From: Kerryn Offord



B2431 wrote:

From: "Jim Doyle"


"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
1...

"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..."


Agreed.


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).

I don't know if you have any experience with guns, but I know how long it takes
to unlock my ammo locker and my gun safe. I also know how long it takes to load
any of my guns. By the time I have done it the bad guy is going to have had
plenty of time to do what he wants. Do you seriously expect the bad guy to
stand there and wait until you have armed yourself?

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....

It shouldn't matter at all where a weapon is stored. Premeditation implies I
intended to harm or kill that specific bad guy. It also implies I went out of
my way to do it. Self defense by whatever means is NOT premeditated murder.

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.

You may not be law suit crazy in NZ, but it's unbeliebably rampant here in the
U.S.
Have you heard about the grandmother who won a law suit for burning herself
with coffee she had just bought from MacDonald's? She was the passenger in
that car which was stopped at the time of the incident. There are criminals
who sue and win for injuries incurred during the commision of their crimes.
Doctors get sued because a baby is not born perfect.

Feel free to research this. You may get quite a few laughs.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired