When fighting back fails........

[orionz06]

I thought most reports were that the dye pack was what set the robber off and made him go to guns.

Not sure, heard a few minor conflicting things, none of which matter if someone decides against being a hero.

[Byron]

His choice of weapon was what escalated the situation.
...
The perpetrator was in his vehicle, fleeing the scene when this guy decided to try and reach in there with a knife and stab him, thus escalating the fight to a level that he wasn't prepared to deal with.

I just don't see it as a hardware issue. I agree with your second quoted statement: that entering the vehicle escalated the situation. I just don't think his choice of weapon matters much in this particular story.

Might he have fared better with a gun? Maybe: it is possible. It's nowhere close to a certainty, however. Simply having a gun, rather than a knife, would not have magically solved this problem that he jumped into with both feet.

Let's work out the scenario. What if he did have a gun? At what point would he have been justified in throwing shots? It's not like this happened in TX; he couldn't have just shot the suspect in the back while he was fleeing. He wasn't there for the initial robbery; just to give chase.

There was no physical interaction between the parties before the suspect got into his getaway vehicle.

The deceased didn't even attempt tool access until he had gotten into the back seat of the robber's getaway vehicle... with the robber in front. Multiple reports are saying that he was shot while trying to access his belt.

Even if he had a gun on his belt at that point, and even if he had been able to draw it faster than his knife, there's a good chance it would have been a very close range gunfight, VCAST style. That is a suckfest. Period. There's a decent chance it would have ended with both parties shot.

In my mind, narrowing in on his choice of weapon is analogous to watching a businessman jump into the tiger habitat at the zoo and saying, "That's why you don't wear wingtips for running," after seeing the guy chased down and eaten.

[Mr. Goodtimes]

I just don't see it as a hardware issue. I agree with your second quoted statement: that entering the vehicle escalated the situation. I just don't think his choice of weapon matters much in this particular story.

Might he have fared better with a gun? Maybe: it is possible. It's nowhere close to a certainty, however. Simply having a gun, rather than a knife, would not have magically solved this problem that he jumped into with both feet.

Let's work out the scenario. What if he did have a gun? At what point would he have been justified in throwing shots? It's not like this happened in TX; he couldn't have just shot the suspect in the back while he was fleeing. He wasn't there for the initial robbery; just to give chase.

There was no physical interaction between the parties before the suspect got into his getaway vehicle.

The deceased didn't even attempt tool access until he had gotten into the back seat of the robber's getaway vehicle... with the robber in front. Multiple reports are saying that he was shot while trying to access his belt.

Even if he had a gun on his belt at that point, and even if he had been able to draw it faster than his knife, there's a good chance it would have been a very close range gunfight, VCAST style. That is a suckfest. Period. There's a decent chance it would have ended with both parties shot.

In my mind, narrowing in on his choice of weapon is analogous to watching a businessman jump into the tiger habitat at the zoo and saying, "That's why you don't wear wingtips for running," after seeing the guy chased down and eaten.

I agree with all of this, and thats essentially what I was trying to get at. A gun is worthless if not employed correctly. Given the way things went down, I think that if you replaced "knife" with "gun" things would have turned out the exact same way, or maybe resulted in both parties getting shot. The only way I really see this having ended well would have been to shoot the suspect while he was fleeing or to have engaged him from outside his vehicle while his gun was on his seat.

[David Armstrong]

Shoot because you have to, not because you can. Probably worth extending that to other methods of using force. Tombstone courage is nice, but you're still dead.

[cutter]

We recently had a murder trial end with a life sentence in a armed robbery gone wrong. A executive was walking home one morning from a coffee shop when he was stalked by the robber. Apparently he was aware of this for when the robber approached him from behind and pointed the gun at him. The executive attempted a disarm by grabbing the gun and got shot. According to the robber, the gun discharged when he tried to pull away from the grab and if his description of the way the grab was done is true the victim either did the disarm wrong or didn't have any training.

Not to speak ill of the dead but outside of the obvious of carrying a gun, I can think of several things to do before going for the disarm.

[TCinVA]

We recently had a murder trial end with a life sentence in a armed robbery gone wrong. A executive was walking home one morning from a coffee shop when he was stalked by the robber. Apparently he was aware of this for when the robber approached him from behind and pointed the gun at him. The executive attempted a disarm by grabbing the gun and got shot. According to the robber, the gun discharged when he tried to pull away from the grab and if his description of the way the grab was done is true the victim either did the disarm wrong or didn't have any training.

Not to speak ill of the dead but outside of the obvious of carrying a gun, I can think of several things to do before going for the disarm.

"See, your honor, I accidentally shot that guy to death while I was attempting felony armed robbery! It was his fault for trying to take the gun!!!"

Can't imagine that went well for him in court.

[cutter]

Jury was out just long enough to go to the bathroom.

[JHC]

His friends from his motorcycle club Brothers of the Hammer sure speak highly of him (the deceased)