When to get involved.

[Joe in PNG]

As the old saying goes: "Not my circus, not my monkeys".

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There is no correct answer given the multitude of factors.

The safest for your physical person is to call the law. But how you slice the emotional response that correlates with your perceived 'morality' is complex. Cognitive risk appraisal interacts with fast emotional responses.

I know from some large FOF exercises and research that about half of trained gun folks won't intervene (in a FOF) or say they won't in a simple man assaults a woman scenario.

Research also shows that the more extreme and immediate the situation - the more intervention is likely. In a MS case, a BG started to stab to die his ex and then pour gasoline on her to light her up. In that extreme case, a CCW type stopped him with threatening to shoot him. That's an immediate and extreme assault unlikely to be ambiguous.

Folks also like to say on the Internet that they could not live with themselves if they didn't help. That's posturing as folks have recovered psychologically from more horror than that.

There are no absolutes but folks like to pose them on gun social media and some like to posture (not saying that here, BTW).

I just missed once seeing a guy beating an 8 year old girl with a tire iron and trying to stuff her into a duffle bag. That's different from a domestic. It's different from hearing shots in the mall - but the folks in Kenya acted.

What's right?