In All Seriousness

I am something of a callous bastard. I'm sure you've seen the scene in a hundred movies, the bad guy has the good guy's loved on held hostage; he tells the good guy to drop his weapon or he'll kill the loved one. In the movies, the good guy drops the weapon and then somehow saves the day. Deux ex machina is real in movies.

Here in the real world, that would get the loved one and the hero killed.

That means that I cannot ever surrender my weapons to "save" my loved hostage. That's probably going to mean a dead loved one. Let it be known now, however, if you take my loved ones hostage, you have committed suicide. You might still be moving around and talking, but you are as dead as if you had swallowed Pu239. Your best hope is get to the cops before I get to you, and then hope I die before you get parole.

Good news for the hostage in those scenes. I can, while the bad guy is demanding I drop the gun, put a THIRTY round group in a head sized target at the less than 10 yard range these confrontations seem to occur at. Go ahead an monologue, I'm aiming...

Before someone says it, I do not consider my refusal to drop my weapon as murdering my loved on. I am not the one killing them, the bad guy is. And he is committing suicide by killing my loved one.