second decision that could alter your's or someone else's life. 

I wouldn't be pulling a gun out, in my yard, if kids were running around outside. I'd certainly find a way to check what was going on but different people respond to situations differently. I'm pretty sound of mind and cautious (being a gun owner and CCW carrier) but i don't know how mentally stable the dude that popped some rounds off is. Up to this point, i've never taken my gun out of it's holster as a means to confront something that was happening around or in front of me.