Each State’s laws regarding the Justifiable taking of a life vary somewhat. More States are passing stand your ground laws and that removes the retreat standard. MN. voted down the castle doctrine or stand your ground law due to media fear over this issue so, we are required to retreat if one can safely do so. The last stat I read was 85% of self defense claims lose in court. It is important to know and understand your States laws in this regard and be familiar with actual court cases and how they are adjudicated as justified or criminal acts.
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@KED, do you have a reference for that?
@Dawn can you ask the legal team to weigh in on this and also the idea that one is legally obligated to take an exit rather than re-engage?
I’m not seeing it, but this is where it’s good to get a lawyers opinion.
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I’ll add that to the Ask an Attorney list for this next webinar - not sure if they’ll get to it.
Here’s what I’m thinking - if I have a way out, I’m gone! It’s much safer to get away than to re-engage. HOWEVER, if I have a way out, but my children don’t, you’d better believe I’ll be staying put and reengage if needed.
And don’t forget, there’s fight, there’s flight, and unfortunately, there’s freeze. Some people may defend themselves and then freeze during a lull. Your mind will be on overload and adrenaline will be coursing through your body. If you don’t leave during that lull and have to continue to defend yourself, that won’t necessarily make you a willing participant. The reasonable person test will be used in a lot of cases to determine if what you did was self-defense.
As far as 85% of self-defense claims lose in court, that wouldn’t surprise me. Look at all of the times people claim self-defense when it wasn’t really self-defense or the claim was very questionable (Check out the articles posted in the Community - not all of those articles about self-defense claims were self-defense. (Here’s just one example: Is it self defense against a knife attack?)
Someone who murdered another person isn’t going to care that they’re lying and possibly committing purgery.
Anyone can claim self-defense - even people who killed someone with premeditation - that’s why so many real self-defense situations are questioned in court.
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There are a whole lot of completely fraudulent SD claims not to mention a lot of “imperfect” SD claims. Whether or not the rate is actually 85% or not that are rejected I’m sure it’s very high.
Your lawyer can plead anything and always just try to snow the jury. Many of those fraudulent cases are those in which criminals shot it out with each other and then tried to make the claim.
There are many “imperfect” claims where the shoother may have very well thought they were justified but failed on the reasonable person test or failed to realize that they had themselves to first be completely innocent, legally present, acting in a lawful manner and in no way instigated the event, or if they did, must have provably attempted to quit the fight/event were blocked or the attack continued despite their protestations.
Hopefully none of us ever fall into either category.
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I try to count. Sometimes I mess up especially when switching magazines. I primarily carry a PC Shield 9 with a 8 round magazine in it. I carry with the 8 round because of the extended grip it gives. I carry the 7 round magazine as my spare magazine because I would not trust the spacer on the 8 round in an emergency. Other have said to put some painters tape around the magazine and then slide the spacer down over that and that helps with the spacer moving around. I guess t could also just carry a spare 8 round magazine without a spacer.
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The 85% came from my CC instructor who has spent thousands of hours sitting through self defense court proceedings and is the national spokesman for S.A.F.E. org. His name is John Caile. He has also appeared on numerous local and national radio and TV shows as a self defense expert. I did a cursory search of MN laws and did not find the exact statue however; all the Law firms specializing in this area list retreat as one of the four tenants of Justifiable taking of a life in MN. I did find reference’s to the statues of jury instructions by judges in self defense which means it is required instructions for jurors as to what is necessary for them to find as justifiable taking of a life. This has been MN standard for decades but other states do not have that requirement. MN does have Castle doctrine but that applies only to the actual house and not yard or outbuildings. If I located the actual statue with the jury instructions I will let you know.
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@KED thank you for taking the time to look. I wasn’t able to find any reference for the 85% number… or any other percentage. I’m happy to live in a castle doctrine state without the expectation to retreat.
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You are welcome. You did still my curiosity though and now I have to know where it comes from exactly. Information is good but facts are great. Stay safe Zee.
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Stir my curiosity…
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Counting your rounds is very much a military way of making sure you don’t get , as we used to say “dead mans click”. Mainly taught in basic training, but also by some instructors once you get through basic. If you are in an “OBUA” - operations in built up areas. We always enter a building etc with a full mag. But we also had a dump bag for empty mags and I always moved full mags to the front of my pouches and half full to the rear. Just became an automatic thing after years of work. As for the counting rounds in a civilian setting, In my opinion won’t hurt, but it’s probably going to be the last thing on your mind when you are confronted in the streets and have micro seconds to act. Just spend lots of time on your tactical Re load. Always carry a pare mag.
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Never to drop a mag with rounds in it, place it in pocket or waist, never back in pouch, that’s for full mags only!
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