Bart
The text messaging is the same as a phone call or letter via snail mail. Not the same thing. Admitting text messaging would be appropriate for snagging a pedophile, or rapist, or a con man; either of who use the Internet messaging as a tool for victim selection or enticement. Plenty of those cases pop up on the news all too often.
The Internet postings you referenced in the other link have a direct bearing on the case cited. Again, not the same thing.
Confining the discussion to the OP's cautions, I've yet to see a case where whatever was posted by an intended victim became an issue in a righteous self defense action that may or may not have ended in the death of the aggressor.
That said, heeding the warnings of you and others is not bad advice, if the warnings are akin to what Cosmoline posted at #56.
I feel confident in saying the following:
If I'm under attack and I've placed two or three rounds center of mass into my assailant and (s)he is still firing or lunging at me with a weapon other than a firearm, the next shot goes to the head. If I perceive the threat and all I have is a head shot, the head shot it is.
I may get choked up, I may get tunnel vision, I may soil my underwear, but I'll do what I'm able to do to survive.
Thinking about these things and posting your thoughts only serves to enlighten others and solicits others thoughts that enlighten ourselves. I think it would tend to build confidence in ourselves to think about these things. Hesitation can get you as dead as if you made no effort at all to defend yourself. Not many of us get to run scenarios in activities such as IDPA, so we practice with our arms and run scenarios in our heads and bounce thoughts off others in Internet forums such as THR.
Just as I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6, I'd rather learn from others than be carried by 6. Attitude is as important as proficient handling of firearms, and that attitude must be tempered with split second assessment that is tied to a plan of action. If I submit that plan of action on the Internet, it isn't a threat to anyone who might be considering attacking me - no one knows who I am anyway so no one could be planning to attack me who reads this stuff. I submit that action plan for discussion, edification, temperance, modification, concurrence, any or all of the forgoing. It's about consensus.
If you have a consensus, there is little can be done if it's nearly everyone's plan of action. Then again, if prosecution takes one snip-it of what you've written on the Internet, you can introduce anything else you've written on the Internet that might be exculpatory, or show the evolution of an attitude that is wholly acceptable in anyone's book.
It's a can of worms for the prosecution if you ask me. But since you didn't ask me, maybe it's only a confounding "Ooh, I didn't think of that!" said the ADA to his DA or AG.
Maybe that's why there isn't much if any case law on this narrow subject for you or JohnKSa to find in the first place. I think if there were at least one such case, it would be touted by the anti-gun-rights crowd louder than we shout the praise of
Heller.
Woody
"The United States of America is not up for grabs. Keep your hands off and steer clear. Free people live here - Free people who are determined to stay free. Our rights and freedom will be defended with extreme prejudice." B.E.Wood
