Lawson for Congress

Regardless of whether you own a weapon, every American should take a gun course that includes guidelines for when Deadly Force may be legitimately used in self-defense. While taking such a course recently, I was struck by the obvious parallels between personal defense, and national defense.

At least in North Carolina, there are four conditions that all must be present to justify use of Deadly Force in self-defense:

• There must be an real and immediate threat of death, serious injury, or sexual assault such that a normal person believes Deadly Force is necessary.
• The threat must be otherwise unavoidable.
• You cannot instigate the dispute: “If you start a fight, you lose your rights.”
• You cannot use excessive force.

These four criteria have interesting implications. First, regarding the immediacy of the threat: a history of violence and/or a fear of future violence do not justify the use of Deadly Force. For example, a repeatedly battered wife who chooses to kill the abusive husband between assaults is not justified in using Deadly Force. The husband must be physically threatening/attacking her for Deadly Force to be justified.

Regarding the concept of “avoidability”, in North Carolina there is a “Duty to Retreat” such that you must attempt to avoid or exit the hostile situation if possible. An important exception to the Duty to Retreat is if you are on your own property. In that case, obviously, you are in your “retreat” and can use Deadly Force if the other conditions exist.

Here’s an interesting case study, however. You’re an armed citizen awakened by a noise downstairs. You and your shotgun peek around the corner and see someone pulling silver out of the dining room cabinet. Are you justified in using Deadly Force at that time? Perhaps surprisingly, you are not. Deadly Force can only be used in defense of life or physical harm. It is not justified in defense of property. If the thief tries to surrender or escape when he hears the action on your shotgun, you cannot fire. But if he starts running towards you, you are more justified in using Deadly Force.

Even more interesting: You’re an armed citizen awakened by a noise downstairs. You and your shotgun peek around the corner and see someone forcing his way in through the back door. Are you justified in using Deadly Force at that time? Thanks to something called the “Castle Doctrine”, you are. While your castle’s perimeter is being violated, you are justified in using Deadly Force. Once the trespasser is inside, however, he must be a real and immediate threat to your life or physical safety.

Another important point is that you are justified using Deadly Force in defense of an innocent victim, but only if all four criteria above are met and the victim would have been justified in using Deadly Force him/herself. Especially important is the third criterion, or identifying the true instigator in the fight. Are you justified in defending an elderly lady being beaten by a group of muggers? How about walking into a convenience store and seeing two men struggling on floor, when one man reaches for a knife? In the first case, the true victim is fairly obvious. In the second case, however, it’s impossible to know who instigated the conflict. In other words, there’s no “Defense of Innocents” if you stumble onto a fight between the Hatfields and McCoys. In that case, as a citizen, diplomacy is the only solution.

Is it reasonable to think that the our guidelines limiting use of Deadly Force for citizens and law enforcement officials would also apply to us as a sovereign nation, and “global citizen”?

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 6:45 am and is filed under Second Amendment, no nation building, no undeclared wars, non-interventionism, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.