XavierP, if you knew that the woman who just shot you in the chest with a dart.. from a car... was going to shoot that little girl jumping rope down the street too, would you stop her?

I wouldn't be depending on anyone else; I am a good enough shot. Beyond that, given a moving vehicle, the time for any properly equipped bystander to figure out what was happening and decide to intervene would be long enough that the perp would get away.

What would revenge have to do with it? And what's this either/or dichotomy? Returning fire is both self-defense AND defense of others.

Self defense, why? Because I don't know what I've been shot with. The perp knows. In the likely case that the perp isn't killed the perp can tell - which could be what is required to save my life since lab tests take time. Even if the perp is killed, there will be useful evidence in the perp's vehicle or home - again, possibly saving my life since lab tests take time.

Defense of others is obvious; this person is randomly driving around shooting people with darts. Shoot 'em and it'll stop.

And, if that person was merely shooting people to hear them go "ouch"...well...sucks for them, but they shouldn't have been doing that.

I will also point out that open carry of firearms is legal in 47 out of 50 states in the US, and in at least 35 of those states, no permit is required. Also, it is a growing trend in this country to do just that, though the frequency varies according to the location.

Where I live, I frequently see armed citizens on the streets and in the stores and restaurants. And, to my certain knowledge, far more are carrying concealed than are carrying in view. For myself, I felt no need to carry openly (or at all) until recently. I started thinking about it when a group of my friends were killed en masse a couple of months back, and I started carrying openly after another incident occurred which convinced me that I was subject to being randomly attacked just because I'm a motorcyclist. It is my expectation that having a weapon in plain view will deter practically all who might so choose, and for the very few who won't be deterred, it'll give me a chance.

They are two different situations. The second is more realistic (ironically, given that we are discussing a real situation) - unless the woman is driving around with her unloaded blow dart gun (a tube, I'd guess) hanging out of the window you have no knowledge of who shot you. Which means an armed man is now running down the street threatening women in cars. How long do you think you would last? Also, you have no way of knowing whether you have been poisoned or not - the time you spend scaring innocent people is time that paramedics need to try to save our life. So assuming no one else shoots you, you could be dead before the ambulance can find you.

The second, tragic, situation is one where I would advocate legally carrying and preparing to use a weapon. There is a clear danger there. You have my sympathy for the loss of your friends.

Again, according to the article, at least one person saw the perp doing it. Quite obviously, an armed citizen could only return fire if he knew where to return fire to, exactly. You would NEVER see me running down the street waving a gun; I'd either return fire immediately because I saw where the attack came from, or I wouldn't return fire at all, because I wouldn't know where to aim.

As for the second situation, the man who mowed my friends down was driving a large truck while high on methamphetamine, and he mowed down a line of motorcycles (and an SUV, a pickup truck, and a car) that were stopped at a red light. I have studied the situation carefully, and I'm convinced he did it on purpose. I presume that he was experiencing methamphetamine psychosis, but that is certainly no excuse for killing four people and severely injuring five others. He is in jail on a million dollars bond, awaiting trial on four counts of manslaughter, six of aggravated assault, and a raft of lesser charges. It made the national news in the States.

He is in jail, and he won't be getting out. But he isn't the only one out there.

Fair enough (and glad to hear it!) I still think that getting medical help is more important - if you saw who did it you need to be alive to identify them, if you didn't see who did it you need to stay alive.

However, we can keep batting around what-ifs all night and until either of us is in the situation it's all hypothetical.

I agree and jail is the best place for him. Lots of bikers in there no doubt....

I'm left handed. Gun on left hip. Draw, fire, holster. Cellphone in right pants pocket. Pull out, dial 911. Time lost to stop perp before calling for help: 5 seconds.

Quite true. But, actually, considering hypotheticals is a valid training exercise. When you think it through in advance, you're better prepared if it actually happens.

Lets not forget the prison part.

Truth be told, this sort of situation would be a very tough call. If the victim was close enough to the vehicle, and traffic permitted the victim to rush to the rear of the vehicle so a shot at the drivers area would be a straight one with little need for deflection, then a shot could definitely be made (and indeed this is the behavior of LE Officers) as seen in this video, and justifications could be made upon inspection of the perps vehicle by the LE officers coupled with injuries and testimony from the victim.


There are, as always, considerations to be made.

I suppose this is irrelevant, but it seems that a lot of people perceive bikers through the lens of "Easy Rider" and "Rebel Without A Cause", and such like outlaw movies.

Clyde was killed. Cmdr. Clyde Nachand, USN (ret). Holder of the Navy Cross (for valor in combat). Dayle was killed. She was a teacher at a local institute. Was into yoga and a lot of new age stuff. Very very sweet woman. Dan was killed. He was a Linux sysadmin. Steve was killed. He sold medical instrumentation. Ernie is still in the hospital. He is a captain in the Phoenix fire department. Julie is out of the hospital and in a wheelchair. She won't be walking for a long time. She is a Unix sysadmin. Jason is in a wheelchair and won't be walking for awhile. He is badly traumatized mentally and emotionally. He is a registered nurse. The others...are just folks.

For that matter, I'm a physicist and I work as a rather highly paid consultant. I had originally planned to be with them that day, but I didn't go because I needed to get some work done.

Dan saw the truck coming at the last second, and pushed the guy beside him (Will) off his bike. Will was the one person to walk away from the crash. Dan went under the truck.

We all like to be out in the wind rather than inside a cage. So we're dirty bikers; run us down.

http://mcawarenessridephx.myevent.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Worldwide-Moto...wareness-Ride/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD3pD...layer_embedded

That sucks, man.. My brother rides too, and I've gotten to know plenty of bikers. Never known any that had been shot after I met them, but have lost a few due to careless drivers.

I think that riding a bike on the road is dangerous for more than one reason, you do take your chances. I say switch to dirt bikes and go off road.