Let's start by breaking this into three questions:
- were the father and son's actions smart or stupid?
- were the father and son's actions morally right or wrong?
- were the father and son's actions legal or illegal?
I had no difficulty immediately reaching a conclusion that trying to play cop by making a citizen's arrest was both incredibly stupid and had a morally wrong result in this case. Geez, people don't have to do dangerous and questionable stuff when they pay taxes for law enforcement to be a phone call away.
I do have difficulty reaching an absolute conclusion about whether the actions were legal or illegal. I am not an expert on Georgia citizen's arrest case law, nor do I imagine that anyone on CFF is such an expert. When a nationally-known firearms lawyer like Andrew Branca says the case may hinge on the technicalities of state law, I am perfectly willing to suspend my conclusion about legality until more information becomes available.
As I wrote much earlier in this thread: As it often the case,
there may be a huge gap between what is right or wrong and what is legal or illegal.