Making the decision to carry
Why do you want to?
To protect yourself? Loved ones? Others?
What are you prepared to do?
Can you actually shoot someone?
Are you ready to spend the money to obtain good equipment, to train, and to practice?
Guns and Parachutes
They’re both critical safety equipment
If you need them, you better have trained with them
A fight is a very poor place to learn new skill
The Three Challenges
Survive
- The fight
- The criminal investigation
- The (inevitable) civil suit
Some really poor advice
If you ever have to shoot somebody:
- Outside, drag the body inside
- Look around for witnesses; if there aren’t any, just leave
- And it turns out they weren’t armed, put a knife in their hand
- Make sure they’re dead
Law (but we aren’t lawyers, thank the Lord)
Deadly Force
Oregon Revised Statues (ORS)
Case Law
What if scenarios
When can I shoot?
ONLY to prevent death or serious physical injury to yourself or an innocent third party (or, in some cases, residential burglary)
Please expound
— “serious physical injury” means the permanent impairment of an organ. So, bruises and black eyes don’t count; blind and crippling do.
How the heck would I know?!
It’s all in the articulation — be ready to explain your thought processes to the police and the jury
The standard is “reasonableness”
But the law is not completely stupid
Provocation – you can’t provoke someone and then claim self-defense
Initial aggressor – you can’t start the fight then claim self-defense
Mutual combat – you can’t both agree to step outside and settle it like men, then claim self-defense
(ORS 161.214)
Defense of property
Your big screen plasma TV is not considered a family member
Your fully restored 1965 Mustang is not considered a loved one
(Almost) never is it lawful to use deadly physical force to defend property (but you can use “physical force”)
Citizen’s arrest
Lawful in some circumstances
“Physical force” is lawful if “reasonable”
Deadly physical force is not lawful
Excellent way to get hurt and/or sued