Wednesday, January 21, 2015

What to do, what to do?


This happened on Tuesday...

Hillsborough deputies arrested a man who spotted someone with a gun, followed him into a Walmart, and tackled him. The problem? The man with the gun had a concealed weapons permit, and the man who rushed him didn't call 911 or alert store security.
According to the sheriff's office, Michael Foster, 43, saw Clarence Daniels, 62, in the Walmart parking lot with a gun holstered under his coat.
Foster followed Daniels into the store, put him in a choke-hold and brought him to the ground, the sheriff's office said. He then started yelling that Daniels had a gun.
A struggle ensued, with Daniels yelling that he had a permit. Security detained both men until deputies arrived.
They confirmed Daniels had a permit for the gun, and arrested Foster.
He is charged with one count of battery. - (FOX 13)

..and I'm a little confused.
Following the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre announced that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. Okay. I'm capable of grasping the extremely simplistic "logic" behind that philosophy: good guys = good, bad guys = bad. But it leaves behind what seem to me to be perfectly reasonable questions. Let's assume that Foster thought that Daniels and his gun were up to no good and that he wasn't making some kind of asinine anti-gun statement as suggested by severely paranoid comments like this:
"Now they are outright attacking gun owners. Between this and them calling the police, hoping to get the gun owners shot it seems they are waging war on us." - Eduardo Blanco

"Those idiots on lots of anti gun groups have talked like this for a long time. Never thought one of them would actually do it. Dude is entirely lucky he's alive right now, and only probably because he attacked an old man. What a coward" - David Gullickson

"Florida suffers from too many people from the northeast. They move there and expect everyone there to be programed like them. In Florida you can carry a gun concealed. It doesn't make you a bad guy to be armed and it sure as hell doesn't make you a hero when you stick your nose in someone else' business. Like pretty much everyone else has said, the idiot is luck he isn't dead." - Christopher Kafir

"Great story, I would hire an attorney too and look at increased charges as well. It would have been tough not to pull the trigger on this guy! Now his Dumb ASS would have been shot dead for attaching me..." - Anthony Bagozzi

"Don't attach me, bro!"

So are people with guns the only ones who are capable of sticking their noses in someone else's business determining who the bad guys are? What if you're a good guy and for whatever of thousands of possible reasons, you don't happen to be carrying a gun when you spot somebody who may or may not be planning to do something bad in a store or a school or a movie theater?
If tackles are outlawed, only football teams will have tackles.

If Foster had been legally licensed to carry a firearm and had one on him, would he have been within his rights to draw on Daniels and demand to see his license or otherwise attempt to determine his intentions? Would Daniels, with someone holding him at gunpoint, then have been within his rights to invoke a "stand your ground" defense and open fire on Foster?
"This discount department store ain't big enough for the both of us."
I guess the only question I really need answered is where is the best place to hide (I'd prefer a location that provides cover and concealment, please) while you assholes figure this stuff out?
Thanks.

2 comments:

Erin Kane Spock said...

Hey, I can have a gun because I know I'm not crazy... but you can't have a gun because you might be nuts and I'm not willing to risk it. Sounds fair, right? My perception should be the basis for everything :)
Actually, I might be crazy. A little.

Unknown said...

Guns for everyone! Yee haw!! (fires guns indiscriminately into the air)