You’ve probably already heard the story:
Gregory Alan Bush, a 51-year-old white man, was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and 10 counts of felony wanton endangerment, according to Wave 3 News. He reportedly walked into the supermarket in Jeffersontown—a suburb of Louisville—and fired multiple shots at one man before walking outside and firing more shots at a woman in the parking lot. Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers confirmed that both victims died at the scene.
[…]
The victims of the shooting have been identified as 69-year-old Maurice Stallard and 67-year-old Vicki Lee Jones, both of whom are black.
[…]
Ed Harrell, who was waiting in the parking lot for his wife, Elaine, to come out of the store, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that when he saw Bush exit the store with a gun in his hand, he pulled his own revolver, crouched beside his car and asked Bush what was going on.
“Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites,” Bush told him.
I just wonder what was in the mind of the gun fucker on the receiving end of the white brotherhood speech. These assholes fantasize about being in positions like this – after all, he felt the need to bring a gun to a grocery store. When presented with a chance to stop the bad guy with a gun, he chose not to even try. Hopefully it was cowardice. Better that than the alternative: perhaps he felt the gunman made a salient point.
Or maybe I’m being too judgmental. God knows I’d probably piss my pants and run for cover were I in that situation. And, well, I’m not too comfortable with guns. But I’d like to think if, gun in hand, I had the chance to kill a white supremacist on a shooting spree I’d pull the fucking trigger.
I don’t know how people think who bring a gun to a store. But I thought at least he would try to shoot the tires of the parked car that the murderer used. If he’s too afraid to do that, then he should get rid of his guns.
Sounds like he really didn’t know what was going on. Heard gunfire, saw a man with a gun in his hand, pulled his own, asked him “what’s going on?”, got a nonsensical answer. He didn’t know what had happened. Shooting someone just because they’re carrying a handgun would not be a good thing. This is a good reason to not carry a handgun. If several armed bystanders hear shooting, pull out handguns and start shooting other people with handguns just because they have handguns, it would not end well.
Yeah, definitely if you see a guy holding a gun, even if he’s not actively shooting anybody at the moment and you’re not totally sure what’s going on, you should just shoot him. After all, cops regularly do that in the U.S., and we so totally approve of that, right?
Just to be absolutely clear: you are fantasising, in writing, about shooting TO KILL another human who does not, at that point, pose a direct threat to you or your family? You fucking hypocrite.
I’m just glad you are the coward you say you are and therefore unlikely ever to be armed in such a situation.
To call it a “fantasy” is disingenuous as I do not ever wish to be in such a situation, nor did I use any language to indicate this is the case.
But if I had the chance to stop a white supremacist from mass killing (assuming I had good reason to think this), I’d like to think I’d try to do something. If I fucked up, or was wrong, then I’d have to deal with the consequences.
Um, sonofrojblake, did you miss the “on a shooting spree “part of that.
IOW someone already murdering other innocent people?
.. Stopping the killer from killing more people in immediate clear and present danger of doing so.
Saving lives by doing so.
Posted too soon sorry.
If I could stop a killer killing other people by killing him (& it almost always – not absolutely always but almost always – is a him.) then would I? I would. I hope I would if I could.
Because you know stopping a mass murder & saving some lives, kinda worth doing, yeah?
What scares me is how people assume they would have knowledge in this sort of situation.
I mean sure, I get the hypothetical situation and the assumption of unrealistically large amounts of situational knowledge and overall situational awareness. I’m fond of RPGs and many scenarios are written with the idea you’ll make these sorts of assumptions. They can actually break down if you don’t.
But in the real world you don’t know who is who. Where guns are involved the best you can do is ask everyone to stand down and wait for the cops and even that would volunteer you to be the next target if you’ve found an armed person who doesn’t want to do that (they may not be the “bad guy”, they could just be frightened and not thinking clearly but that still leaves you just as shot). The fallacy of perfect situational awareness is deadly.
Right on to everything you said. The distillation/reduction of the situation in my mind is imperfect, as is hypothetically inserting myself into it after the fact. I picture being in a parking lot, hearing multiple gunshots, seeing a scary ass looking white dude with a gun who proceeds to tell me “whites don’t kill whites,” and I think I might think that this motherfucker just shot non-white people and plans on doing more of it. But who knows? I have the benefit of hindsight and time to think about it and “hypothetical me” doesn’t. Imagining the circumstances that would lead me to carry a gun with me everywhere muddies the waters even further.
Things are so much simpler in my country: If you see someone carrying a gun in public and they aren’t wearing a uniform, you call 911.
To gain insight into the consequences, try reading The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell. The last chapter at least.
Whites don’t shoot whites, really? Could’ve fooled me. Someone doesn’t know their history.