|
Reading the laws is all well and good, but this is not the time to get wrapped around the axle splitting legal hairs.
I live in Texas where the deadly force laws are fairly liberal, even allowing deadly force to protect property in some limited circumstances.
After having read and pondered all the governing statutes, I decided that if someone was about to cause grave harm to my wife or myself, and the only way I could prevent it would be to shoot him, then I would shoot him.
Not saying I would absolutely not shoot to defend an innocent third party, just that such a circumstance would need to be evaluated case-by-case, if time allowed.
Balance in your mind the harm that might come to you from the attacker versus the Law. If the attacker is more dangerous, and you can't dissuade him any other way, you are probably best advised to shoot him center of mass until he stops attacking you.
All the legal complexities take too much time to consider at the time of the attack. The shoot / no-shoot decision must be made in advance - draw the line in the sand mentally so you won't dither at crunch time.
Pax has a good read on this on corneredcat.com
Hang in there.
|