Pulling the Trigger..Could You Do It ?

Only if the wannabe gangsters near my neighborhood messed with me enough, and if I actually had a gun...

I have hunted for deer and other animals and pulled the trigger. Yes, that was different from what you are asking.
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Like many others in this thread, I have never been in a combat or life/death situation. I do not know how I would act in such a situation. I would like to think that yes, I would be able to stand up against the trials of the situation and pull the trigger. I hope I would be able to conduct myself in an honorable fashion as well.

Pulling the trigger is like a question to me. A yes or no question no is your family will be in danger and yes would be you are going to protect that family well that is the army way of pulling the trigger to me

If I was put in the situation I would be able to pull the trigger on up to 95% of anything and live with myself easily. but that other 5% is I would most likely pull the trigger on myself if I had to kill a loved member of my family or my girlfriend to save them the torment of having someone they loved turn on them.

Harm to me vs. harm to them.

The question is extremely easy in that sense.

It would take a zombie or someone threatening my family for me to pull the trigger at a humanoid. Any animal and I would go to town, within reason of course.

I would pull the trigger without hesitation, but that does not mean i have to kill them. Arms and legs are fair game.

Seriously? Well for me, I dislike guns...I prefer swords, if that's okay...But if there's no other choice, and I must protect myself or the one I loved, then I'll pull the trigger without hesitation. Starting from limbs, it's not fair if I shot right in the head or heart with the first bullet...

Yea, it's always better to hurt em lots and torture them before the kill, it gives a certain satisfied feeling ;)

Yeah, damn right...But if I were to use swords, I'll cut right through the carotid arteries on the neck 8D

To me it doesn't matter the method or the fact that i'm taking someone's life, its just if I believe that they deserve a bullet to the face or not.

While I can't see into the future and actually 'know' if I would pull the trigger. Currently I believe I would if the situation warranted it, however it depends on the circumstance, reasoning, and the general 'why' of the situation.

No matter what I use though, I will not do anything to an unarmed opponent (unless they are proficient in unarmed combat, in which case I'll first attempt to disable them, akido training helps in that area) it just goes against my personal code. . .

That's a good question. I don't think I could ever pull the trigger, on purpose, on an innocent. However if there really was nothing I could do I think I could will myself to do it, don't know how it'd effect me though.

You will most likely miss and get stabbed.
Your hit probability on the arms and legs of a moving target are much, much lower than shooting at their torso.

People have to get this misconception about shooting people's arms and legs out of their heads.

If i think this throughly i don't really think that i could pull the trigger even if my life is on the stack as i think i would not be able to handle the pressure thinking i have killed somebody. Yes maybe some will call me coward but i just think it is still not justified for us to take others life even if our life in stake.

However probably if it for other people(like your love ones or family) maybe i will be able to pull the trigger as i will be able to think that i pull the trigger is not for my own benefits but for the ones i love.

To defend my life or someone else's, or even just their safety, I'd do it in without a second thought. I'd sleep well that night, knowing I just saved someone and took a threat to society off the streets. If I can save even one person, I would. I'm a martial arts practitioner (by no means am I a martial artist), so I know how to disable and, if worst comes to worst, I'll gladly stomp someone's head into the pavement.

Now, if we're talking killing in cold blood, I wouldn't do it.

I would pull the trigger. If some one was shooting at me its not like the other guy is hesitating to shoot me so i wouldnt hesitate to shoot him back.

I have pulled the trigger, several times at that. Sorry but I haven’t read all the comments since it's on page 10 and that would take a little while so Im sorry if I might be repeating what someone has already said.

