You see to be on a mission with this thread.
Lets say that some of us here are on a mission with this
FORUM.
To provide a more complete understanding of how the laws pertaining to self-defense work.
If you lived in Ky, Ga, and apparently Fl, there apparently is a seriously different SD law than in your home state.
Much of this is nearly universal, state-to-state. The methods by which evidence is submitted and legal arguments are made, and juries are informed, etc, work more or less similarly. The text of each law is important, but so is case law precedent, and understanding how "self-defense" pleas really work.
However the word "believe" is in fact written into the Ky law.
Of course! I'm not arguing that it isn't. I'm explaining that what you did or didn't believe isn't the final arbiter of guilt or innocence. You'll get the chance to tell the jury what you believed, certainly. But the judge doesn't say, "
Well folks, that's what he believed, CASE CLOSED! Let's go for tacos!"
No, the jury is going to consider all the evidence and decide if they believe your account and if they believe that what you say you saw and heard would have lead a reasonable person (each of the jurors, really) to make the same reaction.
Maybe it is a fine point, but folks do sometimes like to stand on the assurance that, because the law says "believed," that the case really does hinge on their own beliefs and testimony. In actuality, once you pull the trigger (or even pull the gun), the decisions about your future lie entirely with what others believe about what happened.
In addition under the castle rule, any person entering your home uninvited is by statute assumed to be a threat and you do not need to warn or otherwise confront the intruder before opening fire. Now before you launch another point by point response, go on line and read the Ky self defense law. The Ga law is even more friendly to someone defending them self.
Ok! Here it is:
KRS 503.080 Protection of Property (Castle Doctrine)
(1) The use of physical force by a defendant upon another person is justifiable when the defendant believes that such force is immediately necessary to prevent:
(a) The commission of criminal trespass, robbery, burglary, or other felony involving the use of force, ...
(2) The use of deadly physical force by a defendant upon another person is justifiable under subsection (1) only when the defendant believes that the person against whom such force is used is:
(b) Committing or attempting to commit a burglary, robbery, or other felony involving the use of force, or under those circumstances permitted pursuant to KRS 503.055, of such dwelling; or
(c) Committing or attempting to commit arson of a dwelling or other building in his possession.
(3) A person does not have a duty to retreat if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be.
There's that word "believe." Good!
Let me back up and review a point. You may not go to trial. There is always the possibility that the police and D/A look at the evidence that is plainly obvious and decide that there is no reason to argue that you did not meet the standards for self-defense justification -- and those standards include the "Castle Doctrine" law.
IF the case gets to trial, though, something has gone wrong. Something about what you believe or claim does not add up in the investigators' eyes. At that point, how reasonable your beliefs were and your response was hang entirely in the judgment of 12 fair and impartial folks sitting on your jury.
You say all you have to do is believe that these things were the case. I'm pointing out that that is not true. IF it gets to a trial, the reasonableness of your beliefs is already under question and you will have to defend them and convince those who hold your fate.
I think we all get your point that if you go around threatening to "kill" any one who remotely gets in your face with a scowl on their face;will certainly get you a life behind bars if you are involved in a questionable shooting.
Well, I don't remember where I said that, but all debates must have some groundlines of agreement from which to work -- so I completely concur.
I must respectively disagree that shooting until you are out of bullets is some how an aggressive act.
I did not say that. I actually said that many folks in real-life situations DO just that. But I said that advising someone that they should PLAN on that, and actively follow up on it if they have a conscious choice is really bad practice on the part of an instructor. Someone who does NOT shoot the gun dry for whatever reason should never be encouraged to go ahead and empty it for "safety's sake" or whatever. That is very often how self-defense turns into manslaughter -- when someone actively pursues an attacker beyond a reasonable breaking off of hostilities. We hear this kind of stuff frequently: "
Make sure he's down!" "
Make sure he's dead!" "
Don't want any witnesses!" "
Don't leave a hostile witness for your trial." Etc.
You may not be intending such absurd (and illegal!) overstatements, but it is a close step away from, "
shoot until your gun is empty," to "
make sure he goes down and STAYS down!" and so forth.
Many LE training procedures teach exactly that
Now it's my turn to respectfully disagree. Which police trainers teach shoot the gun dry? Tactically it is a horrible idea unless you
must. What about multiple attackers?
The purpose of using lethal force is [as you correctly state] is to stop the threat. It is not to disable or wound the BG in a manner that would render him no longer a threat.
I think we're in agreement here. I'll restate: Shoot to stop the attack. The death or wounding of an attacker is really irrelevant (neither good nor bad) so long as the attack is stopped. If the attacker dies, falls incapacitated, surrenders, flees, or disappears in a puff of magic smoke, really doesn't matter. The attack has stopped. The justifiable violent response has to stop as well.
Multiple shots to center mass from a proper self defense weapon, will most likely end in the death of the BG. The incidents that you quote must involve all kinds of shootings and involve a high percentage of untrained individuals.
Again, "most likely" is not the case. MOST -- an overwhelming majority plus a bunch -- of gun shot victims survive. Obviously, death is not the goal, nor the most common outcome. Pursuing death -- having the death of an attacker as your plan, goal, desire -- is not a wise or productive path.