Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

SayUncle noticed someone carrying in public and snapped a picture. He must have a good eye, because I couldn’t tell myself. I’ve been made twice, both by little kids, whose short height makes it easy for them to see concealed items beneath clothing. The first was Bitter’s nephew, who went to give me a hug goodbye, then awkwardly asks in public “Why do you have a gun on?” The second was more recently, by a friend’s kid, who noticed something in my pocket when he bumped into it, then asked what I had in my pocket. I didn’t answer, so I can’t say I was technically “made” but most people don’t notice the pocket holster.

I’ve been around cops while carrying, and never been made. One was even an accident scene, and when I had a Glock 19 under my shirt. Maybe instead of “stop and frisk,” Bloomberg should just hire little kids.

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s a good idea. This guy in Texas tried to get out of the store, but found the doors locked. Once locked in, he drew and started a gunfight with the robbers, accidentally killing the clerk with a stray bullet. Without knowing the specific circumstances, I can’t speak on whether this was an unwise action or not. If the robbers saw his attempt to leave and attempted to claim physical control over him, he might not have had much of a choice. I would not allow an armed robber to exercise physical control over me if I were armed. A wise move might have been hiding in the aisles and forcing the robbers to come looking for you, which would distract their attention away from the clerk and give you an opportunity to engage without the clerk being in the line-of-fire. Even locked in a store, if the robbers are not trying to exercise physical control over you, I think the best option is to hunker down, call 911 if you can, and let things go down. Chances are the robbers are taking the till and running, and you don’t owe any store clerk what you’ll go through if you have to shoot someone.

SayUncle responds to a post by Caleb on training thusly:

It’s like there’s this weird dynamic on this training issue where on one side you have people who think all training sucks and as long as they have their lucky rabbit’s foot err gun in their pocket, they’re ten feet tall and bulletproof. And on the other, you have people who eat, sleep and poop training because they’re high-speed, low-drag mall ninja wanna be supper troopers who think everyone who doesn’t work out and train is one cell level above an amoeba in terms of functioning.

I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of people who successfully defend themselves don’t have much more than the basic training requirements for their state. I would never pooh-pooh training, and even though I think HTH training is a good idea, I can’t say that I’ve taken a course. For one, training is expensive, and for two, training takes time, and time and money have been in short supply for two years. Caleb notes:

The great majority of defensive gun uses don’t involve a shot being fired. Most of them are in the home, draws/reloads aren’t a factor, and you know what – the level of training of the good guy isusually not relevant. Those are all great justifications for not getting professional training, because after all you probably won’t need it. That’s the honest truth. But odds are you’re going to go your entire life and never need your gun. $400 for a magic talisman seems a little steep to me.

I think for the carrier, you have a duty to be competent. You should be able to perform all the motions necessary for self-defense with safety and reasonable competence. I don’t think that necessarily has to involve working your way through all the coursework at Gunsite or Insights, though if you decided to do that, it certainly isn’t a bad idea. But if you choose that route, you should choose it for you, not because you have any duty to. Once you talk about going to one of these schools for some of their basic courses, you’ll end up with more self-defense training than many police have, who are orders of magnitude more likely to need their gun than you are.

There seems to be a debate going on in the gun blogosphere about whether unarmed self-defense, or hand-to-hand combat, is a good idea or not. I haven’t been following closely enough to get an idea of what the major arguments are for or against, but I thought I’d throw my two cents into the debate, hopefully without summoning the drama llama.

There’s two types of force, legally. There’s force, and deadly force. Force is generally everything that is not deadly force, which is generally the level of force that is likely to result in grave bodily injury or death, such as a gun, knife, club, etc. Fists can be deadly force under some circumstances.

But your likelihood of running into a situation where force is allowed in self-defense, but not deadly force, are probably greater than your likelihood of encountering a deadly force situation. The force spectrum is awfully wide, before you get to deadly force, and it seems to me that it’s a good idea to have some option in that regard. In that case, I’m not likely to look down on unarmed defensive training. The more tools you have at your disposal if you have to defend yourself the better.

UPDATE: OK, I think the conversation started with this, but I didn’t put two and two together. Yeah, I’d definitely think about seeking out alternate HTH training.

UPDATE: Getting a bit more caught up on this debate, looks like it was an accident, though, I’d be open to the argument that the instructor pushed too hard. Though I’m not an expert on this to really have an opinion on that matter.

An article in the Herald Tribune speaks of the problems with the law. It’s almost like everyone is suddenly looking at self-defense cases and discovering that, shockingly, self-defense cases are all rather circumstantial, and juries can be inconsistent in how they see those circumstances as being self-defense or not.

Unfortunately for the poorly educated media, this was true before Stand your Ground laws, and it will be true after stand your ground laws. In the mean time, it looks like the task force is holding hearings. Our people would do well to mob these hearings so that the opponents of the law are not the only ones being heard.

SayUncle links to a story that suggests it might not be a wise idea, especially when considering Hornady’s disclaimer. The best advice I’ve ever heard for carry ammo was to find out what your State Troopers carry, and carry the same. That pretty much defeats any prosecutor’s argument that you were carrying shred-o-matic rounds of mayhem and destruction in your carry piece.

