That's good, if you've understood what's going on before you rush in.
On the other hand, it's fairly common that when LEOs arrive on the scene of a confrontation, they
often apprehend the wrong person and
sometimes shoot the wrong person. They do this not because they are fools, but because they are not omniscient -- that is, they don't know everything when they first arrive on scene. If they did not see the situation begin, if they do not
know the players involved, if they did not see what led up to the confrontation, it is not at all unlikely that they will confront, apprehend, or shoot the
wrong person.
Whether it's done by a cop or by a regular citizen,
attacking the wrong person is a tragedy. It isn't something to take lightly. It isn't something to blow off with the presumption that even though others in the past might make such a mistake, nobody
like us would ever do that.
It is rather a cold shower of a wake up call, the sort of thing that sends shivers down the spine of any thoughtful and compassionate person -- especially one who believes in saving innocent life and protecting the helpless.
Spend a little time with a search engine and you'll discover that there are a lot of smart, compassionate, courageous people who
killed the wrong person (or simply
shot the wrong person, or
arrested the wrong person, or
tackled the wrong person) in part because they simply could not bring themselves to fully believe that this sort of thing could in fact happen to them. And the people around them -- people they meant to
save! -- paid dearly for their mistake.
By the way, I'm not talking about the sort of mistake where the good guy misses his intended target and strikes a bystander. I'm talking about the sort of mistake where the good guy simply does not know the backstory, and makes an assumption about what is going on. For instance
- a beautiful, nicely-dressed young lady wrestling with a scruffy looking male while she screams, "HELP! RAPE!!!" Clear cut? Maybe. Or maybe he's a plainclothes vice squad cop arresting a high end hooker.
- a large man standing behind the counter at a stop-n-rob, holding a gun pointed at a bloody, sobbing person lying on the floor at his feet. Clear cut? Maybe. Or maybe the guy with the gun is a good citizen just like you, who intervened to save the clerk's life from an attacker, and the sobbing person at his feet was in fact the attacker.
- a child struggling against an adult male, screaming "You're NOT my daddy!" as the man tries to stuff the child into a vehicle. Clear cut? Maybe. Or maybe it's the kid's stepdad, and the kid is simply having a melt down for some other reason.
In every one of these situations, a decent, honorable, courageous person with a firearm would be tempted to intervene to "stop the aggressor." And in every one of them, a reasonable and prudent person would make certain assumptions about who the aggressor actually is. And in every one of them, there's a chance that a truly innocent person will be badly injured or killed if that good samaritan gets the backstory wrong.
And there it is again. There are good people on both sides of this discussion, and I do believe personal attacks are against forum rules here anyway.
Offending a jury isn't the worry.
Killing the wrong person is the concern.
But you knew that.
pax