None of this has a thing to do with lawful civilian self defense.
Lyft driver shoots two carjackers in Philadelphia
- Thread starter old lady new shooter
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redcon1
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Yes it does. We're talking about defense of others in a vehicular attack which we have already established is not an uncommon occurrence. As I said, it happened recently not too far from me. How is that not relevant to lawful civilian self defense?
Using deadly force to effect a "mobility kill" would be lawful only if it were immediately necessary (ie, if there were no other available means) to defend against an imminent threat of death or crippling injury to the actor or to a third person.
There will almost always be a better way.
Roughly 1000 years ago, a friend got rowdy in a truck and relentlessly chased us around a field.
It was obviously a stupid kid prank without ANY intent to injure anybody. Just dumb kids playing.
Were my friend a murderous ex-GF, ex-BF, ex-wife, or ex-husband bent on destruction?
One could not unlock, dial a mobile phone, and clearly speak under those circumstances.
In that same scenario I experienced, yet a killer nutjob behind the wheel rather than a goofy friend, I would want a reliable firearm in my hand.
It was obviously a stupid kid prank without ANY intent to injure anybody. Just dumb kids playing.
Were my friend a murderous ex-GF, ex-BF, ex-wife, or ex-husband bent on destruction?
One could not unlock, dial a mobile phone, and clearly speak under those circumstances.
In that same scenario I experienced, yet a killer nutjob behind the wheel rather than a goofy friend, I would want a reliable firearm in my hand.
redcon1
member
We have established that. We're at the "what if what about" stage of this discussion though.
So what if this? Or what about that?
The other far more common vehicular attack is the drive by shooting. It happens all the time in my city. It is too freaking common. I think that in the spirit of discussing strategies, tactics and training as it applies to vehicular attacks, I would suggest that in this case, a well developed battle drill would be advisable with a focus on rapidly moving to the closest cover located to the attacking vehicles 5:00 or better yet 6:00 position. I was watching this drive by shooting occur recently ( which also happened in Philadelphia about a year ago) and I noticed something that seemed like a really really bad idea (two things really but one most especially). I'm gonna post it here and I wonder if anyone else will see this giant mistake. Clearly this individual should have trained himself better and there is most definitely a teachable moment here.
old lady new shooter
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You stated:
"One may not lawfully use deadly force in response to what someone has done or to what someone may do in the future."
Willeford used deadly force in response to what BG had done and what he feared BG might do in the future, and was not only not charged with anything, he was universally lauded at all levels of government.
So your statement is definitely inaccurate with respect to that case.
Perhaps--perhaps--it is inconsistent with your understanding of that case, but it is certainly consistent with the law.
You should know that.
Think imminence--ability, opportunity, and most relevant here, jeopardy.
Try shooting someone because you "fear" what he might do in the future, and see where it takes you.
Now, an officer who has witnessed a person committing a heinous crime, who reasonably believes that the person is likely to injure others unless he is stopped right then and there, might be justified in using deadly force if there is no other way to stop him. (Garner v Tennessee).
plodder
Member
There may be 6 or more families in Waukesha that would take exception to that statement:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/waukesha-parade-attack/index.html
If anyone in Waukesha wants to talk to me about it they know where to find me.
Why don’t one of you “shoot at the driver of a moving vehicle” advocates tell me what load you are carrying that will stop a large SUV or pickup? As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell me what load you carry to stop a compact car?
Of course you can’t because such a thing doesn’t exist outside of works of fiction.
The old TJ Hooker tv show is not a good example to learn from.
Early in the GWOT the Army developed M995 ammunition to give the M249 SAW more capability against vehicles, and I’m not talking about military vehicles. I’m talking about tough vehicles like Toyota pickup trucks.
M995 out of a belt fed didn’t give the Army the capability it needed. Yet several people here seem to think they can stop a vehicle with a handgun. Amazing…..simply amazing.
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
Conjecture.
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
The church shooter fired at Willeford, first.
Quoted from the article you cited...
"Just as Willeford reached the front yard of Fred and Kathleen Curnow, whose house faces the church entrance, a man wearing black body armor and a helmet with a visor emerged from the church. Willeford scrambled behind the front tire of Fred’s Dodge Ram. The gunman raised his pistol and fired three times. One bullet hit the truck. One hit the Dodge Challenger parked behind him. One hit the house...."
