When is it self-defense?

Quote: rxwine

Of course, the kid killed could be an 8 year old brother who picked up a broom stick, and they were getting ready to drop him off at home before going out partying.

All the more reason for the teens not to yell death threats at someone else.

Quote:

If you're deciding in a moment of panic anything could happen.

Exactly. Which is why you do not want to do anything to make other people fear for their lives.

Self defense is when you truly think you'll die
or be really hurt and you defend yourself by
any means necessary. Right way or overkill,
in your mind its you or them.

Quote: Nareed

You can justify firing at a retreating car as the heat of the moment, or altered emotional state. But it does look really bad. Not reporting it is worse.

I'm concerned, though, as these rather marginal cases are trumpeted as examples against self-defense. That will tend to leave others more exposed and more at risk when confronted by thugs and criminals. While the man in this case may not have acted well, more blame should be ascribed to the teens for making death threats to begin with.

I never think of that stuff initially, usually I just pull my surface thoughts and let them fly. Very good points all around.

It's kind of a sad world when you have to vote against your beliefs to support your own cause down the road. Or maybe "sad" isn't the right word. Maybe that's just "life"...

Also, this was Jacksonville. I assume Jacksonville Fla, the most crime ridden city in the state? Maybe I was hasty in predicting he'd burn.

Quote: Face

Also, this was Jacksonville. I assume Jacksonville Fla, the most crime ridden city in the state? Maybe I was hasty in predicting he'd burn.

Something, you said on the other board, reminds me, I was always taught avoid fights if possible. I think I actually dislike "stand your ground" laws because they say go ahead and shoot, don't avoid conflict or retreat if you can.

In some military and police training they use those situational practice training aids that give you situations from real life that aren't clear yes or no shooting situations. And trainees shoot innocents, and I assume they do get better in these ambigious situations.

But as far as I know there's no particular requirement for most gun owners. It's great if you make the right decision in a shooting. But the law can even protect your mistaken assumptions that training might have helped prevent in the first place.

A reasonable untrained person can probably be forgiven for making the same wrong assumptions, and someone gets hurt or killed unnecessarily. A jury may process that as "self-defense" even when someone probably didn't need to get shot if someone had made a better decision.

Sometimes a lesser than lethal option is available. Someone approaching your home, yelling thru your screen door? Close the solid door.

Laws vary as to fleeing your own home, particularly in a domestic dispute. Now they often extend the no need to flee your own home to no need to flee anyplace where you are lawfully present.

And burglars are attempting to assert that a right to stand your ground gives the burglar an expectation that a homeowner will stand his ground and therefore an expectation that the homeowner will shoot to kill.

One wonders if there is a right to blare one's music? Funniest cartoon I ever saw was Youth Walks Along Sidewalk Carrying Humungous GhettoBlaster at Top Volume. As he approaches Little Old Lady on Sidewalk, She pulls gun, plugs him dead center and quietly plods onward in silence.

Quote: rxwine

Something, you said on the other board, reminds me, I was always taught avoid fights if possible. I think I actually dislike "stand your ground" laws because they say go ahead and shoot, don't avoid conflict or retreat if you can.

I and many I grew up with were taught opposite; “stand up for yourself”. Especially in grade school with its odd social structure, showing weakness or inability to stand up made you a target at best, an outcast at worst. Sure, you were always supposed to go to a teacher or whatever, but if none were around, you were to stand up for yourself. You were to throw down. You were to fight.

Many never grew out of it. Once you hit that magic age of 18, shit changes. And it didn’t take long for me to realize that fighting was basically a game wherein the loser wins a trip to the hospital and the winner a trip to jail. Occasionally, there’s even a bonus round where the loser wins death and the winner wins a million dollar lawsuit against him. And for what? ‘Cause you were “disrespected”? Grow up.

And considering I carry in NY, well, there goes the ball game. The last thing I ever want to test are NYS’ gun laws.

In my perfect world, the Law would allow for stand your ground, but Common Sense would dictate retreat when you can. Just because I want that leeway, that “legal protection”, so to speak. I mean, if I’m with my kid at the mall and something pops off, I’m running the hell out of Sears. But if I go to pick up my kid at recreation and someone’s already there with a gun, there’s not a being in all of creation that would stop me from charging in, gun in hand.

Quote: rxwine

Something, you said on the other board, reminds me, I was always taught avoid fights if possible. I think I actually dislike "stand your ground" laws because they say go ahead and shoot, don't avoid conflict or retreat if you can.

Not quite. What stand your ground laws mean is that you do not have an obligation to retreat. The intent behind such laws is that one should not put one's self at more risk before attempting self-defense. Look at it this way: no one can outrun a bullet. When confronted with an assailant holding a gun on you, retreat is not an option. If the law imposes a duty to retreat before you can defend yourself, you'll wind up with a bullet in the back. The law also does not intend that you should seek out a cronfrontation, and then kill someone in self-defense.

It helps to think of such things through principles rather than concretes. Foremost is the matter of moral responsibility. Someone who chooses to escalate a nomral situation (like standing at a traffic light), or to employ force or violence (like any criminal), is morally responsible for any response to those actions. By the way, this means some police tactics are hideously wrong, like when they storm a place, guns drawn, without warning. Any reasonable person would see this as an armed intrusion rather than a lawful action. In the military storming a place with guns drawna dn without warning is indubitably an attack, not a police action. But of course in war killing is the norm, but not in police actions.

Quote: rxwine

In some military and police training they use those situational practice training aids that give you situations from real life that aren't clear yes or no shooting situations. And trainees shoot innocents, and I assume they do get better in these ambigious situations.

While this is so, and there have been many cases of untrained people shooting bystanders accidentally, there is another side to consider: what training is there for retreating safely?

Quote: Nareed

While this is so, and there have been many cases of untrained people shooting bystanders accidentally, there is another side to consider: what training is there for retreating safely?

Millions of years of Evolution.

Quote: Nareed

Not quite. What stand your ground laws mean is that you do not have an obligation to retreat. The intent behind such laws is that one should not put one's self at more risk before attempting self-defense. .

But I'm pretty sure the rulings before 'stand your ground' take in the reasonableness of an action, not cut and dry rulings.

If you can see that retreat is more danger there is no reason to retreat.

There's no reason why self defense isn't good enough.