Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Thunderball, your first post up here looks a lot like "vigilante" and not so much like self-defence!
I think that the provisions are based on what a prudent individual would do. If you felt that you were in a position where your life was threatened then lethal force would be reasonable would it not? Otherwise you get people who pull out the shotgun when someone trick-or-treats to the wrong house under the guise of property protection.
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I think vigilante is a rather large stretch...
But yeah, its a tricky argument. A large male attacker can be deadly with pretty much any implement... including their bare hands. Prudence also takes a backseat to instinct and panic in a life or death situation that very few people are trained to handle calmly.
Of course in a situation where someone's life is threatened, lethal force is reasonable, right? Wrong. If my attacker has a knife, and I have a rifle, both are lethal weapons, but... did I shoot in the air/floor to attempt to stop him? did I attempt to talk them down? Did I shoot for extremities first or right for the centre of body mass? Could I have shot to disarm or not? That's where "necessary" comes in and the trouble starts.
Gunning down trick-or-treaters as a counter example is setting up a straw man... we're talking about serious situations, like large men breaking into a house at 3:30 in the morning, not some little pumpkin adorned child ringing your doorbell at 6:30pm.