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« Professor reports on empty holder protest day | Main | Park & FWS proposed rules for firearm carry »

A commentary on the restraint of CCW holders

Posted by David Hardy · 29 April 2008 11:17 AM

From the Palm Beach Post, a story that begins "It could've been a typical spat between grocery store customer and manager, with the customer announcing he planned to take his business elsewhere. But then the customer drew his gun. The store manager drew his and so did the assistant manager."

The aggressor fired repeatedly, but the manager and clerk held their fire, cornered him outside, and talked him into putting down his gun. Police arrested him for attempted murder, etc..

· CCW licensing

9 Comments | Leave a comment

Jim | April 29, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply

Wow, that's an amazing story. It cuts both ways though among the less informed.

jdberger | April 29, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply

"West Palm Beach supermarket shootout lands man in jail"

Shootout?

Doesn't that imply that more than one guy was shooting?

Paul Simer | April 29, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply

Restraint? Yes. Prudence? No.

The employees (I assume both had permits) owed it to their families to deal immediately and brutally with the threat of a man waving a gun at them. They're darn lucky that their mistake didn't send one or both of them into a box.

JT | April 29, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply

Great illustration of the difference between those who carry illegally and their indifference to "shootouts" (it's obvious the gun-grabbers are talking about THOSE folks when playing up the "it'll be like the OK corral again!" canard) and those who take the time, money, & energy to carry legally and their steadfast, even sometimes risky, avoidance of shootouts.

Ken | April 29, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply

I don't see any obvious mistake on their part. They seem to have judged that the risk that their opening fire would pose to customers in the parking lot, pedestrians and drivers on the street and people in homes of businesses across the street outweighed the risk this nut posed to them and others in the store. Not having actually been there, I'm loath to question their judgment. They owed it to their families to come home, not to "deal brutally" with the person posing the threat, which is exactly what they did.

Would I have held my fire? I don't know. It would depend on what I saw, how great I judged the threat to be, and how confident I was in my ability to hit the assailant rather than some innocent.

Jim | April 29, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply

The article reported that the bad guy was firing to cover his retreat. It may simply have been that they were taking cover and by the time he stopped shooting he was gone.

Jeff | April 29, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply

The real lunatic in the first recording is the operator.
Telling the caller to go inside leaving the perp armed and free outside seems the height of stupidity. Providing him a chance to reload and return without resistance is unbelievable.

Don Gwinn | April 29, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt since they were there, which means they were in a position to evaluate their backstop. What was beyond their target? They may have been doing exactly the right thing.

Tom | April 29, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply

This could have turned out really tragic had nobody had a firearm to combat the perpetrator, bad shot or not he would have likely stayed and did harm.

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