Subject. One that owes allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by his laws. The natives of Great Britain are subjects of the British government. Men in free governments are subjects as well as citizens; as citizens they enjoy rights and franchises; as subjects they are bound to obey the laws. The term is little used, in this sense, in countries enjoying a republican form of government.

The subject is ruled by the “fiat” of an occupational class.

The only issue with him shooting the guy without warning would be if he didn’t even have a gun or a real gun. Sure he might be in the right technically, but the wrong DA would send him to jail, or he could lose his job.

1) Do you wind up drawing fire from the cop because he thinks you’re Bad Guy’s accomplice? If not, why not? (That includes off duty/non-uniformed LEOs).

2) What will be left of your life after The Only Ones get through interrogating and brutalizing you? They certainly will confiscate your gun, investigate you to the Nth degree and generally disapprove of you invading their turf.

3) Since one never – and I mean never says word one to cops without one’s lawyer present and leading the way verbally, what will be the dollar hit you suffer for legal fees?

1. If the cop could have prevented the robber from deciding to rob, he would have. Therefore, all effects of the robbery are the responsibility of the perpetrator.

2. However, a well-trained warrior is aware that they draw fire and tries to stay on top of what they’re drawing fire into.

A really well-trained warrior will use the enemy’s fire as a weapon. For example, choosing cover or approaches so that the shots are directed to attract the attention of armed allies.

Consciously trying to use the enemy’s fire to your advantage unavoidably makes the warrior aware of their choices, and therefore of what isn’t their choice and thus isn’t their responsibility.

In this case, were there several avenues the gunman could have attacked from? Or only one? If several, the time available to direct the gunman’s fire is between announcement and when he finished the kneeling movement.

Come to think, I hope he got those switched in order. Take cover, then announce, if you must announce.

According to this account, that alone would likely have improved the outcome. Announcing gave the robber time to react. If instead the cop is in position, gun already trained, the cop can fire the instant the robber starts raising his weapon.

1) Carry your gun. Always, every time.

2) Carry spare ammo. As much of it as you can. Test every mag you carry. Practice with speed loaders.

3) Carry a spare gun, if you can.

4) Your spouse/partner/significant other should (hopefully) be trained and at least minimally skilled with your carry gun and backup.

5) As a non-LEO you are not a cop or security guard – you carry a gun to protect your life and the lives of your family. Your life and theirs are the first and only priority. Unless facing a direct and immediate threat to life or safety, do not attempt to prove you’re a better shot than the bad guy.

6) There may be more than one bad guy, and he/she may be posing as “just another customer.” Don’t tip your hand.

7) Never enter a walled or confined structure without establishing an exit plan, which may require being choosy about where you sit. In this case the LEO should have noticed the locked fire exit. If you cannot establish a good exit plan, leave. There are lots of restaurants.

8) Have a flashlight. If the lights go out you’ll need it to escape. Use it sparingly – a single light in a dark room attracts attention. And sometimes bullets.

9) If the poop hits the fan, imitate the wallpaper (see #5) and look for a way to execute your escape plan.

10) Stay alert. In lines, blade away from the counter to monitor entrances/exits, shift position to monitor 360 degrees, use reflections (glass, etc.) to see around you, around corners, etc.

11) If something doesn’t look right, leave. Leave now. There are lots of restaurants and other stores to shop in.

12) Spouses, and children, once they become old enough to understand, should be trained to follow parent’s instructions without hesitation. When Mom or Dad says “we’re leaving right now” (use of an “emergency” code word is a useful addition) Johnny or Susie should get up and go with the parent without discussion. This needs to be a family training issue, and the younger the child the harder it will be.

13) Spouses should have non-verbal signals for emergency situations. This means they have to have implicit trust in each other; if the instruction is to “leave right now” and your partner says “But Johnny hasn’t finished his hamburger” that’s something you need to work on. That trust goes both ways – either one of you may have seen something warranting an immediate exit. If it turns out to be nothing you can always go back in.

14) Spouses/significant others/friends/children should be trained to not say things like “Dad, you’ve got a gun, why don’t you stop/shoot him?” It may be quite prudent to not let others (non-spouse, friends) know you’re carrying.

It is also too bad he made some of the statements he did before going through a complete and successful course of treatment for PTSD. For him to believe that anything he did caused that little girls death is a shame; it happened and he was in no way the cause of it. Remember, I said there have been a lot of “what ifs”, well I just would just ask you to consider what iffing this along these lines: What if he let the guy go and the guy walked into another place and killed three kids, and four adults during the course of another robbery? Or, what if he let the guy go and the guy grabbed one of the cops kids as a shield and later killed the officer’s own child? Who would be at fault in either of those situations – would it have been the officer? You can bet that after the fact the officer would have thought so, just as he thought he was at fault after the death of the little girl. You see, it can be what iffed all the way through the end of this century and we can second guess the officer and he can second guess himself, the thing is he did not kill or cause to be killed that little child. The bad guy was the cause, no one else, and it was at the moment that he decided he was going to go out to rob that McDonald’s that he started to make things go wrong.

All the best,
Glenn B