Are you going to hesitate to see if it was a BB or pellet gun? Silly question?
Nope.
(Though do not take that as support for our militarized police state)
No one can really know how they'll react in a situation like this, but I'd like to believe I would opt to evade the confrontation first as by seeking shelter behind a heavy object. That would afford me the few seconds I'd need to determine if the threat were real. If it was...
An armed society is a polite society...provided everyone is willing to shoot second
--Old School
Nope. Let them be surprised
Is there anything more surprising than an un-apolgetic leftist homo with a gun? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Pink Necks are ruthless
I am not that good with guns that I would be able to tell. I know that some of the pellet guns that shoot metal or plastic pellets are very real in appearance and unless you can see them close and clear you have no way to know. So in that circumstance I hope I would shoot and not freeze or be indecisive.
A normal healthy person with a BB gun doesn't walk down the street and get it out and point it at you. That's not something one would do. That's kind of like asking if I pretended to rob you but I wasn't going to and you ended up defending yourself would you still do it?
That's kind of called a prank gone terribly bad :)
BB and pellet guns can be just as deadly as any other firearm these days. Many are capable of delivering greater shock power than a 22 long-rifle round, sometimes much greater. (They "ain't" your Daisy Red Ryder anymore). In fact, hunting small and medium game with air guns has become a somewhat popular sport. (Check it out on Youtube sometime.)
Toys that look like weapons are required to have a red or orange tip on the barrel to clearly mark them as such. If someone removes that tip they do so at their own peril. (Although I'm surprised I haven't heard about a perpetrator reversing that and putting a red or orange tip on the end of a real firearm, but you can be certain that will happen one day in the not too distant future.)
So given that and the fact that courts have ruled that the perception of the "realness" of the firearm is in the eye of the person being threatened with it in such cases I would go with the old Pennsylvania State Police Academy mantra of "it's better to be tried by 12 than to be carried by 6" and shoot to kill in self defense.
ROTFLMAO!
Of course not.
thats why i dont carry guns
Laugh monkey, laugh. I look fabulous in leather with my Walther P99. Think Mad Max with swag, a cocktail with an embrella, and 4 French bull dogs that will eat the flesh from your anke.
Hello Chief:
"Appears" wouldn't be enough. I'd have to KNOW it was a gun. Could I be ambushed and killed? I spose so.
excon
If it were high noon in the Tuscon territory and the guy with the BB gun was Wyatt Earp...?
To answer your question... You must hesitate to determine if it was a BB gun or pellet gun... (especially if it meets the identification requirements for toy guns.)
"Concealed carry" has a huge responsibility attached with it.
Shoot first and ask questions later is an emotional response, not a legal or legitimate excuse to discharge a firearm.
Additionally, a "perceived threat" or undetermined "credible threat" must be proved in any self defense case. Saying "I thought it was a real weapon" will not hold up in court.
Additionally, the two most widely used charges brought against a gun owner who discharges a weapon (in most towns and cities) without clear cause are "breech of peace" and "discharge of a firearm within city/town limits", (In many jurisdictions where that law applies.) NOTE: Many cities across the nation, whose population exceeds thirty thousand people, have that precise law.
The smart thing to do is get out of harm's way. Yes you assume it's a firearm (no one pulls a 'gun' in public without it wanting to look like a gun at least).
If you can't find cover/ tackle the person and disarms him, you should draw your gun. If you open carry don't think twice. He's seen it.
"LIKE"
