Just Like Grape
Once again, the Use-Of-Force Instructor-In-Chief is out there spewing nonsense about self defense:
Don’t listen to Brandon's advice, kids. If it doesn’t get you or an innocent bystander killed, it could well land you in prison. I’m not even going to discuss the impracticality of attempting to make a “less lethal” shot with a lethal weapon…at a target which is likely moving and possibly in the vicinity of other people. You’re smart enough to understand why that is a bad idea.
Instead, let’s consider the legal consequences of shooting at another human being with a firearm. Now, I’m not a lawyer, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express…so if you want detailed, expert legal dissection of the issues surrounding deadly force, I’d recommend you refer to the excellent work of Andrew Branca and Massad Ayoob. But if you’re satisfied with a simplified, everyman’s explanation of why President Tapioca-Brain is wrong…I’m your guy.
This only works in the movies.
The bottom line is that in the eyes of the law, you cannot just shoot someone a little bit. In every jurisdiction I’m aware of, deadly force is generally defined as force which causes, or can reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical injury. I emphasize serious physical injury because even if you do manage to successfully target an extremity such as an arm or a leg, you are likely to be inflicting a wound which will fit the legal definition of serious physical injury. Specific wording may vary from state to state, but typically serious physical injury is defined as an injury which is life threatening, causes permanent disability or loss of function of a body structure, or requires medical or surgical intervention to prevent permanent disability or loss of function of a body structure. There simply are not many spots on a human body which you could shoot which would not create such an injury.
So even if you shoot someone’s pinky toe off, you have still just employed deadly force as far as the law is concerned. What this means is that the same level of legal justification is required to shoot someone’s pinky toe off as to shoot them square in the center of the chest and kill them dead. If you aren’t legally justified in killing them…then you are not legally justified in shooting at all! In fact, if you were to deliberately target an extremity and end up in court, a prosecutor could possibly argue that you did so because you did not truly believe that your attacker presented a deadly threat.
So you see, as far as the law is concerned, either you are justified in using deadly force or you are not. Like Mr. Miyagi said, “Walk on road. Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later get squished, just like grape.” There is no such thing as just a little bit of deadly force. So to paraphrase Mr. Miyagi’s advice, “You either deadly force do yes…or deadly force do no. You deadly force do guess so, squished just like grape.” Don’t get squished.
