Isn't this one of the arguments for gun control?
What? Defend yourself is not an argument for gun control.
My point was that you're discussing two different things, self-defense and stopping crime. One of those is the right, responsibility, and duty of everyone. The other is the job of our paid and sworn and indemnified law enforcement professionals. If a crime is stopped during the course of me having to defend my life, so be it. Otherwise, stopping bad guys from committing crime, as a general thing, has nothing to do with why I carry a weapon.
Call the cops in my community and you will be told not to take any action regardless of the crime and lack of police response. In other words just be a witness regardless of the harm the perp did/could still cause.
And that is
FANTASTIC advice, up to and unless that harm involves hurting or killing someone. Then the matter becomes self-defense which is quite different.
That is a key point in the concept that only "pofessionals" are trained to take action. This to me represents a adoption of the liberals dependant of the government to take care of you. If fact the entire criminal justice is designed to push you as a victim out of the process. Is it any wonder that many feel if they see their neighbor being attacked legally the best choice is not to get involved?
Let's be very clear: The victim does not get to pass judgment on or punish the wrong-doer in a society under law. That has nothing to do with being "liberal." The criminal acts of a citizen are to be judged by a JURY, by society. Criminal offenses are offenses against
society, though they are generally enacted on only one or a few members of society. If there is some redress of harms due the victim, that comes later, in a civil trial. And assault, execution, and even imprisonment are not the results of any civil suit.
You seem to be arguing for "vigilante justice" which is really just murder.
True. Excellent comment on the decline of our society in the last 50 years or so. It is easier just not to get involved than being arrested yourself for doing what you think was right under the circumstances.
If you think that you could only get in trouble for doing what you thought was right in the last 50 years, that's just not so. Now, many states do allow citizens to enact an arrest if they are convinced they've seen criminal wrong-doing. We tend not to advise that here because it is such a treacherous path and so very dangerous. It is monstrously easy to end up shot by someone ELSE, and have them claim self-defense against you -- and be right! Let alone all the many ways you may end up in jail for playing Dudley Dooright when you should have been acting as a good witness and reserving your forceful actions for when you had
no choice but to act.
Safety but not fighting crime. In other words as the police teach don't resist cause you will only get hurt...This use to be one the attitudes about women being raped...don't resist it will only be worse.
No. That doesn't make any sense at all. Defend yourself if you are forced to do so. If you want to enforce laws, get the training, get sworn, get the protection we the people give to our law officers, and put on the badge. That's a righteous path, and it is how a society under laws operates.
It isn't a difficult case. Prep robs liqour store at gunpoint. As he is leaving the store still armed the liqour store clerk shot him. The prep said in his mind the crime ended after he got what he came for (the money). The clerk thought the crime was still in progress. Two different perceptions of the crime.
And under the law the clerk will have to prove why s/he believed that s/he was still under a deadly threat, and not acting retributively. And that belief must be reasonable. "
Maybe he might have..." isn't good enough.
Did the threat to the community end after the perp got his money or as a violent offender till armed with a gun did he represent a continued threat to others?
You can't defend yourself against what someone might do sometime later. You can't execute someone because you think they might be still dangerous to someone, somewhere, sometime.
Act 1 rob liqour store. Crime ended when he got the money.
Act 2 he attempts to steal car for his getaway. Car owner resists so perp shoots him. Car owner falls to ground and does not resist further. Crime ended when car owner stopped resisting.
Act 3 Perp drives away after committing armed robbey, shooting car owner and stealing a car.
As you point out under todays laws probably each act would be as individual and since his last act was non violent use of force to arrest would be severely limited.
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Pretty much. If you were to observe that whole scene and arrive in range of that guy as he's starting that car to drive away, you do not have the authority to kill him. If you wanted to be so suicidal as to try to arrest him, your state laws would likely allow you to use some form of force in doing so, and if he was to then resist and you defended yourself, ...probably, maybe ok. But you snipe him from across the street? Nope.
Preception. The robber says the crime was over when I got what I want. The clerk says this guy pointed a gun at me and threatened to kill me if I didn't give him all of my money. I thought he might kill me on his way out to avoid leaving a witness.
And if the clerk could show that he/she had a credible, reasonable belief that that was true, there would probably be no conviction. Probably. Lots of people (about 12) have to agree with the reasonableness of that belief, though. If the clerk chases the "perp" outside and yells, "
You blank-blank, you stole my money I'm gonna kill you!" most likely not.
Burglar gave back the money so the burglary ended and the crime only became violent after the homeowner stood in his way of his new goal...escape.
Tough call. Shot in self-defense? Probably ok. Shot to prevent escape, most likely not ok at all.
If daughter had shot perp while he was struggling with her mother could the daughter be charged?
Most likely a justifiable defense of another person.
You won't be tried and convicted of being "unfair." In that case, based on very sparse info, I'd say the robber has it about half right. The justification for shooting someone who's leaving after a crime is mighty scant. (Not in every state, but in almost all of them.) 
