++ especially as to this part:
...One of the common themes I seem to come across is the "how low can I get away with shooting someone". I.e. what is the least someone can do for me to shoot them, and get away with it. Folks, even here in the relatively easy state of VA, if you are carrying a handgun hoping to shoot someone, you want to rethink how you do business. Most of the time it is from the newer posters. The "I'm scared defense" is not going to help you during trial....
I use that as a joke in my Deadly Force Seminar. There's always someone who asks a question that I can reinterpret as "How can I get away with actually blowing someone away as soon as possible?" I make fun of that question, because, in my opinion, most of what's going to be at issue if you have to go to trial for a criminal offense arising out of a shooting will be your attitude going into the shooting. As the actors like to say, "What's my motivation?". "Search your feelings, Luke."
If you are looking for a chance to blow someone away, then when you do, the result will be murder, regardless of how the confrontation popped up. If you are motivated by feelings of malice, revenge, or retribution, whether for a present wrong committed against you or because you're in "victim mode" because of prior events of depersonalization, then when you shoot someone, it'll be murder. You have to be pure in your intent. Your only proper motivation is self defense, defense of an innocent other person, or stopping a serious felony in progress (which pretty much amounts to equivalent to one of the other two).
I get asked questions on this by fundamentalist people of various religious persuasions who see a potential conflict between their religious precepts and the violence inherent in killing another human being. I tell them there is no conflict - your attitude, in Christian terms, is always to reflect God's love for His entire creation, including Badguy; but you also have a duty to defend yourself, and if Badguy attacks you, you don't have to feel any animosity toward him, you simply have to do what is necessary to protect yourself, your home, and your family. If you shoot because you do feel animosity or even a sense of violation, then that's a sin and probably a crime. (In the latter instance, if you feel wronged and violated, and you exact retribution against the perpetrator, it is no longer defense, it is murder, because you planned to, and did, take the life of another person; the "malice aforethought" doesn't have to be weeks in planning, a split-second's planning will do.) A good lawyer (hint, hint) may be able to persuade a jury that there's sufficient "reasonable doubt" that they should not convict, but that's a different issue.
As the Buddhists say, you have to be free from all attachment including to your own sense of right, in order to be able to take effective and proper action. I think (unlike the Jains who practice
ahimsa as a religious precept) that a proper shooting can be effective action. And shooting well and effectively is a Zen thing - unless your mind is clear and you are free from internal dialog, you won't shoot straight, anyway.
And, as that great Spiritual Master, John Bernard Books, said,
It isn't always being fast, or even accurate that counts; it's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing; they blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger...I won't.
- John Bernard Books played by John Wayne in
The Shootist.
