Ken, thanks for another book-length thread. I'm just sorry it got this far along before i got back to the keyboard- it's a pretty hefty read for one sitting.
I don't know if you've seen it, but I've gotten a lot of benefit out of the work of Skip Gochenour and the folks at ATSA. One essay with a lot of application here IMHO is the one posted at
http://www.teddytactical.com/archive/MonthlyStudy/2007/02_StudyDay.htm .
The first part of it reads as follows:
You Maybe Whatever You Resolve to Be
ATSA STUDY GROUP
February 17, 2007
By: Skip Gochenour
YOU MAY BE WHATEVER YOU RESOLVE TO BE
YOU HAVE RESOLVED TO BE THE ULTIMATE MORAL ARBITER!
YOU HAVE TAKEN IT UPON YOURSELF TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT A SET OF RAPIDLY EVOLVING FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES AND DECIDE THAT THEY MEAN SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE LETHAL FORCE USED ON THEM AND YOU NEED TO DO IT.
As a person who carries weapons about in society you have decided that you are a moral arbiter.
You are obliged to prepare yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and morally for the role as a moral arbiter.
You are obliged to train your body, mind and spirit for your role as moral arbiter.
Failure to accept and exercise these obligations is an exercise in immorality. It is a failure of discipline and self-control.
=========================
And here we are, right here and now- busy training mind and spirit in order to better exercise these obligations. Some good work has taken place here. Some serious self examination as well as examination of others' positions and thoughts.
Skip covered the legal issues of self defense in another lecture, the notes to which are posted at
http://www.teddytactical.com/archive/MonthlyStudy/2006/02_StudyDay.htm . I was lucky enough to hear this one delivered live, at one of Andy Stanford's training events at Titusville, FL. It was the best presentation I've ever heard on the subject, and I wish everyone here could have been there or at Tom Givens' Polite Society event that year, where I understand Skip delivered the same lecture.
So here we have the moral aspects of the question, and over there we have the legal aspects. Where does that leave us?
Mostly somewhere between Scylla and Charybdis, as the length of this thread indicates. I usually bring up another lecture from yet another trainer in reference to all this- John Farnam. He said,
...The best way to handle any potentially injurious encounter is: Don't be there. Arrange to be somewhere else. Don't go to stupid places. Don't associate with stupid people. Don't do stupid things. This is the advice I give to all students of defensive firearms. Winning a gunfight, or any other potentially injurious encounter, is financially and emotionally burdensome. The aftermath will become your full-time job for weeks or months afterward, and you will quickly grow weary of writing checks to lawyer(s). It is, of course, better than being dead or suffering a permanently disfiguring or disabling injury, but the "penalty" for successfully fighting for your life is still formidable. ... --
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2003/19Mar03.html
From all of this, from all the training I have had, and from a reasonably long and (to me) certainly interesting life so far, I've learned this much. I don't want to have to shoot anyone. That isn't to say I wouldn't if I absolutely had to, but I don't want to.
I spent a couple of license terms (six years total) as an EMT in years gone by. I saw enough stuff in those years that- well, I wish I could erase some of those memories. And I sure don't want to add any more like them. A few months ago, I was driving along behind another car which struck a teenager on a dirtbike when he pulled out on the hiway without stopping. So yet another memory got added to the film loops in my mind- this kid describing three full cartwheels in midair out of a cloud of tire smoke, over some mailboxes and down into the road ditch.
Fortunately all he got out of it was a broken leg, but you couldn't have told it from what I saw originally. I figured I was going to find a dead kid in that ditch when I got down there. He was lucky. He used up a half dozen of his nine lives that day, and shortened the only one I have left a little bit too 8^).
So the last film loop I want playing in my mind, IF I can possibly keep it from happening, is the image of my front sight on some thug's COM and the results of the shots. Is that enough to make me hesitate if I really need to press the trigger? No, I doubt it. But it doesn't keep me from not wanting it to happen.
Skip winds up his legal lecture with the concept of ADEE- Avoid, Disengage, Escape, Evade. In my mind that is the ideal approach to these issues, if in fact it is possible under whatever circumstances prevail. It's a concept I'd like to see taught- and embraced- more widely.
Thanks again, Ken-
lpl