Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

SayUncle got a neat new accessory for his Kel-Tec P3AT, namely a pair of Crimson Trace laser grips.  I’ve never been a huge fan of relying on laser sights on self-defense guns, but as it is, the sights on the P3AT are difficult to aquire, and saying they are rudamentary would be an understatement.  It’s a good pistol to have a laser sight on, because there’s no way you’re finding the P3AT’s sights in a poorly lit alley at night.

Dave Hardy tells us about some perspective on allowing crews to arm themselves against pirates from someone in the Insurance business.  It’s interesting about the crewman suing Maersk for failing to provide a safe work environment.  As much as I wish this would change things, it’s one of the reasons so few merchant vessels are registered in the United States.  Safe work environments aren’t a problem for the government of say, Liberia.

But this kind of calculation has always bothered me.  You have two entities, the shipowner and the insurer, essentially colluding to declare the crew expendable commodities, just like the ship’s cargo.  If the left are really so big on workers rights, this sort of things should absolutely concern them.  It’s exactly the same calculation used by most employers to ban any sort of firearm or self-defense enabling device in the workplace — that your personal safety is less important than the possibility the company may be sued.

It’s wrong in both cases, it’s just a much more stark examples when we’re talking about merchant vessel crews who are likely to faced armed pirates.

Florida is one of those states that still allows for use of deadly force in order to stop the commission of a felony, which played out in this story out of Florida:

Authorities do not plan to file charges against a Florida orange grove owner who fatally shot a 21-year-old woman, saying he is protected under the state’s controversial “no retreat” law.

But the woman’s boyfriend faces second-degree murder charges in her death, because the woman was shot to death during an alleged felony — the theft of an SUV.

This has nothing to do with the “no retreat law”.  Florida law allows for, and has always allowed for, the use of deadly force to stop a felony in progress.  In fact, this was common law, as I understand it, even going back to English common law.

At common law, the duty to retreat did not apply to someone stopping a felony (then felonies actually were serious crimes, unlike today when it’s anything politicians disapprove of strongly).  Duty to retreat generally only applied to individuals who were brawlers, or engaged in some other kind of non-felonious dispute.  Those individuals were expected to retreat before resorting to deadly force.  But if someone pulled a deadly weapon to rob you, you were justified in shooting him dead on the spot, as you were stopping a felony.

Fast forward a bit, and states started to take the common law justification of self-defense and put it into statutory law.  A lot of states, when they did this, took out the common law justification for felony, since these were done at a time when professional police forces were becoming common, and it was felt that apprehending and stopping felonies was a more a job for the police than private citizen.  The effect this created was that one had a duty to retreat in all circumstances.  Under American law, retreat is only necessary when the actor could have obtained complete safety by doing so, but it is still an element of the law, even if someone pulls a knife on you and demands your belongings, or even in a carjacking situation.  A prosecutor could, in theory, argue that you didn’t need to shoot the carjacker when you could have just driven off.

Some states, however, did create statutory justifications for stopping commission of a felony, and Florida is one of them.  This doesn’t have anything to do with castle doctrine.  Castle doctrine laws are meant to address the carjacking situation I spoke of above.  They eliminate the duty to retreat from a place you have a legal right to be, and establishes that deadly force may be used on a home invader, without having to first ascertain whether he presents a deadly threat.  This is not a new idea.  It used to be, many years ago, common law.

But don’t expect the media to do their research for you.

Brillianter has another in his series on self-defense.

Brillianter has two more good bits on handgun retention, and verbal commands.  Verbal commands is one area I never really worked on, and probably should if I’m going to carry a pistol for self-defense.  Despite the fact that I never shut up here, I’m not the most vocal person you could ever know in person.

Robb Allen is trying to help a friend of his who is looking to buy his first firearm, only problem is, his friend’s wife thinks its dangerous to keep a gun in the house.  My advice is to seek out training after you make your decision.  If home defense is really what you’re looking for, a shotgun may be more competently wielded by beginner than a pistol, and a shotgun has far greater stopping power.  If kids are part of the picture, a shotgun is less accident prone.  If you really want a pistol, a quick open safe is recommended if there’s kids in the house.  Trigger locks are dangerous.  If one comes with your gun throw it away and find a better way to secure it.

Clayton Cramer has managed to document over 4000 incidents on his Civilian Self-Defense Blog.

John Lott takes 20/20 to task for their hit piece on concealed carry.  Taking on the notion that ordinary citizens can’t stop mass shooters:

In the real world, even having a gun and pointing it at an attacker has often convinced the attacker to stop shooting and surrender. Examples include high schools in Pearl, Mississippi and Edinboro, Pennsylvania, as well as the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. Street attacks in Memphis to Detroit ended this way, too, without any more shots fired.

Then you have the notion that gun control would fix the problem:

You would think that if gun control worked as well as ABC implies, there wouldn’t be these multiple victim public shootings in those European countries with gun laws much stricter than those being publicly discussed in the United States or by ABC. Yet, multiple victim public shootings are quite common in Europe. In just the last few days, there have been a shooting at a college in Greece and in a crowded café in Rotterdam. Of course, the worst K-12 public school shootings are in Europe.

Read the whole thing.  It’s well worth the time.