The Legalities of Shooting People

[Valin]

Monster Hunter Nation:

Larry Correia

Nov. 25 2014

 

I’m writing this blog post because I’ve seen a lot of really ignorant comments from a lot of otherwise intelligent folks about some recent shootings. It is really easy to be swayed by knee jerk emotion, but luckily we live in America, where we have a justice system based on evidence and the rule of law. I’m not going to get into the Brown shooting too much because I wasn’t on the grand jury and haven’t read the evidence presented in that particular case, but I’m going to explain how use of force laws work so I don’t have to keep repeating myself.

 

This will vary state by state, but these are the fundamentals for most places in the US. There are some legal differences between police and regular folks shooting people, but basically the rules are similar. I’m not an attorney in your state, and this is not meant as legal advice for your state. Again, this isn’t meant as legal advice, rather as a primer to get people to not be so damned ignorant about the fundamentals of how the law works.

 

And the law usually does work.

 

I’m going to keep this simple. Before I became a novelist, I was a Utah Concealed Weapons instructor for many years. I’m condensing a few hours of lecture and discussion into one article. Again, this will vary state by state.

 

First off we must understand some terms.

 

(Snip)

 

H/T Mitch Berg, Shot In The Dark