Would you take the shot?

No.

That was my gut response…

Without reserve, yes I could. But it doesn’t mean that I would.

I’d shoot to disable, not kill.

Yes.

Wait…it would depend entirely on the situation. Is the guy getting ready to shoot the other guy and good guy defending himself, or a bad guy?

Right with @Seek_Kolinahr
Shoot to disable, even though I am not a gun fan at all.
Also what @Dutchess_III said, if it was a bad guy shooting another bad guy I vote for shooting them both. lol

It depends on who that person is shooting. It could be a sniper protecting the president. Buut with the info given, I’m with Kolinar. I think I’m confident enough with firearms and know enough physiology to pull that off. Stephen King addresses this in his book 11/22/63. If I knew there was a presidential mortorcade coming through and I saw a guy set up behind a bunch of boxes in a warehouse at a window over the street with his trigger on the finger, I would definitely shoot to kill. Even if it was Reagan or Nixon coming through. We don’t need any more years of fallout—all the cynicism and instability. No question of taking him out, and let the chips fall where they may.

Shooting to disable is pretty much pure Hollywood. It’s not practical or advisable in real life. If you aim for a leg or an arm the chances that you miss are pretty high even if you’re a marksman. And missing such a shot greatly increases the chances that you might hit an innocent bystander (this is why police are trained to aim for the torso). Even if you do hit your mark there’s no assurance that the wound won’t be fatal. Never shoot at anything you’re not prepared to kill. If you’re not ready for that or don’t think you can live with that on your conscious then don’t pull the trigger.

No.

Ponder this: You see someone taking aim at a potential victim. Someone sees you take aim and they take aim at you. And on and on like the reflections in two mirrors. Everyone thinks they are preventing an innocent from been killed. Assessing the situation correctly can be extremely difficult.

@Darth_Algar You are wrong. There are plenty of fine marksmen that can do this, they just aren’t found on police departments. Not long ago, a couple of guys robbed a business, a coffee house I think, near Times Square. Long story short, they ran out into the street where a bunch of cops were standing around. The bad guys panicked and fired on the cops. Eleven cops shot back from an average distance of 20 feet, firing over 50 rounds. Nobody was hit on either side, but a female civilian caught one in the ankle. Most cops don’t take their time on the firing range seriously, and most retire without ever firing their weapon while on duty. Don’t ever use cops as examples of marksmanship. Unless there is a punch line.

Gun safety class always said observe a situation where a person is holding a gun on another. And use that time to evaluate. The gun holder be a plain clothes policeman or someone else.

Make sure you have a shot and make sure no one is danger of being shot should you miss.

The shoot to disable thing is a terrible idea. Even marksman will be affected by stress under those circumstances. I’m with Darth and the others on that front.

But no I don’t think I could do it. I mean I might I just don’t know. So I never carry a gun. I took the classes learned how to shoot and I am all for gun rights. I like them more hunting and personal protection. Still I have never even killed an animal. And don’t carry a weapon you can’t use is a pretty basic rule.

@Espiritus_Corvus What you typed there in no way debunks anything I said.

@Darth_Algar Well, OK then.

I’d aim for their gut, which means i’d probably hit their genitals…i’m English, we don’t do guns.
There’s no way I could stab anybody though, to actually feel the blade pierce flesh, ewwwww!
Maybe I could just tap them repeatedly on the head with a toffee hammer until they were sufficiently incapacitated.

@Espiritus_Corvus You need to go back and carefully re-read what I posted.

If I determined they were actually a threat yes.

Let me be abundantly clear:

Yes, I am aware that any gun fired at any time can cause death. That’s why I’m generally against carrying a firearm. However, the question did not give me the option of not having a gun.

In the situation posted, during which my pulling the trigger is the only way to prevent one person firing on another, assuming that this is someone I want to save (and not, say, a police officer about to fire on a person holding a child hostage or some equally improbable circumstance), I would be willing to fire. However I would not be willing to intentionally take a life for any reason. There are a great many parts of the body in which one can be struck without causing death before medical intervention is possible. My hope would be to hit one of those areas, and then immediately call emergency services. Of course there is no guarantee a bullet wouldn’t travel or spread, but that would not be my goal.

The end-game is to save a life, not to end one.

My first impulse is to say “no because I’m not risking jail when I can call the cops”, but then your question says he was ‘preparing to shoot someone else’, so @Seek_Kolinahr answer is the only one I could personally condone as non-law enforcement and non-military.

Now amend that to my family or a child and no hesitation, I’d shoot to kill.

@KNOWITALL makes a very good point. Who is this hypothetical “someone else” ??

If it’s a certain former president from Texas, I hold both palms up in a non-verbal question to the shooter….

“Well…..what are you waiting for…..?”

Sorry, @ETpro, I hate guns and gun questions.

@OneBadApple lol, point taken.
I will make no comments about any Presidents past or current…hahahaha!

Aww, I’m just kidding. I’m sure that many Americans would STILL like to have a beer with W.

I am just not one of them….

Yes

Depends on so many things. And even if we went through all the possible scenarios, you still don’t know what you would do in that moment.

That being said, I’d agree with @Seek_Kolinahr. Shoot to disarm, with the understanding that it may have other results. Like she said, intention matters to me. Killing someone (even if they’re not a good person) would suck. But I’d rather live with unintentionally killing someone than intentionally letting someone die.

Too many unknowns and the chances of me having a rifle are vanishingly small.

depends on who is about to shoot/be shot.

OK, I’m about to shoot…somebody. What do you do @ragingloli?

I shall watch.

@OneBadApple Shit, I disagreed with just about everything he did while in office and I’d still have a beer with him. Politics aside I bet that dude can be a riot to hang out with.

Well maybe, but I suspect that you would be laughing more at him than with him….

@OneBadApple Ether way lulz are had.

I think that was actually the official White House motto during his administration.

Hubs the hunter says it would vary greatly by situation but not many of us walk around packing a rifle. How do you know

I am cracking up, realizing I just thought to myself, Aww thats sweet, rags wouldn’t shoot Dutchess.

I think I’d want to take the shot, but I’m not sure if I could go through with it. Besides, I’m terrible with scopes and would probably shoot wild unless I had a shotgun and the guy was standing utterly still and within range.

Thanks and GAs for all who responded. I could have set up a scenario like an obvious assassination plot, or a completely ambiguous situation where the shooter might be an undercover police officer doing his job. I deliberately did not. I salute all who at least took time to ponder which might be the case, and specified when they would and wouldn’t act. I won’t argue with any of you. It’s a highly personal decision, and there are no wrong answers.

Personally, if I were certain that the shooter was preparing to kill and innocent (say I was on the motorcade route and saw Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas Book Depository window aiming at the President’s car, or I was at Sandy Hook Elementary School and saw Adam Lanza dressed in camo and heavily armed shooting his way into the school’s front door) I’d take the shot in a heartbeat. I would shoot to kill. Anything less, and you may just leave a madman further enraged.

Wow. Raggy wouldn’t kill me!

@ETpro do you own a hand gun or any guns?

@fredTOG I don’t make a habit of revealing online what firepower someone nutcase might face should they trouble themselves to use the Internet to find me and try to silence me. I’d prefer to let them discover what level of force they may face when they try it.

@ETpro GA, I feel exactly the same. :) Let it be a surprise….lol

I don’t have any guns!!! But I have a German shepherd.