Poll: Teen Shot dead after attempting to mug man

[e.wlmo4]

My question is why Baker had a gun loaded with hollow point bullets, a bullet that is designed to increase it's size once it hits it's target and in turn do so much more damage then a regular bullet so much so that they have been baned from combat situations since 1899 and for some reason Baker needed these bullets in Tampa.

 

[P.Tsunami]

My question is why Baker had a gun loaded with hollow point bullets, a bullet that is designed to increase it's size once it hits it's target and in turn do so much more damage then a regular bullet so much so that they have been baned from combat situations since 1899 and for some reason Baker needed these bullets in Tampa.

Hollow point ammunition isn't just used for the devastating effect it has on its targets. I'm not sure you're aware of this, but one of its major upsides is it has a much lower chance of causing collateral damage. It makes perfect sense to use HP ammo in urban environments.

 

[RelexCryo]

Most .45's are a 7+1 weapon. Meaning 7 rounds in the mag plus an extra in the chamber totaling 8. He just emptied the mag, most likely in shear reaction or panic. If he would've had a 9mm he might have shot more because it holds more.

No.

You do not shoot someone 4 times in self defence. There is no way he didn't go down after the first shot.

With his lip cut and suffering blurred vision he said he pulled out a handgun that was fitted with a laser sight and fired eight times.
Mustelier was hit four times with hollow pointed bullets fired from the .45calibre weapon.

Bit of an overreaction, don't you think?
I don't think it's what I'd do

You don't think, but you can't know. If he was trained, as I am, his training says go for the center of mass, which is the quickest way to drop a target. In training we were told we had six seconds to shoot six shots as part of our speed/accuracy training. My adrenaline was so pumped that I cranked out all six shots in less than three seconds.(I checked the clock after I shot and there was still 3 seconds on it...) I watched ONE, one single shot, miss the target. Three of them were dead center. And let me tell you, when that slide racked back in the empty position I STILL squeezed it once more before I realized my pistol was empty. Chances are he was in the same adrenaline fueled frenzy I was that made me pull a trigger on a gun that I should have known had no bullets. Especially since he was under attack.

Do I think it was a good thing the kid died? No.

Would I have done the same thing in his place? Hell Yes.

Did the other kid learn his lesson about mugging? I sure as hell hope so.

Why on earth did he shoot so many times? There's a thin line between malice/abuse of power and self defence here...

However, I think the moral of the story is don't rob people.

Yes he had the right to diffend himself but he had no right to shot him four times.

And the post above this, too

There are people who have been shot, 7 times, with .45 ACP hollowpoint ammunition and not stopped attacking their victims. Guns are not magic wands. Resistance to guns varies from individual to individual. There is no way of knowing how resistant they are until they have been neutralized. For that reason, many people, including police, are trained to keep shooting until the gun is empty or the target is on the ground.

 

[RelexCryo]

Wow, I'm in a depressing minority here. I most definitely think Baker was in the wrong. Someone punched him in the face, he took a life by means of firearms. This is an asymmetrical use of force. With that said, I don't really judge Baker, either. I imagine he probably panicked. In short, what he did was morally wrong, but he was likely not in a rational state of mind.

He probably couldn't have outrun his attackers. Getting hit with fists, repeatedly, will either seriously injure you or kill you. His vision was dazed and he thought his nose was broken with only one punch. He was in a situation where he could either be beaten into serious injury or death, or he could use his gun to defend himself. Can you explain why what he did was wrong? Does he have an obligation to let himself be maimed or killed, simply because the people doing it use their bare hands?

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

Wow, I'm in a depressing minority here. I most definitely think Baker was in the wrong. Someone punched him in the face, he took a life by means of firearms. This is an asymmetrical use of force. With that said, I don't really judge Baker, either. I imagine he probably panicked. In short, what he did was morally wrong, but he was likely not in a rational state of mind.

Morally wrong? He was jumped in the middle of the night, he can barely see and he fears they're armed. As I've said, when you're jumped in the middle of the night by a couple of thugs without the declaration of a mugging you better assume the absolute worst (Death).

Moral is not a factor here. They wanted to potentially cause some serious injury to Baker and steal his belongings. When dealing with pieces of shit like that, moral is out of the question.

