At 8:59 AM -0800 3/29/04, Guy Smith wrote:
> 3) Since Lindsay was aware he was a "high risk target", did Lindsay have
> reason to fear these same goons would return and cause him bodily harm?
> Indeed, did they ever threaten a return visit? Would this then justify
> (using American legal doctrine) lethal force? It has been a defense for
> battered wives (with varied success).
In fact it does not justify lethal force under American doctrine.
There was a case in Massachusetts about ten years ago where a man and his
wife were watching TV in their home and another man (apparently a co-worker
of the wife) busted down their door, waved a gun around, and said he was
going to shoot the wife.
The homeowner wrestled with the intruder, causing him to fumble the gun. As
the intruder was running down the walk, he turned around and yelled that he
was going to come back when they were sleeping and kill both of them.
So the guy pointed the gun and shot him.
He didn't know beans about lethal force law. The state requires gun owners
to take training in it, but remember, he wasn't a gun owner -- the gun was
the intruder's.
According to the way he figured it, this guy had just made a deadly threat
against the two of them, and he claimed that his shot was entirely in
self-defense, to make sure he wouldn't be murdered in his sleep. But that
defense wasn't enough to keep him out of Concord.
If this defense has worked for battered wives, I would suspect genteel jury
nullification, not application of recognized law.
What I find interesting about the original account of the stabbing in
Britain is the judge's implication that it was reprehensible for the
defendant to have "us[ed] a lethal weapon you kept in your home when aware
you were a high risk target." Ironically, I have lived in an area where
you could not legally obtain a weapon until you proved to the police's
satisfaction that you WERE a high-risk target. This is another fine
example of Goldilocks gun control -- some citizens don't have enough risk
to deserve a weapon for self defense, and others have too much risk... but
no one's risk is "just right."
--
Escape the Rat Race for Peace, Quiet, and Miles of Desert Beauty
Take a Sanity Break at The Bunkhouse at Liberty Haven Ranch
http://libertyhavenranch.com
Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end.
--LORD ACTON
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