Nutczak wrote:
Shotgun wrote:
Oh, if you shoot someone for merely "brandishing" a knife at 15 - 21 feet you better hope you have a good lawyer and no witnesses.
What part of someone brandishing/threatening you with a knife would you not consider intent of causingbodily harm or death. If someone unsheathes a knife near me while making remarks of them injuring or killing me, "Smile and wait for flash"
Are you suggesting a person should wait until they are injured first, or attacked by a knife wielding person before drawing and firing?
I see a knife being held in a threatening manner, I counter with a firearm, then we'll wait and see what the person with the knife decides to do next. Unless they are absolutely bat-shiit crazy, I believe they may rethink their offense and comply with commands to drop their weapon.
Which brings up another question, lets say someone threatens you with a knife, you draw down on them to counter their offense, they then back down, you are not forced to shoot them, so you call the coppers to have them handle it from there.
I would expect almost any cop to be arresting me just because I took the initiative to counter the assailants offense. It sucks!! But what do you do? Stand there and be attacked first before defending yourself? I don't think so!
A little blood thirsty are you? It is clear that you've never been through shoot/no shoot scenarios. Anyone who thinks that "the Tueller drill" gives a green light to shoot someone threatening you with a knife at a given distance does not understand the concept behind it.
Someone can have all the intent in the world of "causing bodily harm or death" from 15-21 feet, or from 15-21 miles. If it's 15-21 miles, are you going to drive over and shoot them? Why not? Because they can't harm you at that distance?
Someone 15-21 feet away from you with a knife cannot hurt you. They can stand 15-21 feet from you all day, yelling all their intent to harm you that they want, and wave the knife in the most menacing manner you can imagine, but unless they have arms that are 15-21 feet long they cannot harm you from that distance.
"Are you suggesting a person should wait until they are injured first, or attacked by a knife wielding person before drawing and firing? " I've never suggested anything close to that. The lesson of the Tueller Drill is that when faced by a threat armed with a "contact weapon" (e.g., knife, club, broken bottle) you ought to have your handgun
drawn and at the ready if they are within a certain unimpeded distance from you. That is because if they do attempt to attack and are within a certain distance, you may not have sufficient time to draw and shoot before they reach you.
It most definitely does not recommend that you shoot them simply because they are within that distance. If that's your interpretation, then as I stated before, you better have a good lawyer and no witnesses. But yes, unless they start to close that distance, you ought not to shoot.
"I see a knife being held in a threatening manner, I counter with a firearm, then we'll wait and see what the person with the knife decides to do next. Unless they are absolutely bat-shiit crazy, I believe they may rethink their offense and comply with commands to drop their weapon." Well, there you may have answered your own question. Yes, you counter with your firearm--- with the threat of your firearm, not by shooting it. But do not think for a moment that you are legally justified in shooting them simply because they do not drop their weapon if they are not coming at you.
Which brings up another question, lets say someone threatens you with a knife, you draw down on them to counter their offense, they then back down, you are not forced to shoot them, so you call the coppers to have them handle it from there.
I would expect almost any cop to be arresting me just because I took the initiative to counter the assailants offense. It sucks!! But what do you do? Stand there and be attacked first before defending yourself? I don't think so!
I don't know how many "coppers" you know, but I know a fair number-- and not one of them doesn't strongly support self-defense by non-LEOs. If they didn't support the idea of self-defense I don't think they'd be spending the time they do with the combat league to which I belong, sharing their expertise with us "civilians," teaching such things as weapons retention techniques, shooting while moving, from cover, prone, low light shooting, evaluating our performance in shoot/no shoot situations and questioning us afterward in the same way they would after an actual shooting. I'm not talking about 1 or 2 beat cops, but police trainers, members of SWAT, a police chief, and a detective, from various LE agencies in Dane, Sauk and Jefferson counties.