Yep, shop owner gets to try to sleep with thoughts of having offed a kid, and the kid's mother gets to spend the rest of her life thinking about the kid she used to have.
A kind of win - win situation, huh?
You forgot the third win. The lessening of the burden placed upon the taxpayers to deal with the perp should he have been arrested, let out of prison, and made free to victimize once again.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen some 16 year olds but I remember my mom being concerned who I was talking to coming off the trolley one day in Philly because they looked so much older.
One of my elementary school friends was killed while engaged in a robbery attempt (with a pocket knife) and another (named Sanders too, oddly enough) got away.
Sad in one way but I’d pretty calmly smoke someone who threatened my pet, let alone pointed a weapon at me. Wouldn’t think much about it afterwards, at least not from a ‘trauma’ standpoint.
It is a sad that the guy must be removed from society to make innocent people safe, but that is the case. If the government would make a real effort to defend innocent citizens, people would not have to. Coddling criminals results in more of them being killed by their intended victims.
A kind of win - win situation, huh?
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Please refer to posts 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 27, 28, 29, and 30.
I have carried for years, and have often said that I fully expect that my extensive training and practice would kick in and I would do whatever is necessary to stop a deadly threat.
OTOH, I have also said that, afterward, I fully expect that I would be traumatized at having been forced to inflict deadly harm on another person -- and I wonder if I could handle the remorse of having had to use my weapon on a young person.
But -- defense comes first; remorse comes later...
Odds are that the shop owner can come to terms with this.
The mother can thank her son, not the shop owner.
Well, consider the alternative:
Dead shop owner.
Kid goes up for life.
Kid gets to spend decades suffering for his stupid and malicious act.
Mom gets to miss her boy every day.
Sound good to you?
We could also go through the path where the perp pulls off the robbery, and goes on to do so again and again, until he gets caught, and then gets out and commits more armed robberies until he gets caught (etc., etc., ad nauseum) until he gets his third strike. Then his victims have to live with their trauma (I’ve had a gun pointed at my head and found it rather unpleasant) and he has life in prison and his mother misses her boy every day.
I would prefer this perp had been caught and reached by some prison ministry, and I agree that there is no glamour in using deadly force, but I also know this: If I ever pulll that trigger it will be in a situation someone can describe as “nice” because it will be a situation where someone is about to die one way or another and I’ll be making sure it isn’t an innocent party.
As soon as “the kid” picked up a sawed-off shotgun in the commission of the crime, his age and his familial situation becomes irrelevant.
I agree that it’s “nice” in that the victim successfully defended his life and his property.