I was in the US Marines for 5 years with 2 deployments to Iraq, one in 07 to Anah/Haditha/Ocotal, the other in 08/09 to Fallujah. My first was a little after the shootings in Haditha so the people were restless. We had many mortar attacks and a few rocket attacks on our base. Needless to say countless IED's were discovered. I was on post one night and we spotted an "insurgent" planting an IED on one of our main routes. This was after we had an IED went off that severely injured 3 Marines from my company, one was a friend. Needless to say that I had a good friend from high school die from an IED a few months before the deployment. Im not sure if I should be saying this but one of my recruiters was killed by an IED in Fallujah before I left for Iraq, I was on pre deployment leave and I went to the funeral. Im sure you know him, he was the SSgt in the movie by Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11. Yes I lived in Flint Michigan and the movie was bullshit, they couldn’t recruit out of the "nice" or "rich" mall because they weren’t allowed because the mall staff whatever said they wanted to make it a friendly environment and the only mall that allowed them was the "poor" mall which isn’t all that bad actually. Anyhow, he was the built bald guy, a good man and a good friend. He was sent back to the infantry after the film because he was pulled from recruiting, so I have a hatred for Michael Moore, if it wasn’t for that he would have stayed recruiting and been alive. So I had all these emotions running through my head. We called it into the SOG (sergeant of the guard) and then it went to the CO and I was cleared hot. At the time of it I was more worried about proper execution of it and following the proper ROE (rules of engagement). Not to say that I was hesitant because I wasn’t for the least bit. So my friend who was on post with me who radioed it in said I was cleared hot and with my 240 I put 2 good squeezes in on him and that was it. I looked at the area with the pass-13 and he was down and with it being white hot all I could see was white surrounding the body. I wasn’t proud of this, nor am I happy and yes it does haunt me a little. Each deployment took a little of my soul, sort of nice to know that I left it in Mesopotamia.

This is where I will justify the "insurgents" actions. We WERE the evil invaders in Iraq. That’s it. If someone came to your country/town/city and bombed the living shit out of it on an outright lie, killed almost all of your family and then told you when and where you could go. Killed the rest of your family in an "accident" and then didn’t give a shit about it and laughed at the situation and tried to justify their obviously wrong actions. Then you live without power or running water in 120+ heat for months on end. All I can say is would you not wish death upon these invaders? I sure in hell would and it’s fucked up for saying, but if I was in that guy's shoes I would have done the same damn thing. Aside from what else do I have to live for, trying to avenge those who were lost. As the saying goes, "I would rather die on my feet then live life on my knees" so I side with the guy. But in a situation like that I did what I had to so I could keep my friends alive. Granted looking back on it, I could have kept the coordinates of where the IED was placed and had EOD go out there and take a look at it, but what could happen from there? An ambush? Which happened a few times. Fucked up example is they would have a mentally retarded kid walk out into the middle of the road when we drove by and they would see if we stopped or not. We stopped of course so then they set it up one day and ambushed us, 2 wounded. So what happened next time they did that? We just kept driving, the driver who ran over the kid later put a gun in his mouth when we got back to the states.

This is a little RAGE. But please, if you haven’t been there and you have never served and I mean this with the most respect that I can, but please. SHUT THE FUCK UP! You don’t know shit about the situation and never will so please don’t try and act like you do. Until you have killed and have had friends killed don’t even bring the topic up. I could go on for hours about that but I will stop here.

So yes I have pulled the trigger, more then a few but I don’t want to get into all the occasions. But before you think about it again, think long and hard about it. Yes self defense plays a heavy role, but if that wasn’t the case and say the shit hit the fan with North Korea and you got drafted, so now any uniformed North Korean is fair game according to the ROE, what would you do? He thinks your the evil one, so in a way innocent due to ignorance. What would you do?

It may be old and sound sort of cheesy but Kenshin said it best. "There is no right or wrong, good guys or bad guys in war. Everyone fights for there own justifications." (I might not have that verbatim) Remember in the mind of a madman his actions seem justified.

Check out pics of my deployments at my deviantart account.http://ryokox37.deviantart.com/

I think I'd only pull the trigger under extreme circumstances. Doesn't mean that I'll like doing it.

I second this notion. If I was ever under the circumstances where I had to protect the life of someone else, I would pull the trigger. Nothing lethal, (or at least to my knowledge is lethal) but enough to take them down I suppose.