I'll do my best to respond. I'm saying that in public area, the use of lethal force is usually not necessary and in extreme cases, such force can be hazardous to the public.
I have too, and I guess my question is, if you were carrying at the time would you shoot them? That's a big decision to make.
I remember having my wallet taken from my at knife-point. If I had my pistol on me and did not use it, they would have found it and at the very least taken it. If I had pulled it out, it means I have to be willing to use it. What is my potential liability if I kill someone even in self defense? Am I better off just letting them take my $40 cash and my credit card? These are hard questions to answer in a split second.
Are there states where you can shoot car thieves on public roads? I'm not sure about that.
If I had been assaulted while carrying I would have drawn on them, as is my right. I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I don't have mental or emotional hangups when it comes to pulling a gun on someone, and when I consider shooting someone who is a hindrance to my health I don't much care about that, either. You pull on gun on severe threats, not friends. Common sense.
I've drawn my gun on someone once. Technically I didn't draw it "on" them, I simply retreived it from my car and held it against my leg. Three men followed me and a friend of mine out to my car after we beat them in a game of pool at a bar about a year ago. We won $40 from them. They began talking sh*t the moment the game ended, and it didn't feel right so we immediately left. They followed us out, approached my car, I told them to f*ck off, they pushed the issue in a very beligerent way, and my friend and I both climbed out of the car with our guns. As soon as we did that the situation was over and they ran off.
Would I have shot them? That completely depends. What if they had been carrying too, and reached for theirs? I could imagine a whole slew of hypotheticals, but ultimately who cares? The point is that without the guns any number of things very likely would have happened. But they didn't. Because we were armed. Was it a terrifying experience that clouded our judgment? Not at all. It was more like telling a bunch of punk kids to go bug someone else. It wasn't scary at all and I don't feel that the safety of the public was in any way jeopardized. My friend and I have been shooting for a long time, and I like to think we would've gone for the thighs before wildly shooting in every direction or towards any nearby retirement homes or school dorms. We aren't cowboys, we're normal people who protect our lives and our property.
Would I have drawn it on someone who pulled a knife on me and asked for my wallet? Of course. Why would you carry a gun if you aren't willing to use it? You probably cleared that up the moment you tucked it into the holster.
And I didn't mean I would have shot the person who broke into my car. I would've drawn my gun on him and let him run off, however. The point was that you can't rely on cops because there aren't enough of them.