imported post
ngeorge9757 wrote:
Does a man have the presence of mind to take a beating without drawing down on his opponent? After all, this type of incident may not merit the threat of lethal force. Or, suppose one side did draw a weapon to stop the fight. If the other side was armed, they might feel justified in drawing at that moment, having a gun aimed at them. At that point, both sides would have a real and credible lethal threat that they can use to justify lethal force.
I can see this sort of thing happening all the time, and all it takes is someone to upholster a weapon in response to a lesser threat to justify a lethal escalation. So I wonder who actually has the presence of mind to take a beating without prematurely escalating the force?
Welcome to OCDO. I appreciate the nature and especially the tone of your posts. I hope you will find your participation here worthwhile.
I quoted this portion of your post to comment.
I don't believe there is any such thing as a beating that does not merit the threat of lethal force. Just to be clear, I'm assuming you speak of a confrontation by unknown attackers of at least equal force and size, unprovoked, by surprise, etc.
How much are you willing to be beaten, and how do you know that your attacker is willing to comply with your wishes? How do you know that just before you reach the point that you've had enough, one of your attacker's "friends" won't hit you from behind with a lug wrench? How do you know that one attacker might not suddenly find a half a dozen more "friends" that would prevent you from taking any defensive action at all? How do you know that one lucky sucker punch might not put you down just long enough to let a size 12 steel-toed boot kick your skull in?
Obviously nobody knows the answers to these questions. That is why we carry defensive weapons, to defend ourselves against attacks like this. There is no half-way. If you are carrying a weapon, and you allow yourself to get beat with the idea that you will know when you've had "enough", what is likely to happen is that you will be severely injured or killed, and your weapon will be taken and possibly used on you or others.
Most attackers don't want anything to do with an armed victim. In your scenario where both are armed and you fear a "shoot-out", how much better would that turn out for the victim if only the attacker were armed? At best, you are trusting your life to the altruism of a violent criminal. Not my first choice.
By the way, an attacker is never justified in the use of lethal force. Once you are the aggressor, your self-defense claim is gone, at least in all the states for which I have heard such cases. Their are nuances in each state's laws, of course. There was a poster here a while back who was very unhappy to learn that self-defense was not allowed in his case because he had gone to make a drug buy. Illegal activity nullified his claim to self-defense, so he faced full charges for shooting an attacker.
A few weeks ago, there was a case in Philadelphia where a man was attacked by a group of college frat boys, among them a somewhat well known lacrosse player. The victim was a CHP holder, and drew his weapon and as he was attacked, he fired several times, hitting and critically injuring his attacker. Unfortunately for the victim, the frat boy attacker was well connected in the city, so the victim was arrested and will have to defend himself once again in court. But there is no way to know what manner of injury or death he may have suffered had he been attacked and beaten by a group of drunk frat boys. Sadly our legal system is sometimes questionable, but another common quote you will hear around here is: "It's better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6".
TFred
" and continue to make distance.