you carry a gun to protect yourself from criminal attack, or a third party from possible death, possible physical harm, or a forcible felony. as a private citizen, once the criminal disengages and is running away, you can no longer use lethal force.
5. If a perpetrator is obviously departing, any deadly threat is no longer present. Shots fired at the retreating perp are themselves a deadly assault.
Obviously firing at a fleeing assailant is wrong.
Several of y'all have touched upon this notion of flight and Kleanbore asked...
What is the basis for believing that that was done?
This is a HUGE question. It almost always seems easy to tell the difference between flight and repositioning, seeking cover, attempting to procure another weapon, etc. AFTER THE FACT. People seem to have the misconception that just because a person is moving away that the person is no longer a threat. People seem to think that just because the person is no longer facing you, he is no longer a threat. This may or may NOT be true.
Y'all remember when Joshua Williams shot up that gun shop in Louisiana? It was only last month.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...uding-suspect-at-louisiana-gun-outlet.884051/
He killed a lady, shot up the store, and then took took off, leaving the store, with his brother's small child...so obviously he was in flight, right? After all, he left the store and leaving = flight? No longer a threat? Nope. He apparently was regrouping and reassaulting, never ceasing to be a threat, and came back in the store and killed another person, and left again where he was killed in the parking lot. Sounds like he was in flight, twice, huh?
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/louisiana-shooting-gun-shop-three-dead/index.html
Turns out, he left the store the first time with one of his brother's children (getting the child to safety?) before re-engaging. He had fired all of his 32 rounds when he was put down by employees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/new-orleans-shooting-joshua-williams.html
So was he in flight the 2nd time when he was killed by employees, or was he attempting to get to his vehicle to get more guns and ammo?
I didn't see a lot of people complaining about how he was in flight in the other thread.
So going back to the question at hand, how do you know when the bad guy/girl is in flight and absolutely not a threat in real time? People mentioned the suspect getting into a car. Okay. Does that mean the suspect will take flight or is now just armed with a bigger weapon? This is not an uncommon event...
The bad guy punched the old man and knocked him to the ground, got his keys and got into his vehicle. Obviously, he is in flight, right? This is just a simple robbery and the bad guy only wants the vehicle. So when the victim got in front of the car and yelled at the bad guy, the bad guy used the vehicle as a weapon. THEN backed up and left? Regardless of whether or not you like how the old man behaved, at what point was the bad guy no longer a threat?