 

[alinos]

Muggers had it coming

With his lip cut and suffering blurred vision he said he pulled out a handgun that was fitted with a laser sight and fired eight times
Mustelier was hit four times with hollow pointed bullets fired from the .45calibre weapon.

But that is overkill

Hollow points should be illegal in self defence, as they are nearly always kills

when it said he'd been shot 4 times i thought it was a bit much, but im guessing he just blind fired after being hit if he shot 8 times.

to me theres a difference between self defence and overkill, there is no need for anything other than a standard bullet.

i think for personal defence you shouldn't be able to carry anything other than the standard police weapon in public. to defend your home go nut's but as i said sure self defence is all well and good but what if he just pulled an uzi out of his jacket

Wow, I'm in a depressing minority here. I most definitely think Baker was in the wrong. Someone punched him in the face, he took a life by means of firearms. This is an asymmetrical use of force. With that said, I don't really judge Baker, either. I imagine he probably panicked. In short, what he did was morally wrong, but he was likely not in a rational state of mind.

he took a life but he had no way of knowing what the kid had on him and the kid had made his vision blurry so the mere hand being in the wrong shape could be portrayed as a gun.

the issue with symetrical use of force is that it doesn't exsist

if he was a trained marine and turned around punched the guy and the guy fell and hit his head, he'd have used to much force because he was trained to use deadly force.

same as if he had punch back the kid could have known any sort of martial are or had a knife, at which point the kid has more force than you and the only way to defend yourself is to go one step higher with a gun(unless you have a knife handy)

the way i see it you attack someone you live with the consequences, so long as it stay 1 on 1 and not you punch someone and his 10 mates jump you and beat the living hell out of ya.

 

[kuolonen]

Its amusing to see the difference of opinions here. And the apparent lack of understanding for some. This guy had already received a blow to the head, yet people here ponder why he did not just rationally think things over, and carefully aim for assailer legs or use the gun as a club.

Putting aside the mental agravation you get with a blow to the head, theres a lot of things that can go wrong with a blow to the nogging. Just this week in the news there was a story of a guy who got hit in the head and BAM! No more sense of smell or taste for the poor sod. If you hit a guy in the head in a fight you might aswell cry out loud: "I inted to do serious and permanent damage to you!".

Set aside even all that, there was two guys against one, and mister Baker still only shoots AFTER hes been dealt blows? I dont understand how his actions can even be questioned.

 

[Miroku2235]

Even though I'm just repeating what the vast majority of intelligent people in this thread have said, here goes.

Is it a little sad that the kid died? Yea, it's sad when anyone dies.

Did Baker use excessive force? You would think so, unless you've actually been attacked in real life or fired handguns in real life. I've been attacked before, and 9 times out of ten, the attackers aren't going to announce how far they're going to hurt you. You simply assume it's going to be to the death, and defend yourself accordingly.

And those handgun magazines are alot smaller than you think, every one of those bullets can be chambered and shot before you can comprehend the fact that the hammer is clicking on an empty chamber now.

Also, the fact that he didn't pursue or attempt to reload and shoot the other kid shows that he wasn't in some blood-fueled rage and out for death and wanton destruction. He was an innocent man who was unjustly attacked by multiple people, feared for his life, and chose to defend himself.

Let this be a lesson to others who try to mug/attack people. If you keep pushing people around, sooner or later one of those people are going to push back.

 

[Xanian]

Thank you for saying this, I don't know how many people saying that firing 8 shots is a big deal. If you've ever fired a semi-automatic weapon you know how fast that clip goes empty. And full auto is nothing like the movie's kids. Fwap, and its gone in an instant. Even high capacity clips just go in a blur. I could easily fire off a clip if i was in shock, panicing, and scared shitless without feeling like a single second had passed.

Well, it appeared that I was the only person with military experience to have an opinion on the matter.

I don't personally own a gun (I would, but I am bi-polar, and have been particularly suicidal these last two weeks, so I am glad I don't, for personal safety reasons, not that that NOT having a gun has stopped me from staring awfully hard at my Ambien, which is the method I would use if I WERE to choose suicide), but I hate anti-gun nuts running around spouting out falsehoods. Obviously no one on this thread who was speaking up was defending the use of eight shots, and my guess is he fired all eight shots in about three seconds, as I would if I were in that situation. The 50% accuracy rating makes me think he didn't stop to pull the gun back in line after every shot as I did in the aforementioned training scenario. The one shot I watched miss, I too pulled the trigger without realigning my sites. Blind instinct made me squeeze before I was ready. I was panicky even though I was shooting at a target, in a training scenario, surrounded by a bunch of armed military instructors.

