P-64 in news article

truth · Post by **truth** » March 17th, 2007, 10:57 pm

Amen, on that note. You handled it Man To Man...

gunneyrabbit · Post by **gunneyrabbit** » March 18th, 2007, 1:59 pm

This took place in my own back yard. Oregon's roads and high ways are full of trucks and the truckers that are no more immune to road rage than any other person on the move. I've seen these guys PO'd at each other and playing chicken on the free way. If the trucker got out of his rig it wasn't just to scratch his rear end. He was on his way to make a point and the size of the auto driver obviously didn't intimidate him. He had to see that the other fellow was not going to be a victim before he tucked his tail between his legs and ran like a little girl to his cell phone to call the local officials. I'm more concerned about our rights to bare arms in the defense of our own person. If the auto driver feared for his life and is going to be punished for trying to protect him self, what good are our carry permits? Would the trucker have reacted the same way if the auto driver showed him his carry permit? Probably not, more than likely he would have just gone about his ill conceived plan of getting a little pay back for some perceived insult. I'll try to fallow this and keep every one informed about the results........................... G.R.
P.S. Hello Steve, it's good to read your input and I couldn't agree more about those three trailer rigs, I treat them like a plague..........................G.R.

redfestiva · Post by **redfestiva** » March 18th, 2007, 2:22 pm

I think the deal breaker here is that he brandished the weapon because the driver was approaching his car. That in itself is not a lethal reaction situation. He should have had weapon ready but not raised and through a cracked glass told the guy to get back if he was hostile. The second the trucker broke the glass he could have used the lethal force for being in fear of his safety. If the guy just started kicking his auto or screaming or the like, he could have called the police himself with the truckers liscense number and the trucker would have been the one defending himself in court.

nbender · Post by **nbender** » March 18th, 2007, 2:41 pm

Exactly Red. Just because someone is approaching you and you know they're mad at you is no excuse to intimidate with a pistol. In fact, I believe it's against the law unless the trucker had some sort of weapon, broke his door, or otherwise escalated it to a point where the car driver's life was threatened. I don't think pistols should ever be used as a threat. If you are in a situation where your life is clearly in danger, use the thing, don't wave it.

nbender · Post by **nbender** » March 18th, 2007, 2:56 pm

Thirty years ago I was the Foreman of a jury deciding a case somewhat similar. A landlord was getting stiffed by his rentor. He saw him driving and followed him the the rental house. The landlord was a big guy and lifted weights, the renter was pretty small, and there had been bad blood building between the two for some time.

They both pulled up to the house and the renter ran inside with the landlord coming up the sidewalk. The renter appeared on the porch in a flash with a pistol in his hand and told the landlord he was going to blow him away, get down on your knees, etc.

He was arrested for brandishing a firearm. The jury members presented good arguments on both sides. I've thought about the case for thiry years. We let him go, and I don't think we made the right decision. I remember one tough old Alaskan fisherman, a quiet guy who I came to respect a lot, who said: "I'd rather take a beating than pull a gun". I know a lot of you don't feel that way and I'm not trying to lecture anyone. Like I said, there were good arguments made on both sides. But I think in this case, as in the case of the trucker/car driver, the person with the pistol was not clearly in a life-threatening situation. That's when I believe the use of a gun is justified, and then you use it.

anjdrifter · Post by **anjdrifter** » March 18th, 2007, 4:04 pm

GrayFox,
I grew up in a very rural area, The lower Eastern Shore of Virginia.
As Back wards as it gets; I understand, very well, what it is like to take one to task for his or her actions. It is were I learned how quickly your ass can get whipped.

Just got back from lower eastern shore ,we have a place down there to vacation or hang out it is a changed place in last few years it is almost safe in areas.lol... however I learned in old training dont pull aweapon unless u are fully ready to use it.and was taught only one way to shoot and that was to kill nothing else in between..with that said dont know the situation wityh the trucker but I feel more to the story but who's story..either could have tried harder to avoid the confortation or use cell phone a weapon is only last last last resort...

himmel · Post by **himmel** » March 18th, 2007, 6:20 pm

Lots of good back-and-forth here--and i think the consensus is, that we need more info to make a judgement on this particular situation. It's not exactly the same, but I recall a story in Dallas, guy was in his car with his 4-year-old son with him, some road-raged other driver came up to the window and just started socking the guy--just before he lost consciousness he thought, What's gonna happen to my son? Believe me, I would much rather pull a gun --and use it--than be left in that situation. One of my colleagues at work, a guy who did a lot of criminal defense work, commented that someone that starts something like that isn't fooling around, he's aiming to HURT you. That said, I do think it's possible that the guy here was a bit quick on the draw--but I don't think that conclusion is inevitable with just the facts we have here..

turbocat · Post by **turbocat** » March 18th, 2007, 9:19 pm

:-/ knowing just the barest info given in the article i can only conclude that two fools met. one more so than the other.

bzinggg · Post by **bzinggg** » March 19th, 2007, 12:21 am

You know, that brings up a point that's well worth some consideration.

