You aren't obliged to act courageously in defense of your fellow man of course, but if you are present and able and choose not to act courageously... Well... I already used the word for what that is called and it's an ugly word that makes people feel bad and rightly so. If you felt personally attacked by what I wrote please know it wasn't directed at any individual user I just want to challenge the "me and mine" philosophy and the culture of normalizing and encouraging cowardly behavior as if it's virtuous to abandon your fellow man to the predations of the world.
Everyone has to make their own choices but I'd prefer it if people aspired to courage even if they wound up lacking it, rather than not even aspiring.
Ahhh courage. Courage is one of those special words. It means so much to so many, and for entirely different reasons.
Just think of all those courageous men and women who so selflessly give their last full measure of devotion and abandon all claims to this world to blow themselves up and try and kill the enemies of their religious persuasion. Or all those very courageous soldiers of the Wehrmacht who gave their lives to advance the glory of their fatherland, or the intensely courageous pilots of the Divine Wind who gave their lives for their Emperor by flying a plane across leagues of ocean to dive gloriously into the deck of an American warship.
So, hey, you can have your courage, however you see it. Sometimes it comes with (or because of) a healthy helping of stupidity, or blindness, or stubbornness, or gullibility, or brainwashing, or social pressure, or fantasy, or "nobility" which is, generally speaking, a concept through which those with a certain degree of self-pride are duped into acting against their own best interests.
Now, having dispensed with that misty notion: Sure, as somebody somewhere once said, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." Right?
Our discussion here may not persuade a particular member not to pull a gun and wade into a gunfight in progress. But perhaps it can give all of us a bit of perspective and a chance to consider these things before the opportunity arises.
Every armed encounter is fraught with dangers of a wide variety, but a situation where you are not directly involved, and indeed where you intervene specifically to stop a crime and a disturbance of the peace you must know, understand, and accept that:
1) There is a very good chance that you will not act fully within the rather archaic and usually completely misunderstood laws of your state which cover a citizen's rights to act to enforce laws ("preserve the 'sanctity'" if that's how it makes you feel good to phrase it). So, you MUST accept that through your actions in trying to do good you may break the law, be prosecuted for it, and go to jail. The road to hell certainly is paved with good intentions, and we see monthly reminders about "good guys" who sure as shootin' THOUGHT they were on the side of the angels...but now are behind bars.
2) You stopped and left or even lead your family into the danger zone and the "innocents" who are highly likely to catch a bullet are those directly behind you in the car you just vacated when you decided to draw your gun and start issuing commands to the guys who are ALREADY firing weapons. You MUST accept that the dead child who's face will be appearing in tomorrow's paper may be your own son or daughter who you didn't lead to safety.
3) What are you going to DO with that gun? Are you really going to shoot them if they don't acquiesce to your commands? You do realize that you are not necessarily an infallible shot, especially under that tunnel-visioned, adrenaline flowing moment. Now you're firing a gun, TOO, in a public place full of cars and shoppers. You MUST accept that there is a good chance you will shoot someone you didn't mean to. And maybe you'll kill them.
4) You MUST accept that there's a good chance that the guys who already have their guns out and firing will KILL YOU. But hey that's easy. Every man among us likes to talk about how they're not afraid to die in the heat of battle and how their wife and kids will be SO PROUD at their funeral. Yaaay. Your wife and kids will be less proud when they have to make the rent without your paycheck. Your wife will be less proud when she's trying to get all the housework, chores, maintenance, shopping, etc. done without you around. Your kids will be less proud when they have to be tucked in and kissed goodnight by the big hunk of man whom your wife finds to be her new partner in your household. But maybe he'll be generous with his paychecks and will help send your kids off to college. Could happen.
And for what? Saving the lives of a few heroin dealers? Trying to stop stray bullets in a gunfight in progress? (Your gun doesn't stop THEIR guns, unless they decide to stop.)
Living up to your version of "Courage"? If your self image can't survive the hit of making a smarter choice than to run to battle instead of taking care of the only people who will ever love you ... you need to think really, really hard about that.
Living life has no guarantee you will survive to old age.
