Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Man shopping for coffee creamer at Walmart attacked by vigilante for carrying gun he was legally per [View all]AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Not a very subtle opener.
I see your point, but again, I don't have a way to discriminate between 'good guys' and 'bad guys' based on the sole indicator that they have or may have a firearm on their person. That alone, is not enough. The simple fact that police exist tells me I cannot simply assume a person with a gun is a threat.
Some of this might come from cultural differences. I have a CPL. I carry. I *know* when someone else is carrying, unless they've jammed it up their ass or something incredibly unorthodox. If it's in a holster, I can tell. We always acknowledge each other, and then continue on. Police officers do it too. They know when I'm carrying. There are body language cues. Two looks, one at me, one at the spot on my body where the firearm is concealed. There's a silent, greeting/handshake thing going on. And from that, they develop a threat assessment based on a person's apparent intent, which is much more revealing than the simple fact one is carrying a gun.
Awareness of an individuals intent to commit harm is incredibly important. If you predicate it on the presence of a gun, you might be addressing the force multiplier effect of the firearm, in the rare case where it's a 'bad guy', but you're missing the guy with the knife, the blunt object, the hands/fists/feet, etc, that also can produce severe bodily harm/death.
There's about 9 million people with CPL's nationwide. Not all carry all the time, but that's still a crapload of people. Add in the police officers, on duty or off, plain or marked, and you've got a LOT of people who normally carry a firearm in public, without threatening anyone.
I reject 'but this was about to happen' because it was in no way predicated on the victim's behavior. His attacker imagined it. He did nothing to warrant alarm.
We don't do 'pre-crime' in the US. We can't. The cost is too high.