Legal or Ethical.

So, walk away or step in?

  • Get involved, my concience is more important to me.

    Votes: 46 80.7%

  • Walk away, the legal risks are too great.

    Votes: 11 19.3%
  • Total voters
    57
  • Poll closed .
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1911 guy

1911 guy

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I'm not looking for a urinating contest, just a look at which way the wind blows here at THR. Realizing that we all have different experiences and outlooks on life as well as different situations and priorities, here's my question:

If you were faced with a situation that you felt ethically or morally inclined to become involved in but such action could put you on legal shaky ground, what would you do?

For instance, little old lady is being held up in the park in Anytown, USA. You can walk away or get involved, with the possibility of an over-eager prosecutor painting you as the agressor against the mugger.

There are no right or wrong answers, please don't bash others if their response doesn't mirror your own.

I'll going to attempt a poll on this thread. Bear with me, please.
 
If it was shaky ground, then I would get involved somehow without using the gun, but if it came down to their life and I had to use it, well as they say, better to be judged by 12 than to have an innocent person carried by six.

Would I run into a burning building to save a child's life too? I would like to think so and I see this as no different.
 
I think it would be a mistake for someone to answer positively one way or the other. Real life is not that clear cut when there are so many possible variables. Each situation has to be evaluated and acted on accordingly.

I've noticed a tendency of many pro-intervention responders here to assume their intervention can only have positive outcomes for the person they are intending to help. While that's the hoped-for outcome, it may not always be so. An intervention may also cause the perp to escalate his level of violence.

In the scenario you described, if the old lady is just being robbed, the safest thing for her might be just to be a good witness and call for LEO. Losing her purse isn't the worst thing that could happen. Obviously, if the robber is repeatedly stabbing her, intervention is more justified and more likely to help the victim.

Again, although your poll is interesting, I don't think there is one correct answer that can apply to all situations.

K
 
Clarification.

This doesn't have to assume use of a firearm. Let's say you see the mugger take off with Little Old Ladys purse and you have the opportunity to tackle him. This can also be twisted into an assault charge by a dimwitted D.A. There are all sorts of scenarios that this can apply to, as well as CCW.
 
The question is impossible to answer, for two reasons. First, there is no clear fact pattern. Different situations call for different responses. Second, you've established a false dichotomy. It's not an either/or, it's a gradient, with lots of different actions possible ranging from "start shooting" to "pretend you didn't see anything." The most useful options in the overwhelming majority of scenarios tend to be somewhere between those extremes.

In general, I try to be a good citizen. I believe in being kind and helpful to my fellow citizens. If someone says of me after I leave, "what a nice fellow - he really didn't have to do that," then it was a good day.

That said(tm), I am extremely cautious about intervening in potentially dangerous situations, and it's not just about the "legal risks." Anyone who has a decent grounding in self-defense and tactical awareness knows that you cannot always take a situation at the immediate face value. There may be all sorts of risks that are not immediately apparent. If I was single with no children, perhaps I wouldn't be so cautious, but I'm a married man with three children. My wife and kids rely on me to provide for them. I'm not about to risk my life for someone I don't know just to be a good person, because I have a higher obligation to my family than I do to unknown third parties.

If I spot something happening that doesn't look right, however, and I'm not willing to rush right in, that doesn't mean I just walk away. Rather, I will observe from a safe distance while assessing the situation and my options. Most of us are armed with cell phones, and I will certainly make a quick call to 911 even if I'm not willing to rush in. I may alert the individual(s) to my presence from a safe distance, to let them know I am observing and have reported the matter to the police. My course of action may change depending on what I observe and how the individuals react to my presence.

But the bottom line is that my family comes first. If I don't come home safely at the end of the day, I have failed in my primary obligation as a husband and father.
 
There are many more ways than physical intervention to get involved in a situation. I personally believe that I have been commanded to "not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds", and that means if I can do something to help a person in need, I should. I guess believing in something many thousands of years old makes me a "liberal".

But again, that doesn't necessarily mean pulling a gun or tackling a mugger. It could mean being a good witness, insuring rapid response of proper authorities, or tending to the victim. In 1991 guy's "little old lady" scenario I think it may be even more noble to make sure the little old lady is ok -- she's probably terrified on a number of levels -- than taking the risk of tackling a proven criminal with an unknown status regarding personal weaponry.

