Re: A thread on another forum:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=156205

Question: Does Minnesota law allow using deadly force for the protection of others?

Yes ... I'm familiar with the dangers: You come to a lady's rescue and find out later she's the perp or, like the story I reference you try to render aid to a kicking and screaming kidnapping victim but [unlike in the article] in your case it turns out to be some happily married couple's weird prelude to motel sex ... so rendering aid always has a big question mark attached to it as far as practicality. All those matters about "obligation to flee" and "not a willing participant" are suddenly not applicable when you render aid, or at least they are not applicable until read to you in court by a prosecutor.

I was told in my carry class that the one and only reason to use deadly force was to defend SELF. If I'm in a convenience store and an armed thug says he's gonna rape and kill someone's child ... I was given the impression that the LEGAL thing was to not draw / shoot, though one might make a moral choice to break the law in order to save human life and go to jail for it afterward.

But is that really the case ... is it legal to use deadly force to protect others? Sometimes I know we can make the legal climate out to be worse than it really is.

Thanks in advance.

I was told you can use deadly force to protect others if you are in fear for thier life.

In class, when we were kind of doing the hypothetical situations, the deputy said 'if you have to think about whether you should or not, don't.' You will know what to do in the situation if it arrises.

Keep running through scenarios in your head, but I would focus on really bad situations.

I am not a lawyer, but Kimberman, phorvick and others are. I'm sure they'll be along shortly.

In the meanwhile:



That's not correct.

http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/609/065.html

At the risk of sounding cold, if you are not my wife or someone I care about a whole lot, you are on your own. If I never kill anyone again it will be too soon, and I am not going to do it for someone who didn't think that personal protection was important enought to address beforehand.

My permit gives me no special powers that I didn't already have, it just allows me to carry a tool that makes exercising the powers I already had (by law) easier. If I wasn't carrying, I would be running my ass off in the other direction, since life has already made me aware of the fact that heros have an alarming tendancy to be dead. Just because I have a tool on my person is not going to change that decision, regardless of what the law may say.

And yes, I damn sure will be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning. I have saved more than enough lives at work to sleep just fine, thank you very much.

The lesson here is pretty clear to me: Do the right thing.

For some, the right thing may be more than the law allows.

For others, the right thing may be less than the law allows.

Regardless, if you're going to carry around a gun, you probably should take the time to think these questions through: What do your personal ethics tell you? What would you do?

To goalie's point...

Right now, Minnesota has about 5 million people, of which 3.7 million are adults, and about 25,000 permits. That's roughly one permit for every 150 eligible adults.

That's a lot of people "...who didn't think that personal protection was important enought to address beforehand."

I've seen a lot less of people at their worst -- and at their best -- than goalie has, but I guess I'm not quite ready to write them all off.

It's, well, complicated. The statues are straightforward, but we don't have a lot (read: any) case law on how the courts will interpret them in terms of the case law requirements.

We'll try to be quieter next time, but it's not quite the same experience without the kicking and the screaming.

Forgetting what the statute says (which is, of course, dangerous) the general rule of thumb in States such as ours is something like this: "You may use lethal force to defend your life when you are in reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm."

Courts then parse many of the words. For example, what does "You" mean. Well, it clearly means you; it may also mean your spouse; it may also mean your children. After that...who knows. Then, what does "reasonable" mean? Again, if you are arrested or sued, that is an issue that will be litigated.

The danger of being a Good Samaritan is that you don't know the facts of the event. That lack of knowledge can get you 10 to 15

I didn't say that I'd write them ALL off.......just the ones I don't know.



Realistically though, the odds of stumbling into an encounter and having enough data (forget about your ability to process the data quickly and correctly) to actually determine with 100% accuracy who the "bad guys" are is on par with your odds of winning that day's powerball. I have a limited amount of time on earth to devote to worrying and training. I'll worry about, and train for, scenarios that might actually happen.

The police didn't seem too friendly when everything was done right. I am not going to chance doing it wrong and seeing how they'll treat me then.

The way I've come to look at it like this:

If the situation isn't such that you're willing to spend several years in jail to stop it, get or stay out of it.

If someone attacks me, and my choices are to spend several years in jail, or get seriously injured or killed, I'll act first and take my chances with the law later. Ideally, everything will be cleared up in short order, but even if I wind up in jail, I'll still know I made the right move.

If I think someone is a serious threat to a family member... well, I'm willing to spend several years in jail to protect life or limb for any member of my family. I'll act first and take my chances with the law later. Even if I wind up in jail for it, I'll still know I made the right move.

If I see a situation on the street involving strangers, I might maybe possibly still be willing to spend several years in jail to save the life of a stranger, but only if I'm absolutely certain that I know what's going on and that my intervention is warranted. I'm not willing to spend several years in jail because I tried to bust up a fight between a dealer and his customer.

But if it's just someone being verbally abusive or making threats at a safe distance from me or mine or a stranger... well, several years in jail probably means several years of that on a daily basis. Not a good time to point a gun at anyone.

The question that comes to mind for me is whether interjecting yourself into the situation places you as a "willing participant" if it escalates.

Meaning, if you go to confront the assailant (without your weapon drawn), and it turns out to be foreplay...great. But let’s say it is an assault, and the assailant turns on you and pulls a weapon; are you automatically a willing participant if you defend yourself? I’d hazard that you are, of course this isn’t to say that I wouldn’t be there.

"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

For starters, I have to believe this is pretty close to correct. I've no experience to base it on, but it sure seems a reasonable assesment to me.

In my CCW class (as I'm sure in all of them) we spent some time talking about the exposure to civil charges as well as legal ones after a shoot. Keeping in mind that you could potentially be sued into the gutter over a shooting, they taught that we should be willing to die for whoever we pull the gun out to protect.

Seems a bit cold, but not unreasonable. While the goal is to not die (it's why you have the weapon in the first place) ... Do you know the situation well enough, and are you willing to be sued into oblivion for stepping into the middle of things?