280- armed robbers, only 40 made the cops shoot.

[Axeanda45]

Navy,

You asked a question, I answered it. Dont ask a question if you dont want an answer. If you already knew the answer, then dont ask a question. If there were more conditions applied to your question, you should have put that in your question, such as "If self defense is a justification for homicide, why is it not a justification for brandishing when/if...?"

Desert, you DID NOT answer the question he asked, you answered the question YOU THOUGHT he asked..... NOTHING was said about drawing WITHOUT a life being in danger, ever... Yet you keep reading that into EVERY post that contradicts your (wrong) way of thinking....

[agrippakc]

Something I don't understand. If self defense is a justification for homicide, why is it not a justification for "brandishing?" "I was in fear of my life so I drew my gun, preparing to stop the threat against me, and the criminal saw the gun and ran, so I didn't shoot him." Is there any more evidence against a person in court who says that over the person who is standing over a dead body in the street who says "I was in fear of my life so I drew my gun, preparing to stop the threat against me and I had to shoot him"?

Also, any violation of the law can be justified via the legal concept of necessity. The justification does not have to be expressly written into the prohibitive statute.



Is it really that far fetched?

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-fa...6.0-screen.pdf
Page 11:

"Fact: Every day 550 rapes, 1,100 murders, and 5,200 other violent crimes are prevented just by showing a gun. In less than 0.9% of these instances is the gun ever actually fired."

If that is true, it seems like there is a whole lot of "brandishing" in self defense happening.

Good information. Really I think it comes down to the willingness of somebody to take another persons life. Most people are not really willing to kill or harm another and that is a good thing. We never know until we are tested. In the end it comes down to training, think about how many people buy guns to have "just in case" and how many buy guns and have CCWs that train on a regular basis. We have a local gun club that is taught and coached by current and former law enforcement, professional gun trainers, and former military that go through drills and all of them focus on follow through, shoot-don't shoot situations, and firing under stress. All of these basically work from a threat assessment mindset and finishing it once it begins. The don't shoot works from a innocent bystander or non-threat basis. For people that train to recognize a threat and work on threat engagement drills there are literally seconds from start to finish. If somebody starts to pull a gun or has a gun and comes at me and drops the gun and throws their hands up as I am clearing leather that is a scenario where I don't shoot. If I see something going down I don't intervene and I call the cops and I try to be a good witness, but if I an engaged then I engage back as training dictates. Under that situation the training kicks in and training is about the follow through. I wing the guy and he drops the gun then the treat is removed as far as the BG stops the attack. The two points of view here are dealing with absolutes and that is fine, we all make up our own minds on this because that is our prerogative. In the end we make judgments that we will have to live with and is the way of the world. However, in the statistics that you offered the broad findings of how many where the gun was actually used and breaking it down even further would require needing to know exact details of each engagement to separate the situations where a immediate life threats were made in actual attacks, not just where a gun was present. If I hear a noise in my garage in the night and go out to investigate and find a burglar who throws up their hands I am not going to shoot, on the street when some guy pulls a knife at close range then I am going to try to shoot them, again- follow through because hesitation gets good guys killed. If I can disengage and escape I will, although Kansas law allows me to defend my ground with deadly force thanks to a stand your ground law, I am not out to kill anybody. Remember in all my arguments and presumably Deserts, we are talking about close quarters surprise assaults on our being. Look at how quickly the attacker can cover ground at the following link.

The Police Policy Studies Council

[Firefighterchen]

Because the two parties here are arguing over two different scenarios, there is nothing wrong from either party.

[agrippakc]

Because the two parties here are arguing over two different scenarios, there is nothing wrong from either party.

That is a nice way of putting it. Yes, I second that.

[Blooze]

You should have answered the "could I take a life in a given circumstance?" question long before you ever carry a weapon. If you haven't made that decision leave the weapon at home. If a situation is life or death and requires the use of deadly force then it is just that, deadly force. God forbid we should ever be put in that situation but call it what it is. Talk of "shooting to stop the threat" is nothing more than a means of making it more palatable for the average person to accept. Deadly force is a means to take a life end of story. Brandishing a weapon to intimidate someone is a good way to get yourself killed.

[magnesium]

This guy got arrested for brandishing read the story. http://www.clarksvillenow.com/Man-Charged-with-Showing-Handgun-During-Argument/11471190

[SlamCheese]

Most crooks are career criminals. If one is stopped you didn't just prevent one crime, but every offense thereafter. Pulling a gun and "scarring" the savage away ensured that some other person (perhaps not as well trained as you) will suffer at his or her mercy. Of course I'm only talking about drawing and shooting at someone if your life was in imminent danger.