With that said, the shooter did appear to be leaving when Willeford, obviously armed with a rifle, yelled at the shooter instead of just letting him go.
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jmorris
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And not in a direction where the shooter would reasonably be in fear of his or her life.
Trying to breathe while underwater rarely prevents death, yet most drowning victims have water in their lungs. What does the effectiveness of an action, especially an insufficient attempt have on being justified using deadly force?
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redcon1
member
Literally nobody here thinks that.
No. Reasonableness is in fact always a major element of justification in a legal defense of self defense. That's case law.
What is conjecture is the possibility that a shooting inside a car may be less apt to be considered unreasonable than shooiting at the driver from outside the car.
Reasonableness.
You have advocated shooting at a moving vehicle as a viable tactic several times. So what is your favorite SUV stopping load?
redcon1
member
Maybe in some scenarios but not in all scenarios. For example, what if you're caught in a drive by shooting and the drive by shooters decide that they're going to stop the car for a moment to continue firing upon your position? At that point, we have to consider that shooting back may be reasonable and justified. And we can't say that drive by shootings are rare because they are too freaking common in this country. I posted a video to one a few posts back. Anyone of those individuals being shot at in that video would have been justified in returning fire under self defense laws. period.
Reasonableness is always a requirement of justification.
That is in no way the same as shooting at the driver of a moving car.
redcon1
member
I was referring to the other aspect of your post, that shooting at a car from outside the car is unreasonable. It's not always unreasonable and I'm not inclined to build hesitation into my reactions based on the fear that a jury may find it unreasonable. If they are shooting at me, I'm shooting back.
If they're doing a drive by, they're shooting, moving and communicating and you are being assaulted as surely as if you walked into an ambush in Fallujah. They're an imminent threat to your life and to anyone in the area. Shooting back is reasonable regardless of whether they're moving or stopped but, I will say that your shots had better be well aimed and on target.
My only issue with all of this is the building of a black and white strategy that says "they're in a car, I'm outside the car; therefore, I can't shoot back" and "oh, now I'm in the car and they're in the car and so now I can shoot back (although that's almost certainly going to get me killed).
RetiredUSNChief
Member
"One can envision scenarios where..."
Well, there's certainly a whole lot of that going on.
Folks, there's a whole lot of speculation going on here purely based on hypotheticals, and with a very poor understanding of what the deadly force laws are ACTUALLY based on.
EVERY SHOOTING is evaluated on the totality of circumstances for THAT SHOOTING in accordance with the applicable jurisdictional laws.
And while the laws on deadly force may vary a bit from one jurisdiction to another, they're all based on what a "reasonable person" would deem both "deadly" and "justifiable" under the laws.
I've stated elsewhere the definition of deadly force I learned in the Navy going on 4 decades ago now:
Deadly force is that amount of force which I know, or should know, will cause serious bodily injury or death, to be used as a last resort when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed.
That same definition sums up civilian deadly force lawsand each jurisdiction guess to great depth on breaking this down. Here's one such legal website that discusses this:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/10/1047.7
Far, FAR too many people utterly fail to actually READ their jurisdictional laws on this matter in totality...and quite a few who do tend to read their biases into the wording instead of learning the actual legal meanings of the written laws.
When the laws say deadly force is justified if a person reasonably believes his/her life is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, YOU don't get to make up the reasons or circumstances. You get to have your actions judged by what OTHER people believe to be reasonable under the laws.
And a whooooooole lot goes into this.
ANY homicide is looked upon as serious business. Evidence and witnesses are quite often unclear on vital details, making any shooting a difficult thing to evaluate with absolute clarity in court. Which means your best defense is to know the laws and do your absolute best to walk the letter of the law in ANY shooting you may be involved in.
These discussions are good for that... but ONLY if you approach them that way. Not with an eye to finding ways to justify pulling the trigger, but with an eye towards finding ways to AVOID placing yourself in a position in which you must pull that trigger in the first place.
Well, there's certainly a whole lot of that going on.
Folks, there's a whole lot of speculation going on here purely based on hypotheticals, and with a very poor understanding of what the deadly force laws are ACTUALLY based on.