Robb has some contrary thoughts on the matter. I tend to think the odds of this coming up in a case are slim, but I believe this advice is based on an actual case that I’ve read about. I just can’t remember the case name, or where I read about it. It might be a story told by Massad Ayoob, who had been expert witness is a number of cases. I think the reason most lawyers suggest carrying ordinary factory self-defense ammo is because, in a self-defense case, there are going to already be enough factors for your attorney to deal with, and there’s not much good sense in introducing yet another element that’s going to make the case complicated for them, and by association you, the defendant. One thing to remember about the legal process, is that much like the political process, it’s a game. It’s about what you can convince a jury to do. One the prosecution decides to bring a case, and they generally won’t bring a case they believe they are certain to lose, they are going to use every angle they can possibly thing of in order to discredit you in the eyes of the jury. If they have to go after the ammunition you carried, they certainly will. That will be one more expert witness you’ll have to pay for, and several more hours of your lawyers time to deal with that issue.

Everyone has to weigh the risks versus the benefits. Personally, I think factory self-defense ammo works well enough to rely on it. In fact, I will trust it over my own loads. I just don’t see the advantage to carrying hand loads, or other unusual ammunition for self-defense purposes, enough to make up the downside.

I’m sure there is more to this case than the media story here is covering, but I find several things about it odd. For one, I don’t know why his attorney would have his client waive his right to trial-by-jury in a self-defense case. Any of you criminal defense lawyers out there, feel free to comment about this. I would imagine in virtually all circumstances, that a jury is going to be more likely to acquit on self-defense grounds than a judge is. Based on the media reports here, this looks like a cut and dry case of self-defense to me, meaning this is yet another case of the city frowning upon people defending themselves. I’m surprised the Daily News reporter is surprised by this:

The case underscores how uncertain the claim of self-defense can be, even in a state that revised its “Castle Doctrine” last year to give an individual the right to use deadly force in self-defense anywhere in which a person has a legal right to be.

Such was the case before castle doctrine, and such will continue to be the case after castle doctrine, because the honest truth is that the castle doctrine laws in the various states don’t change that much in regards to the standards that have to be met for self-defense. Because there’s a reasonableness element to it, it’s always going to be subject to some degree of uncertainty in some cases, as to whether one’s perception of the threat was reasonable.

You have to wonder if a lot of reporters really bought into the chicken little nonsense from the gun control crowd and the D.A. association.

From Miguel (graphic link, just to warn), you’re always going to have the bleeding hearts:

The same somebody at work who passed the drug info on Rudy Eugene, complained loudly that the first officer on the scene “did not have to shoot him four times.” When I asked what would have been the right amount of shots required to stop a drug-crazed individual who was ripping off the flesh of a fellow human being (according to what I just heard on the news, a 60 year old homeless guy) he refused to answer.

When it comes to using deadly force against people who are unarmed, if being naked and eating someone’s face off doesn’t quality as justification, I don’t think the world can help you. Four shots is what it took to stop to the threat. End of story. It makes me think if there was ever an outbreak of face eating zombies, you’re going to have people like this running around trying to stick up for the rights of the zombies. Well, at least until it’s their face getting eaten off.

In yet another round of evidence that our opponents bet their paychecks on a lame horse, a new Quinnipiac poll is showing that 56% of registered voters in Florida support the law. Along the racial divide, 53% of Hispanics support the law, and 56% of blacks oppose the law. There’s an even more stark division by party:

Meanwhile, support was strongest among Republicans, who supported it 78 percent to 15 percent, while independents supported it 58 percent to 35 percent. A majority of Democrats opposed it: 59 percent to 32

Strong independent support means the law is likely safe from legislative interference, provided gun owners remain vigilant on this matter. But it’s always good to be able to show legislators that polling runs in your favor.

As far as opposition from Blacks goes, I would pose this question collectively to the black community. Who is more likely to end up having to defend themselves with deadly force? A black person who lives in a lousy neighborhood, or a white person who lives in a quiet suburb? Who do you think is more likely to be forced to explain himself in front of a jury, because the prosecutor didn’t want to cut them a break? A middle class white person, who can afford a good attorney, or a poor black person who has to fall back on a public defender? Who’s case of self-defense do you think is likely to be viewed more suspiciously by authorities?

A big reason why I think the Trayvon Martin shooting resonated with the black community is because there’s an underlying, and often correct belief, that blacks don’t get a fair shake from the justice system. But Martin is one case, and I think forming an opinion on one emotionally charged case is short sighted. The fact remains that because of high levels of black-on-black violence, African-Americans are far more likely to need to defend themselves than average. Combine that with a legal system which is reluctance to offer black defendents, particularly poor blacks that can’t afford to hire good attorneys, benefit of doubt, is all the more reason for there to be mechanisms in place to make it more difficult for an ambitious prosecutor to railroad a defendant engaged in a legitimate act of self-defense. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said in a judicial opinion upholding Stand Your Ground, that “detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.”