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Liberty wrote:

MBGuy wrote:On the other hand, If the kidnapper gets away with the kid, the kid has a 1% chance of surviving in my opinion and the next time he's/she's seen is in a casket.

Where did you come up with the 1% ?

Most kidnappings ,Amber alerts, are custody cases with family members, and the kid is returned un harmed. One 1% survival rate seems very very low. I don't know though if there are any figures.

My bad. I'm thinking in terms of being positive it's a kidnapping, on my street, where like I said before, I know the kids, their behavior, and can recognize a good amount of the family members. So if it's a real kidnapping, by a REAL bad guy intending on sexual molestation, etc, then the point I was making is that the kid is already in grave danger, more than if you did something to try and stop the kidnapping. 1% may be exaggerated, but the only one I can remember not being killed is the pizza place employee in Ohio that kidnapped the second boy when he already had a kidnapped one at home. The rest seem to end up dead. Whether it's 1% or 10% or even 23%, my point was that the kid's already in grave danger, and, in my imagined scenario of my street, you're sealing their doomed fate by being a good witness.

Now if I was in a public parking lot, and witnessed what seemed to be a kidnapping, yes, I'd think it'd be too hard to be sure and I'd be taking pictures with my cell phone, writing down license plate numbers, calling 911, maybe even following the alleged kidnapper. But draw, probably not. I'd have to have something that made me absolutely positive.

Something else I'm not sure of is the MO of kidnappers. It seems to me that dragging a kid kicking and screaming wouldn't be how they do it. I would think (just guessing here folks) that driving by a walking/bicycling kid and immediately in a matter of several seconds, opening the door and throwing him/her in and speeding away. There's just too many witnesses to dragging a kid, and kidnappers seem to be the coward types. Evil, but coward. So, I would think, that upon seeing the drive-by kidnapping, you'd be fairly sure of what you saw. At that point, it'd be too late to draw, and you'd have to maybe start a chase, call 911, etc.

45 4 life wrote:

MBGuy wrote:Ok, but what if you know them? The setting I live in there are neigbors to both sides of me with kids. I know them, know the parents, etc. Let's say that one of said kids is riding his/her bike from a friend's house up the road and there's an attempt to kidnap him/her. I KNOW it's not the parents or relatives. What then? Being that I'm always outside and always armed, I've always assumed that if close enough, I'd draw if it's not too late and yell like crazy to get some more neighbors attention, hopefully the parents of said child. Otherwise, if too far, I'd call 911 and get in the car. Once again, I know the kids, their parents, and even some of the grandparents, and the fact that these kids wouldn't throw temper tantrums just cause they didn't want to go somewhere.

Ya'll might say I'm wrong, but if I'm 100% sure as I would be in the case of OUR kids on OUR street, I'm not just going to be a good witness.

Have you been trained in how to handle this situation? If not you are placing the person being taken in danger. Why would you do anything other than being a good witness? I hope you are never in the situation that we are discussing here, and I agree we probably all want to do something rather than just stand there, but if you show your weapon the BG is just going to pull the hostage in closer, and grip their weapon tighter. This is when things can get out of hand. Quite a bit of scenarios discussed here lead me to beleive that you and others are planning to draw and shoot if given the opportunity. You need to look up some police incident reports and read about the number of rounds fired compared to the number of good hits. I know we all practice as much as possible. Based on the earlier thread I posted most of the core group on this forum fire considerably more rounds a month than the vast majority of LEO's. The majority of our shooting is at a range, not in a real life or death struggle. When the heart is pounding and the adrenaline is flowing one tends to not be such a good marksman, I know of LEO's that have fumbled while trying to clear their holster.

That's what I meant by "if 's not too late". Obviously if the kids already in the kidnapper's grasp, shooting/drawing is not in the menu any longer and calling 911 and a car chase becomes the next item on the agenda.

On the other hand, If the kidnapper gets away with the kid, the kid has a 1% chance of surviving in my opinion and the next time he's/she's seen is in a casket. If I'm close enough and the kids not in his grasp yet, you've got to play the odds, even if it just means shooting the car to disable it so he doesn't get far. If he gets a clean getaway with the kid, that's kids life is pretty much done. Additionally, I would think that the kidnapper might know (might) that if he gives up he possibly gets away, and at worst gets busted for attempted kidnapping. If he harms the kid there, he's a dead man either at the hands of the justice system or the father of said child.

So no, I've had no "training", but if I wait for those that have had "training", the kid will probably die, and a horrible death it will probably be, so the kid's pretty much already in as much danger as he/she can be and you can do something to reduce the odds of his/her life ending. Once again, though, I am only saying "if it's not too late" to have a good chance of persuading the kidnapper to give up his idea.

Just my logic and I'm open to correction.........

Ok, but what if you know them? The setting I live in there are neigbors to both sides of me with kids. I know them, know the parents, etc. Let's say that one of said kids is riding his/her bike from a friend's house up the road and there's an attempt to kidnap him/her. I KNOW it's not the parents or relatives. What then? Being that I'm always outside and always armed, I've always assumed that if close enough, I'd draw if it's not too late and yell like crazy to get some more neighbors attention, hopefully the parents of said child. Otherwise, if too far, I'd call 911 and get in the car. Once again, I know the kids, their parents, and even some of the grandparents, and the fact that these kids wouldn't throw temper tantrums just cause they didn't want to go somewhere.

Ya'll might say I'm wrong, but if I'm 100% sure as I would be in the case of OUR kids on OUR street, I'm not just going to be a good witness.