Should you help?

[Chuck]

oddbod, I hope you've also bought the Insurance to go with the skills should you need to use them...Happy Shooting.

[Oddbod]

oddbod, I hope you've also bought the Insurance to go with the skills should you need to use them...Happy Shooting.

Kinda moot when the chances of ever having a legal handgun in the UK are somewhere between sod all & never. :cool2:

[IainWR]

And if you are invoking the personal defence / defence of others areas of the law, I don't think insurance matters. Either you are justified and walk, or you aren't and go to jail. In the first, there is no liability, in the second, there is no cover.

Iain

[Chuck]

Oddbod: oops I had you pegged for a more free country - my mistake.

Ian, justified or not you will still need insurance. In the UK you would need insurance to cover costs of getting free and a decent lawyer. In the US, I am told it costs around $65,000 in defence costs for every round fired in self defence. Someone somewhere will want to jail you for doing the right thing.

Better to have and not need etc....

[Scotsgun]

The whole thread is flawed. Spend all the time debating morals, what you would and wouldn't have and legalities you wish. The fact is that until you're in such an incident and some nutter is bearing down on you, you have no idea what you'll do. Sometimes it's the smallest, quietest bloke that stands and fights.

I also can't see a reason to criticize the Police. I personally think they used much more self control and reasoning than I would; they tried to reason with them and only incapacitated them when forced. Personally I'd have just slotted the f***.

[SevenSixTwo]

The difficulty with this scenario is perception.

The soldier was mown down with a car. Few people would have actually seen this happening.

Then, you maybe perceive two "regular guys" jumping out of the car and attempting to help the person they've just ran over.

By the time you'd realised what was actually going on (if at all) the victim would quite possibly already be dead. You would only have had seconds to 'intervene' in order to save his life (again; if you had actually realised what they were doing).

Once the assailants had finished their attack you could no longer legally use deadly force ~ and then you could do so only if they were heading towards you and were posing a serious danger to yourself or others.

A court would probably argue that, as a bystander (not law enforcement), you could simply have ran away.

I find it hard to believe that anyone 'carrying' (let alone trained law enforcement) could have prevented poor Lee's death.

#RIP

[Chuck]

A reasonable argument SevenSixTwo

A court would probably argue that, as a bystander (not law enforcement), you could simply have ran away.

And that is where the courts and victims'r'us get seriously stupid.

How many on here could outrun a fit young guy hell bent on killing them. In fact how many on here could actually run ANY distance? Also running away, just what the attackers want...that in itself could make a difference too. Thrill of the hunt before the kill - of you.

[$harp$hooter]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing however as has been stated these things happen, at times when the victim/public aren't expecting it and the only people who know what is going to happen are those hell bent on killing someone.

Given the circumstances as SevenSixTwo said, before you even realise what has happened its all too late and you can do nothing but be a bystander. Anyone who at that point, after realising what these two maniacs had done tried to physically intervene would be foolish and most probably killed themselves.

It's one thing to think that you would intervene at the time of the event to prevent the loss of life to another human, but after the act has been done I personally would not get involved unless I was defending myself, my family or someone else who may be being attacked.

As for the response of the police I think their professionalism was outstanding and the response was what should be expected. I was down in Woolwhich/Sydenham the week prior with work and it took me 1.5 hours to travel about 7 miles so for the ARU to get there in under 10 minutes was brilliant.

As for the question of CCW - if I had the right to own and carry a CCW i would, and given the adequate training would be prepared to use it to prevent the loss of life to another but the lovely handgun controls we have make this nigh on impossible and I don't see a repeal coming any time soon.

[Sim G]

S3 Criminal Law Act 1967

Use of force in making arrest,

(1)A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.



"A person" That does mean only Constables. It means ANY person.

[Chuck]

S3 Criminal Law Act 1967

Use of force in making arrest,

(1)A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.

"A person" That does mean only Constables. It means ANY person.

OK Sim, never any reason to doubt your knowledge so pray tell me why so many times when someone catches and holds a thief / makes a citizens arrest till the police come they then get done for unlawful imprisonment or some such charge. just curious? What's the difference here?

AHH, is the operative word "assisting" by any chance?