<p>(In this scenario the person doesn’t have a knife to my neck.)</p>
<p>If someone is coming at me, I’d rather shoot both their legs than take their life. Shooting their legs, gives me the opportunity to change situation a bit in which I have the control.</p>
<p>If someone is coming at me with a knife, I am still shooting without worrying about if I wound or kill.</p>
<p>So you’re just shooting in their general direction?</p>
<p>This conversation is kind of questionable.</p>
<p>Pfft, like you’ve never had a “What if…” conversation.</p>
<p>“So you’re just shooting in their general direction?”</p>
<p>Yes</p>
<p>Everything I know about guns, I learned from Dad and Granddaddy: you only point a gun at someone if your life is in danger. If you point, you shoot at the chest (largest mass) and you kill them because otherwise you will be killed. I intend to keep myself out of situations where I need to point that gun. I do lots of things to avoid being in that situation. I think the shooting the kneecap idea is a foolish TV fantasy. However, I could be wrong. Maybe that will work for you.</p>
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<p>Didn’t Joseph Heller write a book on pretty much the same premise?</p>
<p>That’s what the men told me, too, alh. More exactly, my uncle said to “quit the sissy crap and shoot them in the chest”. </p>
<p>I just would rather shoot them in a limb than their chest/head.</p>
<p>Obviously (I guess not so…), I wouldn’t focus my entire energy on aiming for their kneecap. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>My relatives are hunters & fisherman & farmer, & I was also taught that you don’t point a weapon at anyone unless you intend to kill them.
I don’t intend to kill anyone, so I don’t have a gun.</p>
<p>Shoot the guy in a limb and YOU are gonna die for sure.</p>
<p>Well, of you are Quinn and can aim for the shoulder, then cool. You can disable Carrie, send her to the hospital, and save the mission. If you let her go off to save Brody, well the mission is done and Saul is ****ed. </p>
<p>If not, then shoot the torso. </p>
<p>Sometimes it is just the sound of the cocking of the shotgun that can stop a problem in it’s tracks. Or take the advice of Biden and shoot that bad boy through the door with a warning shot. </p>
<p>With all seriousness, GZ was in a bad situation and was found not guilty. He has seemingly made it worse, after the trial. </p>
<p>Who can say if we were in same exact position if we would act rationally. With as many death threats as GZ and his family have received, my guess is that he has gone over the edge in paranoia and making extraordinarily bad decisions that are getting worse as time goes on. </p>
<p>If I were GZ and I will never pass for White Hispanic, or a male, or even a registered gun owner (even though many of my family members are), I would have quietly left the country. Maybe Canada.</p>
<p>Shooting a handgun at an intended target isn’t easy. Add stress to tbe situation and you will see how impossible it can be to shoot at a leg or shoulder. Someone kicked my coworker’s door in. He immediately grabbed his gun to see what the sound was and was confronted by an angry man charging him. He fired several rounds and missed but by then the intruder escaped. He couldn’t believe he missed, but those are the facts of shooting a gun and doing so under stress. Reality check: if you purposely shoot an intruder in the limbs be prepared to get sued and potentially lose. Also be prepared to die when the intruder takes the gun out of your hands. </p>
<p>As for the scenario involving a husband who shoots his wife out of anger, there is another perspective. The possession of a weapon reminds you to avoid confrontation. Someone cuts you off on the road? Let it go. You have a gun and in my state they probably have a gun. The gun doesn’t give you any extra confidence except a responsibility to avoid the need to use it. I am not sure why a gun would cross someone’s mind when they’re having an argument with their spouse. That person shouldn’t own a gun.</p>
<p>I think what it boils down to is most gun owners hope they never have to shoot their gun at another person to protect themselves or family. </p>
<p>Shooting cans, going to the range, etc - fun pasttimes. But shooting people? Not so much.</p>
<p>I am not discussing those who are using their gun to provide food. Totally different situation. </p>
<p>I have several friends who are in law enforcement. For most, the only time they have shot their weapon is at the range and never at a suspect. That is truly the goal.</p>
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<p>That is a often trotted-out fallacy. If someone breaks into your house and is coming after you (assuming it’s not an unarmed very young child), you can shoot the person because, under the law, a reasonable person in your shoes would be in fear of his/her life or the life of another innocent person. If you purposely shoot for the limbs, though, you are far more likely to miss the intruder entirely.</p>
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Very much so. I don’t have a problem with people owning multiple guns in their home, as long as I don’t know it.</p>
<p>Marsian, in some states you have a duty to flee and not to stand your ground. And what may be reasonable for someone being attacked may not be viewed as reasonable when they are in front of a jury.</p>
<p>Niquii, fantasizing about hypothetical situations is akin to the “anecdotal” analysis I disparaged before. You can control your anecdote to make whatever outcome you prefer seem obvious, then turn around and use it as a justification for supporting the position you designed your hypothetical to justify.</p>
<p>The real life advice posted by several here - never point a gun at someone unless you’re prepared to shoot them, and never shoot unless you intend to kill; aim for the torso (it’s a big target) is based on experience and harsh reality, not TV. And the scenarios people encounter in real life are rarely as straightforward - or understandable in real time - as a hypothetical or TV plot. That’s why we see innocent people getting shot on a remarkably regular basis on Halloween by “law abiding gun owners” who thought they were bad guys.</p>
<p>As frugaldoctor points out, owning a gun should make people more cautious and responsible. That observation reminds me of an argument made some years back against mandatory seat belt laws. One man asserted that if, instead of seatbelts, every car had a sharpened steel spike mounted in the middle of the steering wheel, pointed at the driver, everyone would drive more cautiously.</p>
<p>Except, people don’t so what they should do. They do what they do do. People with spikes on their steering wheels would be more cautious for a few days, then return to driving exactly like they did before. And people who get guns don’t become more cautious; in fact, they are more likely to start acting like George Zimmerman, loaded up with 9 mm of courage, following a bad guy hopped up on Skittles and ice tea in the darkness.</p>
<p>Hypotheticals are worse than useless when discussing how people might or should choose to act in the real world; they actually decrease your understanding of human nature. Learn that lesson.</p>
<p>“That’s why we see innocent people getting shot on a remarkably regular basis on Halloween by “law abiding gun owners” who thought they were bad guys.”</p>
<p>How common is this? Do you have a number?</p>
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<p>I don’t know of a single state that requires one to flee from a direct attack in one’s own home – the presumption being that your home is your refuge and if you are attacked there, you are essentially trapped. If someone breaks in your home and is coming after you or one of your family members, you can shoot. Now, if you see that person going out a window or stealing something from your yard, that is a different issue altogether. Also, if the intruder is a five year-old child with a stick or a confused, infirm elderly person who is grasping for your arm, that person would reasonably be considered not to be a threat. My understanding is that almost all states have a castle doctrine and the rest allow a person to shoot if a reasonable person would conclude that he/she would be in fear of imminent death or injury. Unless a jury is made up of totally unreasonable people who couldn’t fathom that a dangerous attacker would be a threat, I can’t imagine how that would be a problem. I will stand corrected, however, if I am wrong.</p>