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Old November 2, 2008, 11:54 AM   #41
Frank Ettin
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Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
The problem is that the legal standard is not a subjective one, i. e., you feel something. It's an objective standard. This is sometimes stated as : A reasonable and prudent person, in the same situation and knowing what you know, would conclude that the use of lethal force was necessary to prevent immediate and otherwise unavoidable death or grave bodily harm to an innocent. Whether the the test is satisfied will be determined from the totality fo the circumstances. For example, did the gunman look crazed and unstable? Was he waiving the gun around wildly and in an overtly threatening manner? Or did he seem to be a cool, professional criminal.

In any case, it would be very helpful, if you decide that you must shoot, to be able to articulate the reasons you concluded that lethal force was necessary in that particular situation. Why did you conclude that you had no choice but to shoot?

That's one reason I think that training and practice are important. One wants to have decent mastery of the mechanics of using his weapon and confidence in his marksmanship and ability to use his weapon. That way he can focus on the decision.

And this is also why you can only take a hypothetical so far. There is no one magic characteristic that can give you the "green light." You have to be there and make a reasonable judgment, based on the whole picture, that lethal force is necessary to save innocent life.
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