I can understand why you could consider someone more than 21 feet away to be a threat. I mean a deadly threat.
I just feel that, with limited reasons for, things will tend to work against you if you drop someone coming at you and the body is laying there on the ground if they are not inside the ring. I agree that there is a distance from where you simply can't justify, and the ability to justify becomes easier and easier as the target gets closer and closer.
But the farther the target is from you, the harder it is to hit it. I firmly believe the accuracy of the shots will drop dramatically as the fear factor rises.
Between those 2 factors, this is why I asked why.
Wildbill;
The litmus test in Illinois that matters is;
* Is there an imminent threat with a level of force that could cause serious bodily injury or death?
Or
* Are you acting to stop a forcible felony?
While it's obvious that a weapon immediately ramps up things to this level; it is also possible that due to disparity of force, lethal force would be still be justified. If an 80 year old woman is being rushed by a group of gangbangers,
even if they are unarmed, it is quite likely that a single blow could seriously injure the woman or cause death.
This is an extreme example of "reasonable man" and "disparity of force". The distance of the attackers doesn't really matter if you are in "imminent threat".
These are all moving targets. What is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury on me, may not be the same for you, or my 14 year old daughter. (I can fend off an unarmed attack just fine, from someone roughly my size; but my daughter isn't going to be able to defend against a 200 pound male aggressor without risk of serious bodily injury or death.)
Can the distance come in to play? Sure! It's going to be one of many factors that are presented to the jury, when they determine if the homicide you committed was justified. If you shoot someone in the back from 50 yards away, you're going to fail the first of the two litmus tests; you weren't under imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.
But if that person was in the process of committing a forcible felony? Were they actively shooting at someone else? Well, that's the other fork in the road that is used to determine justification.
And this is where things get real interesting. If you intercede on behalf of someone else, you lose the right to the first litmus test for yourself; and now it becomes the mindset of who you were protecting that matters to the jury. Were
they in fear of serious bodily injury or death? Your future largely depends on their answer when they are called to testify.
There's thousands of scenarios we could play, where distance to the target would be largely irrelevant. And there's thousands we could play where it could be the deciding factor. It depends on the sum total of all of the factors, and how those are presented to the jury by the defense attorney you hire (because the prosecution, if you are charged, will be doing everything they can to paint you in a bad light... such is the truth of our adversarial law system).
It's important to have as clear of a picture as possible of these murky waters, because if the time ever comes to choose shoot/no-shoot, you may only have a split second to make the decision. The jury will have weeks, or months, to rehash it with perfect 20/20 hindsight. Obviously the best case (for your defense) is if you are under imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death. But that's not the only situation you may find yourself in.
I didn't really want to derail this thread with lethal force doctrine in Illinois, but it's important to get some of the basics out there, since we branched off subject.
Let's try to get back on topic a little.
Last I heard, we're now looking at mid-march for the first permits to be issued!
Is anyone surprised? (Truthfully, I expected they would take the full 90 days and was hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but .. doesn't look like that is going to happen.)