357 Terms said:
...Please quote precident from a self defense shooting involving "handloads"...
It often happens in the practice of law that a particular issue of interest has not previously been addressed by an appellate court, and one must make a reasoned judgment without the guidance of on point precedent. Just because there is insufficient historical data doesn't mean that professionals can't make reasoned estimates about how likely a particular result might be under certain circumstance.
Relying on historical research is helpful only if there's sufficient historical data. If the question is something like, "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be charged if he used handloads compared with factory ammunition?", or "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be convicted at trial if he used handloads compared with factory ammunition?", the availability of useful data depends on (1) a large enough population of private citizens having shot someone in claimed self defense; and (2) a large enough subset of those private citizens having used handloads. I suggest that the vast majority of people who keep guns for self defense aren't enthusiasts and use stock guns and commercial ammunition. Indeed, even many of the members here, who are enthusiasts, use commercial ammunition for self defense.
In fact we have some evidence that reloads are very seldom used in self defense. Al Norris, a member here and a moderator on TFL, did some research on the subject. In a period of some 37 years in Idaho handloads were used in only 12 self defense shooting incidents. Six weren't prosecuted; apparently they were clearly justified. Six were prosecuted, resulting in six convictions -- four on pleas and two on jury verdicts (see
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=388901 posts 109 and 114). In the cases that resulted in a conviction, drugs and/or alcohol was apparently also involved.
And of course we still have
Bias which illustrates that it's highly unlikely that GSR test results would be admitted into evidence if handloads were used. While,
Bias is not a self defense case, but the rules of evidence apply in the same way whatever the type of case.
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out repeatedly in his books
Fooled by Randomness, the Hidden Role of Chance (Random House, 2004) and T
he Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2007), "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Taleb, a securities trader and professor at the University of Massachusetts, provides some interesting and useful insights into strategies for dealing with rare events.
Again, if you're happy that the use of handloads for self defense is legally innocuous, have at it. Perhaps you'll get to be a test case.