I imagine for him, he was thinking "squeeze as fast as you can, even if you miss, the bang will make them flee."

And that he spared the life of, or at least missed, the second assailant, gives credence to that line of reasoning. He wasn't out to kill them in cold blood, he simply wanted them to go away.

I think most people don't realize how easy it is to pull a trigger on a gun like that. I think maybe the guy has a piece a little to powerful for himself.

That being said...the tragedy of the boys' death is apparent. No one thinks it was fair for him to die. The fact is he tempted fate. When you threaten violence against people, the likelihood of a positive outcome is low. I don't know their story, or why they were mugging him, but somewhere, society failed them bitterly and he received the ultimate punishment.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

Muggers had it coming

With his lip cut and suffering blurred vision he said he pulled out a handgun that was fitted with a laser sight and fired eight times
Mustelier was hit four times with hollow pointed bullets fired from the .45calibre weapon.

But that is overkill

Hollow points should be illegal in self defence, as they are nearly always kills

when it said he'd been shot 4 times i thought it was a bit much, but im guessing he just blind fired after being hit if he shot 8 times.

to me theres a difference between self defence and overkill, there is no need for anything other than a standard bullet.

i think for personal defence you shouldn't be able to carry anything other than the standard police weapon in public. to defend your home go nut's but as i said sure self defence is all well and good but what if he just pulled an uzi out of his jacket

Wow, I'm in a depressing minority here. I most definitely think Baker was in the wrong. Someone punched him in the face, he took a life by means of firearms. This is an asymmetrical use of force. With that said, I don't really judge Baker, either. I imagine he probably panicked. In short, what he did was morally wrong, but he was likely not in a rational state of mind.

he took a life but he had no way of knowing what the kid had on him and the kid had made his vision blurry so the mere hand being in the wrong shape could be portrayed as a gun.

the issue with symetrical use of force is that it doesn't exsist

if he was a trained marine and turned around punched the guy and the guy fell and hit his head, he'd have used to much force because he was trained to use deadly force.

same as if he had punch back the kid could have known any sort of martial are or had a knife, at which point the kid has more force than you and the only way to defend yourself is to go one step higher with a gun(unless you have a knife handy)

the way i see it you attack someone you live with the consequences, so long as it stay 1 on 1 and not you punch someone and his 10 mates jump you and beat the living hell out of ya.

What?! Are you telling me HP rounds KILL? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

With that kind of logic I'm gonna assume you cut with the dull edge of a knife. You shoot to kill, nothing more. Hollow Points are perfect for self-defense due to the minimal collateral damage.

 

[macfluffers]

You do not shoot someone 4 times in self defence. There is no way he didn't go down after the first shot.

Actually, a single shot rarely kills. Baker wasn't a sniper sitting 500 meters away, he was using a handgun, on the ground, while being beaten. So, his accuracy wasn't going to be the best either.

People trained to use handguns are told to fire multiple times because field accuracy is shit (seriously, most non-marksmen soldiers and cops have a low field hit/shot ratio), and because is normally takes multiple shots for the attack to work anyway.

In Baker's case, he probably could have only fired four shots and it would have been fine, but he didn't know that at the time. It's not as if this were happening over the course of a minute. Chances are he fired off those shots within 2 seconds.

 

[brunothepig]

