Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site enmasse.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!enmasse!mroddy 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 References: <121@cadre.UUCP> <387@crystal.UUCP> Organization: Enmasse Computer Corp., Acton, Mass. Lines: 21 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.