London beheading

[Berks_Iraq_Vet]

I believe that was a joke, for the rookie, that he wasn't quite meant to understand but for the vets to snicker at?

I was being rhetorical and sarcastic. Next time, I'll ##sarcasm off##.

[SwampFoxZ71]

so you come across two guys "attacking" another man, you shoot one, he goes down, the other turns to you with a look of crazy!
The guy getting "attacked" stands up, shoots the second guy and runs off?
You then discover you shot the guy who was defending him self from the guy you THOUGHT was the victim.

Unless you are absolutely sure, it's a bit of a coin toss as to where you'll end up.
Now in this case it seemed pretty clear what was going on, but I'm more referring to the general OP question

So do as the New York police would and shoot all three???

[Kchristy]

So do as the New York police would and shoot all three and ten innocent bystanders that happened to be walking nearby.???

There, fixed it for ya.

Interesting...longer length video than I had seen before

[bodymangt]

This should be under the International forum.

And if this happened here in front of me and I was carrying, I would, without question or hesitation, send these two shitbags straight to hell.

without a doubt or a second thought !
i was amazed at how many just kinda watched or tried to ignore it , but then, in england your only allowed a shotgun . an they say we need gun control ...........yeah ........... more like lunitic control .

[tl_3237]

Not sure exactly where to pose this, so thought this would be the appropriate place. Hope it already hasn't been posed...

Just curious about the recent beheading incident in London. Purely hypothetical, but if an incident took place like this in a town/city/state where a citizen was legally able to carry, whether OC or CC, in the U.S. would that citizen be able to make a citizen’s arrest or actually confront the attacker? In doing so if the citizen was attacked, would they be able to defend their self with lethal force?

Seems like most of the people in the videos I saw were almost kind of going about their business or just standing there dumbfounded. I saw a woman pushing a baby carriage across the street almost like it was just another walk across the street.

Curious as to what the correct response would be in this type of situation? I mean I know what I think I would be expected to do, but just not sure.

Intervention under 18 Pa CS 506 would apply during the assault and before the murder assuming all its prerequisites are present.

As to citizen's arrest during or afterwards:

A private person in fresh pursuit of one who has committed a felony may arrest without a warrant. Commonwealth v. Micuso, 273 Pa. 474, 117 A. 211 (1922); Commonwealth v. Long, 17 Pa. Superior Ct. 641 (1901); 2 Trickett, The Law of Crimes in Pennsylvania 683 (1908). And in Pennsylvania we have always followed the common law rule that if the felon flees and his arrest cannot be effected without killing him, the killing is justified. See Commonwealth v. Micuso, supra; 2 Trickett, supra. We hasten to note that before the use of deadly force is justified the private person must be in fresh pursuit of the felon and also must give notice of his purpose to arrest for the felony if the attending circumstances are themselves insufficient to warn the felon of the intention of the pursuing party to arrest him.

The common law principle that a killing necessary to prevent the escape of a felon is justifiable developed at a time when the distinction between felony and misdemeanor was very different than it is today.[1] Statutory expansion of the class of felonies has made the common law rule manifestly inadequate for modern law.[2] Hence, the need for a change or limitation in the rule is indicated. We therefore hold that from this date forward the use of deadly force by a private person in order to prevent the escape of one who has 174*174 committed a felony or has joined or assisted in the commission of a felony is justified only if the felony committed is treason, murder, voluntary manslaughter, mayhem, arson, robbery, common law rape, common law burglary, kidnapping, assault with intent to murder, rape or rob, or a felony which normally causes or threatens death or great bodily harm.[3] We also note that for the use of deadly force to be justified it remains absolutely essential, as before, that one of the enumerated felonies has been committed and that the person against whom the force is used is the one who committed it or joined or assisted in committing it. Commonwealth v. Duerr, 158 Pa. Superior Ct. 484, 45 A. 2d 235 (1946). If the private citizen acts on suspicion that such a felony has been committed, he acts at his own peril. For the homicide to be justifiable, it must be established that his suspicion was correct.

Commonwealth v. Chermansky, 430 Pa. 170 - Pa: Supreme Court 1968

[fortysix]

Someone posted a video here some months back about this very question. It was a staged incident, where a man in an elevator was beating another man. The elevator would open, and random people's reactions to seeing the scene were filmed. Were you witnessing one person murdering another? Were you witnessing a person defending himself from another? Was it something else?

There was a woman who went to the man's defense (she didn't know he was already dead), she sat by him and spoke to the two muslim pieces of shit, apparently reasoning with them, long enough for the police to arrive.

It does give you pause, what do you do if you come upon that situation, but miss part of the story? In this case, it might be fairly clear, two on one, meat cleavers in hand, body hacked to pieces. But it might not.

I always revert to assessing the situation as best as possible in the little time provided, then if necessary (and safe, and with possibility of being effective) get involved, to the tune of acting with the lowest amount of violence required. Killing someone doesn't come with an undo button, and if you missed the first part of the story, you might be a murderer who killed a hero. These days with cameras rolling everywhere, you can be sure that the role you play will be recounted in court over and over. If you can disarm them, or wound them, even if you're wrong, you're not a murderer, just wrong.

As others mentioned, the gun you carry is in theory for your own self-defense at minimum, and in most cases involving others, your best first action is to assess and get the authorities involved.

[phill]

At least a double digit percentage of the people on this forum would never stand for that, no matter what. Gun or no gun.

I would like to think that most of us would do what we felt was the right thing. After living with me for 50 yrs. the wife still can not understand why I feel the need to level the playing field if possible. She says that sooner or later what I like to call command presence will let me down. Until it does I will continue to be the sheep dog and will never become one of the sheep.

Ungawa sorry the rep. police say that I need to spread it around.

[wanneroo]

without a doubt or a second thought !
i was amazed at how many just kinda watched or tried to ignore it , but then, in england your only allowed a shotgun . an they say we need gun control ...........yeah ........... more like lunitic control .

Yes you can own a shotgun but pretty much you only have access to birdshot.

You can also own AR15's, Steyr AUG's, etc but they have to be converted to straight pull bolts and the gun has to be racked for each shot. These are hard but not impossible to get.

When it comes down to it there is really no provision under UK law for self defense or intervening in such a situation and if there is it certainly is not enforced as there are plenty of people in UK jails for defending themselves and others, especially with a firearm.

There is a shred of hope. I have quite a few friends and acquitances in the UK and I have seen a change in attitudes over the years as people realize being sheep is not the way to go. The barbarians are nearing the gate and the next few years is going to determine how all this ends up.

[TaePo]

This would be one of the rare instances (when I was not sure who started what or if the person needing defended caused the use of deadly forced to be used against him, so that he had no right to a self-defense exception) where I would give up my element of surprise.

Command the combatants to cease/desist and drop all weapons. If there is no complying then I would consider use of deadly force until it totally stops. In the one what-if scenario where the disadvantaged man would then shoot the remaining assailant, then I would consider them next if they did not immediately stop after another warning.

This, anyway, is what I hope I would do to sort it out somewhat and stop further escalation without actually firing, if possible.

On the other hand, if I saw the whole thing and knew who started what, I would not give up the element of surprise by playing cop. Even if the 'victim' had started a deadly force scenario earlier, this is a separate incident and no one has a right to just kill someone when they see them again. This assumes they are not affecting an arrest as well which one would know if they saw the latest incident from the beginning.

IANAL and this is what I hope I could think through in a high intensity situation.

[crlovel]

W(here)-T-F is the "International Forum"??

Keep looking, you'll find it!