B2431 wrote:

From: "Jim Doyle"


"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
...

"Jim Doyle" wrote in
:
SNIP
And once again,getting shot is NOT always a "death sentence".
Nice try at emotionalizing the issue,though.

The act of shooting at a person may result in their death. Luck of the draw
if it's not fatal, but the intention is to kill, is it not? Otherwise you'd
pursue a non-lethal method of self-protection.

So yes, you are engaging a person who could die as a result of your actions,
and according to you they deserve to die for the situation in which you both
find yourselves - that's as good as sentencing them to death. In fact - it
is.

It is simply NOT a matter of being judge, jury and executioner. Shooting is not
the first choice. If the badguy doesn't retreat and you feel threatened then
it's the badguy's fault, no one else's.

The trouble is, this isn't what other people have been saying. Some have
been saying... more or less, that shooting is the first response to an
intruder.. even before you know anything about the intent (like, the
person knocking on the door asking "Excuse me, can you tell me where I
can find..."




Let's try a nonlethal analogy. Badguy enters your house and threatens your
children. You break his knee cap with a 9 iron. Badguy will never walk normal
again. Whose fault is it? The badguy set up the scenario, the badguy committed
a felony just entering an occupied dwelling (ever notice the penalties are
higher for occupied dwellings than for unoccupied? There's a reason) The bad
guy made threats. You have to act.


Someone breaks into your house and threatens the family... you can use
reasonable force to defend yourself or others... If the guy is still
alive afterwards... well, they was lucky... But you shouldn't have a
hand gun, and that shotgun had better have been secured when you grabbed
it (and got the ammo out of another locked cabinet). Technically you
shouldn't have the golf club lying handy (it implies premeditation,
however, I don't see a jury convicting and neither will the police), but
pulling one out of the golf bag is ok....



As an aside, I used to teach NRA courses including home protection. The word
kill is never used and part of the course is taught by a lawyer and/or a law
enforcement officer. We teach to "stop" the aggressor. If that means you have
to kill then do it.

In the United States laws suits are too common. The 9 iron scenario above would
most likely result in the home owner being sued with the bad guy winning.


I don't think any intruder who gets whacked while engaged in 'home
invasion' has a chance of even getting the case to court, let alone
winning. OTOH we tend not to sue at the drop of a hat in NZ...

As long as the householder used reasonable force there is no chance of
them being sued.


Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired