Think about how it could have played out if you didn't use the gun. You get out of the car and the car jacker drives off. No stress, no chance of anyone getting killed. Maybe you get your car back and the insurance fixes it. Maybe you get a new car. No big deal.

 

I would be careful stating these things publically as if you got in the unfortunate situation where you were forced to defend your life (as opposed to your car), someone could have a field day using these statements against you. Don't want someone thinking that given the chance you would cap someone just to get another scum bag off the street regardless as to the actual threat present.

It really does not have anything to do with a liberal court system, but it would seem that a question would be whether a jury of your peers deemed the force used reasonable or you had no other choice but to kill to prevent yourself from being killed. To me, a car is not worth a human life even if the human is a *******.

Either they have a gun and your life is in danger or you have taken the force issue to a different level than the scumbug presented. It seems like one would make a decision to take someone's life based on whether that is the only option given the threat present and not based on the desire to shut the ******* up, prevent him from ever telling his side of the story or just to get another ******* off the street. That mens rea could be construed as conduct worse than the ******* car theif's conduct.

Not meant as legal advise, don't practice criminal law, discussion purposes only and . . . Laws do vary from state to state and states may have force statutes addressing that degree of force appropriate for forced entry into homes and etc.

 

Also, I know of a police test that includes a video simulation (with a mock gun in hand) showing a police call regarding a guy acting strangely at a railroad station. When they go to visit him, he seems very aggressive. He threatens to kill them and then walks towards the officers while reaching behind his back to pull something out. Some officers fire at the person, some do not. It turned out the person was simply reaching for their wallet to show their ID. The people that fired failed the test.

 

There is a huge difference between a trained police officer recognizing a Deadly Force Situation and a normal citizen. I agree with the majority. You shoot until the threat has been stopped. If the target is killed then so be it. In a high stress situation like that, unless you have significant training, you can not be expected to be able to take the time to aim for a shot meant to simply disable the target.

That being said. Everyone who carries a gun should take the time to get training and be very familiar with the weapon.

 

So you would have shot the guy pulling out his wallet?

 

I was not there. I could not tell you what I would have done. Personally I have been trained, unfortunately the Marine Corps does not train you to wound your target.

 

Bill, how about this scenario. The same guy that you let go then hits your wife and family with your car, killing them all but he is fine. He is released after 6 months because he was on drugs for a bad childhood and drives over to your now empty house laughing at you every night. Who is to say how it will pan out?

Doug, the problem is ABSOLUTELY a liberalism problem. If criminals were actually convicted, punished, and prisons were hell, not country clubs, there would be extremely little crime to begin with. Liberalism is based upon avoidance of personal responsibility and we now better what to do with your money than you do. Liberalism is evil!

I'm not an attorney but what you say on a chat board bears very little resemblance to your state of mind while an act is being committed. I really doubt I'm in any jeopardy and would question the admissibility.

Shawn, your shot killed me. LOL

I agree offroad, never carry a gun you aren't extremely comfortable with.

 

I wrote opinions for a state Supreme Court justice for four years and all death penalties had mandatory review. The conviction rate and rate of affirmance in my court of appeals and state Supreme Court is pretty high (I would guess 99 out of 100), especially for Class C felonies to Class A felonies which include weapon offenses, murder car jacking and etc. Amazing how most individuals convicted of murder are always screaming self defense. Apparently, dispensing with the witness does not do much to help the self defense theory because most of the time it falls on deaf ears in murder cases.

The real problem in my state is the lower grade crimes (non violent crimes) which require alternative sentencing due to prison over crowding. Our prison systems are a nightmare and far from a country club. We actually keep getted hammered by Feds because our prisons are so violent and overcrowded. The solution to the problem is actually higher taxes so more prisons can be built, but the CONSERVATIVES (which I am as to most issues) certainly don't want higher taxes.

As far as admissibility, you have motive, state of mind and rebuttal of self defense. I know of someone who used to brag about street racing and how fast their car was on internet forums and that was actually used against them in a vehicular homocide case.

 

One key point.... you don't need higher taxes to fund those prisons. QUIT THE WASTEFUL SPENDING. (not you personally... I know you're mostly conservative)
Take $ away from garbage like the NEA (arts), and other crap that's completely worthless to have in gov't...
There's plenty of money in gov't already. To say that taxes are needed to fund anything these days is completely inaccurate. The money's there, it's just being wasted. It's a liberal lie to say anything else.

 

So, did you think he was going to pull out his wallet and pay for the car? People who threaten other people like that forfeit their right to live in our society.

 

I undertand. This opens up a whole new can of worms so to speak. I resent having to pay for a lot of things I pay for in taxes. It pains me greatly to hand over 6 figures a year from which I derive little or no benefit just to fund those individuals who lack any indicia of responsibility for themselves and their famalies they chose to procreate.

In Tennessee, we have had serious deficiets. These deficiets almost forced our criminal court system to shut down at one point as there was no more money. The Federal judges were ordering release of prisoners so that our local jails would be complaince with Fed regs. and our Sheriff was held in contempt for every day the over crowding existed. Its basically a mess here probably worse than other places due to a lot of factors I won't get into. Nevertheless, it is very frusterating.

They keep threatening a State income tax and thank god we dodged that bullet because they finally passed a state lottery this year. We get the convictions here and we are one of the most violent cities in the country per capita. There is just no place to put them all.

You can blame the system, but the "system" to blame is higher than the courts which I don't think are to blame. They do a good job.

 

Maybe he was reaching for his get out of jail free card.

 

Sorry, the car is not the issue here to me. But I do have an issue with your opinion.

If Shawn didn't have a gun, the perp could have killed him then taken his car. Don't forget about the dog in the perp's car either, that dog could have done some real damage to Shawn as well.

I think that scene in the Spiderman (yeah, I know it's cheesy) where he let the crook go and the crook ended up killing his grandpa serves a good point.

I appluad Shawn's self control and generosity, and am glad that he is ok. However, as soon as the perp opened the car door with a hand in his pocket like that, I think that some of us might have emptied the whole clip on him, and the world would have been rid of one less bad guy who is out there preying on the innocent.

Yes, the insurance would have taken care of getting Shawn a new car, but I believe that evil needs to be stopped. It's not about the car, it's about good vs. evil.

 

And if a stray bullet from this gun fight was a strike an innocent 4 year old girl bystander, what then. I would prefer to live somehwere that is not like the OK Coral where everyone takes the law into their own hands.

 

An example of taking the law into one's own hands in this situation would be if Shawn tomorrow went looking for this guy, hunted him down and took him out. Defending oneself with whatever means necessary is NOT taking the law into one's hands. It's a basic right of self defense. I for one will not stand idly by as some vermin threatens myself, my family or my property.
Had Shawn not been armed, and had reacted to the situation as you would prefer he had, he very well could be in the morgue right now.