NOTE: USCCA Customer Engagement team members get a lot of questions, and they pass a good number of them along to Concealed Carry Magazine Senior Editor Ed Combs. If you have a question, you can either ask it below or email it to editor@usconcealedcarry.com. We, of course, cannot guarantee answers to all questions — Ed’s a pretty busy guy — but we’d love to help you out with whatever’s stumping you.
We all know that a legally armed citizen can only use their weapon in case of reasonable concern for safety and/or life.
In numerous stories of armed citizens’ intervention, there are instances wherein an armed citizen stopping a crime then keeps a bad guy at gun point until police arrive for arrest.
Considering the armed citizen can only use his/her firearm in the case of reasonable concern for safety and/or life, what is to keep the bad guy from just turning around and walking way - aside from concern the armed citizen does not know or will not comply with the law?
Those are potentially criminal acts, depending on the state, the DA, and the circumstances, numerous charges could be filed against the armed citizen, such as kidnapping or false imprisonment, etc. Not all states have “Citizen’s Arrest” statutes, and even where they do, you could still end up in a bad legal situation, either criminally or civilly, or both.
Absolutely nothing - and that would be a good result.