Michael F

Nail Guns, Aisle 7, Hot Lead In The Parking Lot

From Album 5

It’s bad enough that at least around here, just driving to a hardware store is a potentially life-threatening exercise.

The only thing that stops a shoplifter is a vigilante bystander with a gun. Or, at least, that’s what an unidentified woman apparently decided shortly before she opened fire on an SUV carrying a man who was fleeing the nearby Home Depot.

No, this isn’t an endorsement of shop lifting (duh), but in the greater scheme of things, the very real potential for some sort of tragedy from discharging a firearm more than outweighs the loss of “power tools and welding equipment.” What on earth was this person thinking? It’d be one thing if it was a case of assisting an individual who’d been robbed or mugged…but a Home Depot? They’ll lose more inventory by random breakage…Christ.

4 thoughts on “Nail Guns, Aisle 7, Hot Lead In The Parking Lot”

  1. One of four things will happen when you discharge your handgun at a “bad guy” (note: “bad guy” does not include shoplifters, people who cussed you out or cut you off in traffic), and three of them are bad.

    1.You hit your target and he/she is killed instantly
    (requires head shot or a CNS hit)

    2. You miss your target due to adrenaline tremor and hit an innocent bystander.

    3. You wound your target (even fatal wounds are usually not fatal for some minutes) and they turn their attention to you. Some shooting victims don’t even know they’ve been shot.

    4. You hit your target, but the bullet over-penetrates, exits your target, and hits an innocent bystander.

    1. Tommy: I agree, but I would say “at least three of them are bad.” Unless lethal force is (reasonably, objectively) justified, AND there’s no possibility of mistaken identity, then #1 is bad, too.

      Granted, identity is likely not an issue if the homicide is justifiable. I mean, yeah, the guy pointing the gun at you or someone else is the bad guy. But if there are multiple weapons being brandished at multiple people, then things get really dicey. And, in that hypothetical, the odds of outcomes 2, 3, and / or 4 increase exponentially.

      Even if outcome 1 is an act of perfect self-defense, there’s still a possibility of #4 if anyone else is downrange.

      As a rifle owner / plinker / target shooter, the idea of a novice discharging a handgun in public terrifies me.

      1. I know what you mean, and there are dozens of possible outcomes, but I was just doing a reducto ad whatever based on the famous Darrell Royal line about throwing a pass.
        And yes, as a rifle / shotgun / handgun owner, the idea of one of the bozos I see sweeping people at the range suddenly deciding to play Dirty Harry in a crowded public place terrifies me, too.

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