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From: mroddy@enmasse.UUCP (Mark Roddy)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: NYC subway hero
Message-ID: <253@enmasse.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 10:10:26 EST
Article-I.D.: enmasse.253
Posted: Wed Jan  2 10:10:26 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jan-85 04:38:17 EST
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Xref: watmath net.legal:1183 net.politics:6561

> ..... but it seems to me that a person
> with a gun should be able to dissuade someone with a screwdriver from robbing
> him/her without killing four people, unless the four were real idiots and
> persisted in their attack even after the gun was produced and perhaps even
> after one or more them were shot.
	
	1. No one was killed.
	2. It's easy to second guess this fellow, he should have done this
	or that, whatever. I suspect that in a crisis situation like being
	mugged, ones actions are not entirely rational.
	3. He was certainly wrong for leaving the scene. He is a criminal,
	in that his gun was not licensed. Under New York law he will
	be going to jail for a year.
	4. There is a fine line between self-defense and vigilantism(sp?),
	which seems to have been confused here. If a person resists a
	criminal attack on ones person or property, that person acts within
	the law. If, however, a person, after the fact, attacks, or
	seeks to punish the perpetrator(s), then that is taking the
	law into one's own hands. You can shoot the robber in the act
	of robbing, but you  can't decide afterwards to go out and 
	find the creep and shoot him.