Posted by RetiredUSNChief:
One who has used force, and especially deadly force, and who intends to mount a defense of justification needs two other things:
The issue of safety or other firearm modifications pertains to the second item.
Some years ago, I in a similar thread on the subject of gun modifications, here or on The Firing Line, I opined that the only risk of such modifications related to civil liability.
An attorney on the staff pointed correctly the issues of criminal negligence, and also the possibility that, in a case in which the evidence that can be gathered after the fact is ambiguous or contradictory or both, the risk of the modification being used to indicate state of mind.
I will not try to rank those issues on the risk hierarchy, but I most certainly will not discount them.
That's certainly necessary, but it may well not be sufficient.The best defense any one of us can have, first and foremost, is knowledge/understanding of what the law ACTUALLY says and means...and then to be sure that we ACT within that law.
One who has used force, and especially deadly force, and who intends to mount a defense of justification needs two other things:
- some evidence supporting each critical element of a self defense case--the more the better; and
- the absence, or at least a very small amount, of evidence that can be used by the other side to dispute the claim of self defense.
The issue of safety or other firearm modifications pertains to the second item.
Some years ago, I in a similar thread on the subject of gun modifications, here or on The Firing Line, I opined that the only risk of such modifications related to civil liability.
An attorney on the staff pointed correctly the issues of criminal negligence, and also the possibility that, in a case in which the evidence that can be gathered after the fact is ambiguous or contradictory or both, the risk of the modification being used to indicate state of mind.
I will not try to rank those issues on the risk hierarchy, but I most certainly will not discount them.