Friend's friend had a chance to shoot the Portland shooter..

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

And held off, as he should have.
http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-man-a ... 93571.html
That's good training right there.

[themadscientist]

I completely agree with his decision. CCW people get cast as cowboys and this easily demonstrates that that is not the case. He did the right thing.

[Jesda]

I'm glad he made it out alive.

[nissangirl74]

Question: I know this is highly hypothetical but if you were in his situation but had an absolutely clear shot, would you have taken it?

[300ZXttZMAN]

Question: I know this is highly hypothetical but if you were in his situation but had an absolutely clear shot, would you have taken it?

When you say clear shot do you mean there would be no way I could possibly hit someone behind him or around him ect?

If so then yes, I wouldn't have thought about it twice. I would have shot all the bullets I had until he was on the ground.

Here's why, rewind to the point when he was messing with his gun. At this point we had no clue what he was going to do after he fixed the gun, would if he would have contiued shooting people? Thats not a chance I would want to take.

Would about you?

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

I know my hands would shake and my heart would be hammering but I know I could do it.
I hope to shake this guys hand when I go home.

[WDRacing]

If I had a clear shot I'd take it, no doubts. My reactions would heavily depend on whether or not I had my kids with me. If my kids were there I might have returned fire regardless. Lots of scenario's to play out though. How far away was I? Could I have moved and cleared my field of fire etc?

You'd really have to be in that position to say with any certainty what you would do.

[nissangirl74]

do you mean there would be no way I could possibly hit someone behind him or around him ect?

Of course

I would have done it in a New York Minute.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Judging buy the security video they were no more than 30 feet apart when Mr. Meli took cover behind the column. What makes this even weirder is I recognize that column by walking by it hundreds of times and I MAY have been shopping there had I been home at the time.

[WDRacing]

I'd take the shot at 30 feet. I'm not saying this is the correct measure for the scenario, it's just something I "feel" like I would do. Again, I'm sitting at a laptop, so it's hard to say for sure. I have reacted to situations involving gunfire in the past, sighted individuals and then not fired. I chose not to fire because I couldn't say for sure the individual was a hostile or not. This was on active duty btw, not the civilian arena. It's just the only real comparison I have.

The shopping mall instance is one of those times where you don't want hindsight to show you made a bad judgement call.

[300ZXttZMAN]

I know my hands would shake and my heart would be hammering but I know I could do it.
I hope to shake this guys hand when I go home.

Exactly. It would probably have to use all the bullets in the gun to hit the guy... I wouldn't do it because I wanted to, I would probably feel like I had to.

[szh]

Question: I know this is highly hypothetical but if you were in his situation but had an absolutely clear shot, would you have taken it?

If by "absolutely clear shot", you mean that there was no likelihood of an innocent bystander being hit (like behind or next to the shooter), then yeah, I would take a shot. The difficulty would lie in making the quick-enough judgement call that nobody else could be endangered by my firing - this would probably delay (and possibly stop) me from making any actual attempt.

Keep in mind that I was also trained from childhood to respect rifles and guns and how to shoot well. In college, I almost made the college pistol team, and was captain of my fraternity rifle team when we won the intramural championships that year. At one time, I could reliably (95+% of the time) put a rifle bullet into a 0.25" circle at 50 feet when prone, and a pistol shot into a 1" diameter circle when standing up. But that is target shooting many years ago ... quite a different beast, of course, but makes me more likely to be successful in the situation described (i.e., to only get the killer and avoid innocents).

So, regardless, I would not trust "Mr. or Mrs. Joe Average" to make this kind of judgement call and/or take a shot. When in doubt, hold fire and that is why I think the OP article person did the Right Thing.

A trickier issue and questions: what if by taking the risk of a shot (and even maybe hitting a bystander), you were indeed able to prevent more deaths> Would you take the shot in those circumstances?

That decision is infinitely more tough ... It forces soldiers to be careful and selective in urban battle conditions, and those choices then force them to live with self-doubt and "second-guessing" problems later.

Z