It's all situational, and the big danger is that you won't always know the entire details of the situation, as has been discussed in other similar threads.

The poll should have a third option (for us libertarians small "L") -- "it depends on the situation".
 
I don't have a CHL...but I would still attempt to help out by perhaps diverting the perps attention enough until someone can get an LEO to the scene...and if I could get close enough then mebbe disarm him...might wind up wounded or dead, but I would only hope that someone would do the same if it were my mom or significant other as the vic.

D
 
I didn't vote. You poll suffers from George Bush disease. It only sees things as black and white and ignores the may shades of gray in between. Oversimplification, if you will.
 
Let's say you see the mugger take off with Little Old Ladys purse and you have the opportunity to tackle him.
Click to expand...

Well, in that case, almost certainly not. The threat to the victim is over and the perp is, for all we know, a petty criminal. Suppose we tackle him, and he decides to resist violently. Maybe he pulls a weapon. Now you are in an entirely different situation. If you have a weapon and use it, think you are totally off the hook? You initiated the conflict in what was originally *not* a deadly threat issue. You are a civilian, not LEO. It is not within the scope of your civic duty to apprehend petty criminals. In Ohio, CCW does not protect you if you initiated the conflict, even if the perp was doing something wrong. But, he was not even threatening anyone anymore when you got involved, so it's even less justified.

If you disagree with my assessment, become a LEO if that's your calling.

K
 
Let me start by saying I was 2 minutes from walking into an armed robbery situation 1 1/2 weeks ago 1/2 mile from my house at the bottom of the hill from where I live. I don't think I could walk into this store where I know these people (the one that was actually robbed was a 17 yr old girl) and not get involved to try to stop a felony and a "who knows what" in progress... How do you know that after someone is done robbing you, they will let you live?
 
Black, white and shades of grey.

The shades of grey are the circumstances we find ourselves in. This includes our upbringing, current mindset, responsibilities, etc. Right is always right and wrong is always wrong, but does doing one good thing violate another, more important, obligation? Let's say I rush into a burning building to save someone. Good thing. I get maimed or killed in the process, leaving my family with no income. Bad thing. What determines the weight of one against the other? This isn't about just tackling muggers or being Walter Mitty, it's about thinking ahead of time where your priorities are and what obligations you have. That's why there are no right or wrong answers, as I said in the original post. Everyone has a different life experience and situation which alters perspective. So in one respect, "George Bush Syndrome" is a correct view, every decision we make is either right or wrong. However, life is complicated enough that one can be "more right" or "more wrong".
 
My greatest ethical and moral obligation is to my family. If any action I take jeopardizes them, then I choose not to take it, unless it is forced upon me. As a previous poster stated, I'm not out to save the world.
 
Depends on the situation.

If you have a spouse & kids, you're risking them going the rest of their lives w/o you if you get killed trying to save Grandma, and she's old anyway. Your kids could be young and grow up without a father/mother.

On the other hand, if you're single with nobody depending on you, you can be more aggressive in your defense of others.

That said, I don't know what I'd do in the situation. I'm a guy who tries to help people as much as reasonably possible, but if my wife & kids were with me, I'd get them to safety first no matter what I opted to do later. If I were there by myself and the family was at home, I still think I'd think about them first. I mean, I stop and think, would I want my wife going to help out Grandma if she was packing? No way! I'd rather potentially lose anyone other than my wife, and I think she'd feel the same way about me.

I guess you'd have to be in the situation to know what you'd do.
 
While I agree it is difficult due to the nebulousness nature of the question, I would say that most likely I would get involved. My worldview would require this of myself.
 
I did vote, but I have to say that a YES/NO answer is nearly always impossible in the real world. And we could "What if" the situation to death, but it seems to me that each individual's response would depend on multiple factors, both external and internal.
 
I don't think you can get a general answer to this. Each situation is different. Different people will come from different backgrounds and will have different ideas about what's moral and what's not.

I don't think you can come up with a code for armed citizens to live by if that's where you're going with this.

It's all situationally dependent.

Jeff
 
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