slappahoe69 said:
Well, this is argument is, in essence about semantics. This argument is about some made up situation. You should have known that when you started running your mouth off.
To your point. Can you clarify for me: are you trying to say that a Police officer drawing a gun on a criminal with a hostage will cause him to panic and harm the hostage, but if a civillian draws a gun on the same criminal he will not?
well then you need to consider all the options instead of only what you think would happen.
look, i don't have time to go back and read every single page of this so i'm very sorry i didn't see what you and that other user were arguing about; i jumped in and all i saw was that it was about somebody threatening you with a gun (mugging, robbery, carjacking, etc.) since this is about gun rights, not "what would you do in this situation" i decided to weigh in with my two cents.
my point is this: in a dangerous situation such as that it would be generally safer if civilians on the scene were armed and able to help the victim. as someone's already stated, criminals won't even try to cause trouble in places where they know people are strapped. i'm not saying this calls for everyone and their 5 year olds to walk around with .44 magnums and have some kinda old west shootout if someone is being threatened with a gun. i'm just saying that if someone is being held up and you have a firearm handy, you can use it out of defense. nothing more or less.
to go into detail, imagine you're in a convenience store grabbin a monster or whatever, when suddenly a masked man comes in brandishing a pistol and shouting get on the floor. he might just immediately walk in, ice the guy behind the register before you can do anything and leave with the money (in that case he'd probably try to kill any witnesses,) but if you can tell what's happening and have a weapon of you're own on you can just shoot him and end the whole fracas instantly, before it begins.
but if he decides to take his chances threatening the clerk with a gun on them then you're in a hostage situation, at which point anything could happen to upset the balance and cause someone innocent to get hurt.
maybe an off duty police officer who drove in to get coffee and donuts gets wind of what's goin down and comes running from the parking lot to arrest the robber. now cops usually cause criminals to get nervous so you can imagine there'd probably be a shootout. the robber may fire on the clerk out of surprise.
if the police aren't already on the scene or if they're smart enough to call for backup, you're still in there with this guy who's pointing a gun at another human being and there's nothing you can do but wait. when the 5-0 does show up he's gonna get scared and use you as leverage.
however, had you been carrying a legal firearm, you could have discreetly pulled it on the robber while he was busy getting money from the clerk. if he's fast enough to get the money before any heat gets on him what's to stop him from shooting his victim anyway before he splits? same goes for someone with a knife out on the street like you suggested. sure, even if you had a knife of you're own it wouldn't do much good if he's already got you in a chokehold (or a gun to you're head.) but in either situation, an onlooker with a concealed weapon could easily take out the agressor. you could try to wrassle the offender's weapon from them, i dunno even try to sneak up behind them if they're not directly threatening you, but ask anyone who's been in a situation where they could get shot and they'll tell you they were paralyzed with fear.
the thing is that no one is gonna mess with you if they know you're strappin heat. guns give people power. see the pattern here? the difference between being armed and unarmed is that you have the power to do something, that's the whole entire reasoning behind having gun rights: taking justice into your own hands.
jk 