Driving in todays world is serious business. It doesn't pay to have a casual attitude on the road. You need to have your wits about you in more ways than just the operation of the vehicle. You need to be perceptive enough to sense the needs and behavior of the people in the cars and on the street around you.

Your goal driving is to get safely from point A to point B. Try to be smooth, co-operative and efficient. Apply the golden rule and be in the real world all the time. In traffic and high pedestrian or residential areas, turn the freaking base down and get off the freakin' phone.

Excuse my ardor on those last points, ahem. But!, take them seriously!

anjdrifter · Post by **anjdrifter** » March 19th, 2007, 6:04 am

do you mean that the cell phone is the worse thing in a car since they invented idiot drivers ...sorry couldnt help it. seems every driver has this thing stuck to their ear ..guess it drowns out the base.... It might be that I am one of those old farts now and the driving antics of todays world drives me crazy...Road rage is something that is coming all to popular lately.I like how the correct term is aggressive driving...in this case it could have been the kid who started the incident not the truck driver or it could of been the trucker if the media would only give us facts not headline grabbing stuff it would so much better.

redfestiva · Post by **redfestiva** » March 19th, 2007, 12:36 pm

I remember one tough old Alaskan fisherman, a quiet guy who I came to respect a lot, who said: "I'd rather take a beating than pull a gun". I know a lot of you don't feel that way and I'm not trying to lecture anyone. Like I said, there were good arguments made on both sides.

The police cheif that taught my CCW class told us that he would pull the gun and use it before going down in a hand to hand fight. Main reason he gave is that if the bad guy got the best of him, it's reasonable to fear that he would then take his firearm and use it against him , hense justifying the fear for his life and use of lethal force. I agree with this. I'm not a big guy, 150 lbs. and I'm not going to go down either if I can prevent it. We were told it is reasonable to tell the advancing bad guy to stop first, then to tell him you have a firearm and to stop, then to pull shirt up and grip holstered pistol , maybe then a warning shot ( all presuming there is time) and if bad guy is still advancing it is reasonable to believe he is unstable and intent on doing bodily harm to you.Key thing here I think is the gun doesnt come out till you are going to use it. In the original article I posted, the guy with the gun had the advantage of the cars protection to buy him time enough to access the danger.One thing is for sure , right or wrong when the trucker saw the gun he stopped the confrontation immediately. In court you must show that you "believed" you were in danger of great harm or death. The fact that you actually was is not required necessarily.
Obviously this is my own opinion and I'm not a lawyer or studying to be one.

Post by **papabear** » March 19th, 2007, 1:31 pm

Some very good view points have been posted here about road rage and who was at fault etc etc. etc . etc. I still feel this is where two individual dumb a*s's met and both lost control of their common sense, and reacted in like manner, regardless of who was at fault. The truck driver could have stayed in his truck and called 911 and reported the other driver or the other way around, and probably nothing would have been done about it and all lived to drive crazy again, but at least no one was shot or killed and or spending time in jail.

I would guess that very few of us here have ever been in a actual shooting, outside of LEO's and other's having been in a war. Getting a license to carry doesn't give us that experience, it only give us at best a small amount of training and some target practice. It's easy to pull a gun on someone. but to actually shoot another person is a whole different ball game. In '80 while living in the Gestapo state of Illinois, I had to shoot someone who broke into my home late one night. I have lived around guns all my life and at early age [14] became efficient with a government model .45acp because my dad was as company commander of a national guard unit and I got to go qualify every 6 mos when the guard went. So I knew the right and wrong things of handling a handgun and was a pretty good shot to boot. However, had it not been for the experience of being in combat in viet nam, I might not know to this day if I would have been able to pull the trigger on the BG that night. Over there, even though I was trained, my first actual combat I was scared to death, well just short of peeing in my drawers anyway. I hesitated pulling the trigger on my M16, and it could have cost me my life, but someone else that was there handled the situation and I learned a very valuable lesson that day. After that I didn't have a problem pulling the trigger.

So pulling a gun or jumping out of your vehicle over "Road Rage" is the act of a dumb a*s IMHO, reguardless of which one of those two was right or wrong.

Papabear

anjdrifter · Post by **anjdrifter** » March 19th, 2007, 1:46 pm

well said and explained papabear...++++++++++++

truth · Post by **truth** » March 19th, 2007, 7:44 pm

Boy You Really "Took Them To School" Papabear! Lots of people will pull it and point it But few will pull the trigger, particularly in such an silly situation.

redfestiva · Post by **redfestiva** » March 19th, 2007, 8:00 pm

Papabear,

Hopefully the day won't come where any of us here are forced to find out what they would or would not do. It makes one ponder the thought however, that's for sure. Lots of good feedback about this thread gang.

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