EVERY SHOOTING is evaluated on the totality of circumstances for THAT SHOOTING in accordance with the applicable jurisdictional laws.
And while the laws on deadly force may vary a bit from one jurisdiction to another, they're all based on what a "reasonable person" would deem both "deadly" and "justifiable" under the laws.
I've stated elsewhere the definition of deadly force I learned in the Navy going on 4 decades ago now:
Deadly force is that amount of force which I know, or should know, will cause serious bodily injury or death, to be used as a last resort when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed.
That same definition sums up civilian deadly force lawsand each jurisdiction guess to great depth on breaking this down. Here's one such legal website that discusses this:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/10/1047.7
Far, FAR too many people utterly fail to actually READ their jurisdictional laws on this matter in totality...and quite a few who do tend to read their biases into the wording instead of learning the actual legal meanings of the written laws.
When the laws say deadly force is justified if a person reasonably believes his/her life is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, YOU don't get to make up the reasons or circumstances. You get to have your actions judged by what OTHER people believe to be reasonable under the laws.
And a whooooooole lot goes into this.
ANY homicide is looked upon as serious business. Evidence and witnesses are quite often unclear on vital details, making any shooting a difficult thing to evaluate with absolute clarity in court. Which means your best defense is to know the laws and do your absolute best to walk the letter of the law in ANY shooting you may be involved in.
These discussions are good for that... but ONLY if you approach them that way. Not with an eye to finding ways to justify pulling the trigger, but with an eye towards finding ways to AVOID placing yourself in a position in which you must pull that trigger in the first place.
The incident under discussion involved shooting at the driver of a moving car, and you have been trying to argue that such an act would be lawfully justified to prevent the car from causing injury.
old lady new shooter
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Willeford was and is not an "officer", just a citizen.
And technically he didn't witness BG committing the heinous crime, he was told about it. He did hear gunshots.
BG did shoot at him, but Willeford fired after BG got in his vehicle and was fleeing the scene.
Okay, so it happened that way. That incident would not establish case law even if Willeford had been tried and acquitted. It means nothing.
The rules of engagement are somewhat different on the streets of America then they are in Fallujah. As much as you might want to shoot back, after all that’s what they do on TV it might not be the best plan. Are you going to add more rounds flying around the neighborhood by returning fire?
We just had a thread on the LAPD shooting where the innocent girl in the dressing room was killed. Are you going to add to the carnage by returning fire?
For some reason you seem obsessed with making up a scenario where it’s justified to shoot at the driver of a moving vehicle.
old lady new shooter
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Let's reproduce and comment the whole relevant section of the article:
Just as Willeford reached the front yard of Fred and Kathleen Curnow, whose house faces the church entrance, a man wearing black body armor and a helmet with a visor emerged from the church. Willeford scrambled behind the front tire of Fred’s Dodge Ram. The gunman raised his pistol and fired three times. One bullet hit the truck. One hit the Dodge Challenger parked behind him. One hit the house.
Willeford propped his AR-15 on the pickup’s hood and peered through the sight. He could see a holographic red dot on the man’s chest. He fired twice. He wasn’t sure he’d hit him, though he was later told that the man had contusions on his chest and abdomen consistent with getting shot while wearing body armor.
Willeford propped his AR-15 on the pickup’s hood and peered through the sight. He could see a holographic red dot on the man’s chest. He fired twice. He wasn’t sure he’d hit him, though he was later told that the man had contusions on his chest and abdomen consistent with getting shot while wearing body armor.
Regardless, the gunman stopped shooting and ran for a white Ford Explorer that was idling outside the chapel, roughly twenty yards from where Willeford had positioned himself.
As the shooter rounded the front of the Explorer, Willeford noticed that the man’s vest didn’t cover the sides of his torso. Willeford fired twice more, striking the man once beneath the arm—in an unprotected spot—and once in the thigh.
The man leaped into the vehicle, slammed the door, and fired twice through the driver’s side window. Willeford aimed for where he thought his target’s head would be and pulled the trigger, shattering the driver’s side window completely.
The Explorer sped away, turning north onto FM 539, and Willeford ran into the street and got off another shot, this time shattering the SUV’s rear window.
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