As many, many people have said, Baker handled the situation as he would have been trained too.
He was struck in the head, and knocked to the ground. He didn't know if the assailant was armed, he didn't know if he intended to kill him or not, and the fact that no demands were made before he was attacked suggests the worse. So he fired upon the teen.
Now, a handgun is not nearly as accurate as fiction suggests, people are trained to fire until the target hits the ground, not fire once or twice and hope. Remember his accuracy was about 50%, and he was knocked down and dazed. Firing twice, meant one bullet would probably have hit. Which is rarely enough to stop someone. It's true maybe the teen would have run, but maybe he would have panicked and attacked, more aggressively. Baker still doesn't know if his assailant is armed. Besides, he likely emptied the gun withing 2 seconds.
Firing to wound is a fantasy. First, thanks to the inaccuracy of a handgun, people are trained to fire at the center mass. It's the largest target, and has the best chance of stopping them. Hitting someone in the foot or leg in Baker's situation, in the small window he had to react, would have been extremely difficult. What's more, there's still a good chance that they'll die of shock or bleeding out.
As for the hollow points, they are a typical ammunition choice for self defense. It's true that by fragmenting they do more damage to the person being shot. But the main point is they almost always don't penetrate the target, which means no one else will be shot. For the same reason, a warning shot is totally irresponsible. Bullets can travel for a long time, even firing straight up endangers someone's life.
Basically, Baker acted on his training. While this training makes it likely an assailant will be killed, which is rarely the preferable consequence, and it certainly wasn't in this case, the fact is the teen attacked first. He chose to try to rob a man, and paid for it. Had Baked acted differently, he or an innocent may have been killed instead. Remember, through the whole encounter, which probably lasted 5-10 seconds, Baker didn't know what the muggers were going to do, if they were trying to kill him or not. He was running on adrenaline and fear, and reacted as he'd been taught.

 

[Shotgunjack1880]

Most .45's are a 7+1 weapon. Meaning 7 rounds in the mag plus an extra in the chamber totaling 8. He just emptied the mag, most likely in shear reaction or panic. If he would've had a 9mm he might have shot more because it holds more.

Not strictly true, as a fairly large number of the polymer frame handguns have room for as many as 15 rounds (14 in the mag, 1 in the chamber). That being said, any self defense instructor will tell you that you keep shooting until the threat is no longer a threat.
I believe the mugger's family is overreacting over the amount of rounds fired.

OK, I'll clarify. Most single stack magazine that a 1911 Model firearm are 7+1. Some of your newer model firearms with a double stack style magazine can hold more than that. Sorry I had not clarified to which model I was referring too. I also didn't mention 8, 12, 15, 30, and 50 round magazines either.

Also true, and neither did I... Anyway, I am going to be carrying as much ammo as I can easily conceal. There is nothing more useless than an empty gun.

I agree. My conceal holster is a shoulder holster. I carry one in the gun and 2 extra mags. I have a total of 22 rounds on me when wearing that particular rig. Some of my other ones. I can carry ALOT of ammo.

When i get my rig, I'm going to end up with at least 27 rounds. The ruger sr9c has a good capacity for a sub compact. Unfortunately, ruger hasn't shrunk down their .40 cal handgun down to compact size, so it's a bit big for me to be carrying around.

Yeah I'm 6'7" 260 lbs. I carry a full size 1911 for my conceal carry weapon. I'm a damn good shot though. I hopefully will never need more than one magazine.

 

[Mariner]

I find it heavily amusing that people still can't wrap their minds around the fact that people can easily go through 8 rounds on semi-automatic especially when they panic.

Wake up people: real life are not video games like MoH and CoD; real life has no parameter or rules like fps games does.

 

[Blimey]

I keep forgetting we live in a society where Mr. Government tells us we can't even defend ourselves anymore. After all, we wouldn't want to hurt those poor, poor criminals who are attempting to beat and rob people.

Good riddance to the scum. It's one less worthless idiot who would have wasted his life away bouncing in and out of jail.

 

[___________________]

I'd shoot him and then his cat.

 

[supermariner]

the most appauling crime in this scenario is that someone actually read the daily mail

 

[malestrithe]

Was it necessary for Baker to defend himself that way? I would argue yes.

Would I have done that in the same situation? Probably not. If I were in his situation, I would show them the gun and tell them to back off.

But, I also live in a country that has 270 million registered and unregistered firearms in civilian hands. This country also has the highest number of deaths by firearms than any place in the world, so I am not seeing proof that having guns, concealed or otherwise, deter any criminal from killing people.

And spare me the cold dead hands rhetoric.

 

[Udyrfrykte]

I keep forgetting we live in a society where Mr. Government tells us we can't even defend ourselves anymore. After all, we wouldn't want to hurt those poor, poor criminals who are attempting to beat and rob people.

Good riddance to the scum. It's one less worthless idiot who would have wasted his life away bouncing in and out of jail.

Amen.