And the robber is standing a few feet in front of me so Good Sam gun will be pointed in my direction. And it is common for robbers to operate in teams.
Wow, you just don't get it. The Good Sam will have his/her gun pointed at the robber and likely will be giving commands to the robber. Robbers typically don't do that to their partners.
I agree that armed robberies are dangerous. Evidence supports that fact that most robberies want in and out as quick as possible. Of course there is the crack head/meth addict that can cause things to go south in a hurry.
The point I am making is this is the attitude of most businesses. Loss of $40.00 is cheaper than the publicity and loss of business from a gunfight. This is also the advice of most police departments.
No doubt that compliance works in the vast majority of the time. The source for this was back around 2000, but in about 13% of the cases as I recall, injury or death still resulted despite compliance. If I had a 1 in 8 chance of winning the lottery, I would play every time. Those are good odds for winning the lottery, but not so good when it comes to the health and well being of yourself, employees, or customers.
Yes, it is the advice of most police departments. Why do you think that is? It is for several reasons. They are worried about the wrong people getting shot by well intentioned owners/managers/employess. They are worried about their own officers rolling up on the scene and getting shot by owners/managers/employees. They are worried about their officers rolling up on the scene and mistakenly shooting owners/managers/employees.
I understand the suggestions of law enforcement, but chances are they are anywhere from 4-15 minutes away from arriving on scene at your business during such a crisis. Those are averages. Some will get their quickly and some will take a really long time. A few years ago, Dallas was quite proud of getting officer response times down below 10 minutes for their Priority 1 calls (robbery in progress, shooting in progress, rape in progress, etc.).
http://apbweb.com/featured-articles/1188-response-times-city-to-city.html
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/shots-ring-out-but-why-bother-calling-police-132115243.html
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/data-drive/article_a12d37b4-6345-11e1-9597-001871e3ce6c.html
The police mean well, but considering that there is very little chance that they will be present during the robbery of your business, do you really think your safety is their #1 consideration?
I know several police officers that have had gunshots fired at them by minority youths and did not return gunfire. They felt that due to the negative publicity from shooting the perp, the investigations by Internal Affair, the D.A., State Attorney General, the Feds for civil rights violations. lawsuits, possible criminal charges it just wasn't worth it. There is a lesson somewhere here.
Yeah, the lesson there is that somebody is pulling your leg. The reason why they didn't return fire would not be for those reasons. You are saying that their claim is that they opted to not actively defend themselves because administrative concerns? Really?
These cops were worried about bad publicity? I seriously doubt it.
And to think that you know several cops who have been shot at by youths who didn't return fire for those reasons. So after the cops were shot at, they just continued on down the road? It would be silly for them to attempt to pursue their shooters given that they might be put into a position yet again where they would be shot at and they would not be willing to return fire. Just what metropolitan area are you in?
I'll be honest and admit to being a coward. I avoid shipping at stores that are in certain parts of town, certain hours after dark, customers and layout of the store. I also believe in retreating whenever possible. So if I was in the above situation I would be looking for the back door. I lived long enough to know I have nothing to prove and have seen bodies in morgue of people who thought they had something to prove.
