Friday, June 09, 2006

Difficult Question Time

(I originally posted this at the Nation of Riflemen forum.)

Scenario: It is the middle of the night. You have awaken to the dogs barking. You hear your adolescent daughter scream. You dutifully grab your pistol. (Even if you do not have a pistol or daughter, let us say for the sake of the question that you do.) You head to your daughter's room and on the way there encounter an intruder. He realizes that you have a pistol and is very scared. He goes to his knees begging for his life, hands empty, asking you not to kill him. You daughter continues to scream from her room.

Question: What do you do with him?

2 comments:

Weetabix said...

Difficult Question Time III inspired me to search for the others.

I do have a daughter and I do have a pistol.

Hard question. After August 28, 2007, it might be easier just to shoot him dead. But I don't think I could really do that to someone on his knees.

Given my daughter's screaming and the fact that he's on his knees, I'd probably tell him to get on his face on the ground with his hands behind his head, pistol whip him unconscious, then sit on him and call my daughter out. If she can't or won't come, I'd consider shooting his kneecaps out from behind to immobilize without killing, then go check.

It would seem unwise to leave him conscious behind me as I go to check on my daughter or to divide my attention between him and her. I'm sure to get distracted when I see her, and he may have a gun and turn things around on us.

What's your answer?

Shawn McManus said...

I made a long reply to this but lost it before I could publish it when the hotel's wireless certificate expired.

I talked about it in my post Not That Patient.

In short, I don't think I could let an intruder in my house live, especially if I heard my daughter screaming.

If my family were not there and he had not hurt my dogs, I may attempt to knock him unconscious and bind him or, if I am certain he is alone, hold him at bay in a stress position until the police get there.