TASERS are not effective enough for self-defense against an armed opponent

The purpose of this homeowner is to protect his family. If someone breaks into my house, I send my dogs out to identify and distract them. If it's too dark to see them, once I'm sure that they don't belong, I will shoot them. If the house is well lit, they might have a chance to surrender as long as they obey commands and keep their hands visible. I will not "trust" my family to somebody who just broke into my house.

The welfare of a home invader is not my concern.

 

Dogs make good friends and like any really good buddy, will often, protect you and your family. Funny, I just advised a recently widowed friend who lives alone that I have trained with various means of self defense to consider getting a dog... they give good company and make great deterrents.

 

Oh, malarky!

If you got shot *after* you confronted the intruder then you didn't use self-defense protocols properly. You do *not* shoot first and then ask questions later. Nor do you shoot to kill. You shoot in self-defense. You shoot to stop aggressive actions against you that will result in grievous bodily harm or death if you do not protect yourself. That is time tested in courtrooms across the country. It's what the USCCA recommends. It's what almost all self-defense laws say verbatim.

Stop using the argumentative fallacy of Poisoning the Well. I.e. attacking the messenger because you can't attack the message!

 

How do you shoot in self-defense without shooting to kill? Are you using less than lethal munitions?

 

The self-defense statutes in almost all states include the verbiage that you must be afraid of grievous bodily harm or death before using potentially lethal force. Once the threat of grievous bodily harm or death is stopped the use of lethal force is no longer justified in self-defense. An intruder that has forced his way into your home *is* a threat of grievous bodily harm or death. The intruder has already demonstrated their aggressive stance by using force.

An aggressive criminal is *not* a victim - ever!

 

If your intent is to kill them, whether they represent a danger of grievous bodily harm or death to you or your family or not, then you will have a *very* hard time invoking the self-defense laws.

 

Good thing you were not an Instructor in any of my LE courses, lol, by that time I learned to recognize and Ignore hot air filled blowhards.

 

The issue is not what ammunition you are using, the issue is your intent. If your intent is to kill an intruder, regardless of circumstances, then you are going to have a hard time invoking the self-defense laws.

Think of it this way. You hear an intruder trying to steal the small trailer in your driveway. If your intent upon arming yourself is to shoot and kill the intruder from your back steps, then you will have a hard time invoking self-defense. If your firearm is to protect yourself from grievous bodily harm or death when you confront the intruder then you won't have to use it if the intruder surrenders or runs away, you will only have to use it if he attacks you and you are in fear of grievous bodily harm or death. Even then your intent should not be to kill the intruder but only to stop his attack. Never tell the police you meant to kill the SOB for trying to steal your property or even for confronting you inside your house. That's a quick path to the pokey!

With the advances in trauma medicine today only about 30% of gunshot victims die anyway, even from incapacitating wounds.

 

You aren't providing any information concerning self-defense so just how much can *you* know about the subject? All you've done is offer "shoot first and shoot to kill, not to stop" as the best advice for confronting an aggressor. And then you've done nothing but criticize assertions that such a posture in a lethal force situation will lead you to the pokey quicker than anything else.

 

Dunno, after a long career as a Police Officer, several Countries, as a certified Firearms Instructor, I may know a few things.

I carry 24/7 thanks to LEOSA, and so far, I have not been charged.

I am sure you have much more experience with personal defense.

 

I tend to agree with a lot you say most of the time however if you are advocating shoot to kill your lawyer will have you muzzled at your court trial. I teach both use of deadly force for LEOs and Concealed carry classes for civilians as a state certified instructor. The purpose of ANY use of force against someone is to STOP their actions against yourself or others. I recognize using a firearm constitutes deadly force but many more people survive gunshot wounds than die. To say you are shooting to kill invites prosecutors to charge you with murder and indicates to me and possibly a jury that even though the person you shot had stopped and might have lived, you made sure they were dead. Bad MOJO there partner.

 

The objective in self defense is not to shoot to kill, but to shoot to stop the attack. A shot to the stomach may kill the attacker, but not necessarily stop him fast enough to stop the attack.

 

Not really. FL law gives me the right to use lethal (killing) force in defending myself or others from forcible felonies.

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/0776.html

 

Yes you are allowed to use deadly force but to say your intent was to kill is not what an attorney representing you would want you to say to an investigator or jury. More like, I used deadly force (lethal) against a force that could have caused me great bodily harm or death in order to STOP the attack, as a result of his or her actions they died from my application. Hence the fault is theirs, not mine.

 

My intent would not be to kill, but to stop. That said, I doubt that a jury around here would convict me if I said I wanted to kill someone who was endangering my wife, for example. Then again, I wouldn't want to do that with a jury downstate.

 

OH I agree with you....and with the trend growing in use of guns against criminals and people getting tired of being victims it's likely to be more common that juries won't convict. People just need to learn that words matter and with social media being what it is, saying something stupid could allow a nasty anti-gun prosecutor to convince a jury you are a nothing more that a murderer.

 

I have never advocated "Shoot to kill" in the various classes I attended including JTF with the FEDS, shooting centermass with the proper FBI approved loads, killing was never mentioned, neither was shooting to stop.
And if there is a shooting, you have a Legal Representative, an Attourney present during any questions.
Obviously wording counts post shooting incident.

 

The sole foundation of using force of any kind is to stop the actions of the illegal act upon you. I don't know how many attorney generals, attorneys, UOF experts I have heard say that or something similar. Another thought on where we shoot, we teach "center mass" is "what is visible", it does no good to shoot for the center of the chest when it is behind a tree, center mass could be a head, a leg, a shoulder, some are vital areas and some might not be. If they are stopped shooting center mass of a foot then quite probably it will not be fatal.

 

There was one time, a barracaded felon was behind rusted out car hulks, after much shooting, he surrendered, the noise, the fragments, it proved too much.
Also, he ran out of ammo.

 

Most of em say...you ain't taking me alive.....until they could be taken otherwise LOL

 

The objective is to stop the threat. With the legal caveat of using reasonable force to do so.

 

I learned from TV's and westerns in the 50's that a good guy can disarm a bad guy by shouting on in the arm or shooting a gun out of the hand.... it's the basis for much of the logic of the left.

 

I have carried all my life. Now I can do it legally thanks to Constitutional Carry in my state. I've only had to draw my firearm twice outside my house and twice inside my house.

I have a sister-in-law and brother-in-law that are sheriff deputies and three of my best friends are police. I have trained with them many times.

As long as you think "shoot first and shoot to kill" is the proper protocol for self-defense you are a menace. Anyone you train in that protocol is a menace. And they risk jail every time they follow that protocol.

 

Look, conceptually we are using a gun (always considered lethal force if it is fired at another person) with the idea that it will or could kill the intended threat. It's why we must always be under imminent threat of death or great bodily harm before we use it. However the stated concept must always be that we intended to stop the threat of death or great bodily harm whether or not the attacker actually dies. There are rarely ideal self defense shooting confrontations whereby an active threat presents an unmoving, unprotected center mass shot that allows us to "kill" the bad guy. We must protect the idea that we use deadly force to stop an illegal action against us or we are no better than the bad actors.
End of sermon