@jks9199 I read your entire post and you basically expounded on what you said in your last reply to me (to which I've already presented my counterviews). I see no counter arguments to my last reply to you. As I said, you only expounded on what you already said. Your stance and arguments are the same and so are mine.
First, welcome to what police deal with too many times. People sitting in a comfortable chair in a comfortable environment, trying to ponder the correctness of decisions that the policeman had split seconds or less to decide how to react.
NO COMPARISON! Policemen have a title and a badge that help them in such scenarios. Their jobs require them to deal with such situations on an almost daily basis. It's
officially part of their job description. But it's not
officially part of my job description as a citizen and non LEO. I am not a policemen, I'm a regular citizen. Comparing policemen to regular citizens is like comparing mountain lions to deer. 2 different breeds who navigate 2 different roles in their worlds.
Second, while in a general way I agree with you, preparing yourself ahead of time, in your mind, for different possibilities, may help you make correct decisions. Failure to make correct decisions may not only allow you to be alive to be in court, but may require you to be in court trying to justify what you did.
In
principle I agree with you but in
reality........
As a practitioner of self defense you know just as well as any of us here that we are taught that we can never prepare for
every possible scenario and situation. Bad guys, life and this thing called Murphy's Law have an irritating habit of throwing things at us that we have not prepared for or considered. How many of us prepare for or consider the possibility of a car jacking scenario on a bridge where 2 guys have you occupied in engagement while another guy has manged to pull an infant out of the car and is running in one direction while a fourth guy pulls your teen daughter or wife out of the car and is heading in the opposite direction. An elaborate and wild (and hopefully unlikely) scenario, I know. BUT it is definitely not an impossibility and for all we know this very scenario may have actually happened somewhere on this planet.
Apparently you do not know jks9199, his job, nor his training and experience. He probably has more experience with what laws seem to be better or worse for helping society. But since they are laws, I think he will always attempt to apply them correctly, and expect them to be applied to him as well. You seem to feel reluctant to live within the laws we have.
Well, I don't see the need to know jks9199 or his job because I don't see why that should be my concern or what it has to do with what I have been saying over and over during my participation in this thread. Most importantly is what you said in your last statement in bold. It's not that I feel reluctant to live within the (fair and just) laws we have. I feel reluctant to allow man's law to tell me whether or not I can defend myself and what I can and cannot do in order to defend myself.
YOU seem reluctant to realize that certain people have
more control over your life than you do which, to me, is not how it's supposed to be. This control that they exercise places a value on us (in their eyes) and more times than not put the safety of ours and our family lives at a considerable amount of risk. But as I said earlier this power and control feel very natural and normal to at least 95% of people because we were taught this from the time we were little kids in grade school all the way into adulthood.
I have no problem following laws that keep society peaceful, safe and in order. But I still think that you (and many others here) are
STILL misunderstanding my stance even though I have explained it I don't know how many times. I will say it again and I hope it will be the last time I will have to say this:
I am not saying that
EVERY SD SITUATION calls for the use of extreme force. An 18 year old kid cat calling my wife or calling me nasty names is not worthy of any response from me at all, let alone a physical altercation. A coworker harassing me on the job and/or sabotaging my work is hardly any reason for me to get physical with that person. I can just report his actions to the boss. But if that same coworker takes a swing on me I will defend myself and of course I will use the appropriate level of force to end the altercation as quickly and neatly as possible. In spite of what many of you here wish to believe
I DO know how to exercise restraint
when it is appropriate to do so. That restraint teaches me that not all incidents need to degrade into violent altercations and not all physical altercations need to be taken to the extreme.
HOWEVER.....my sense of restraint ends in other scenarios and I am mainly talking about getting jumped by multiple attackers, car jacking, home invasions and armed robbery among other things. In these situations I make the decision that I need to end this threat and survive this. And if ending the threat requires for me to use extreme force then you're damn right that's exactly what I'm going to do. Now here's the important point you all seem to keep missing from me so please pay attention:
My purpose for using extreme force is not to end anyone's life. My purpose for using extreme force is an attempt to preserve my own life and, if necessary, the lives of my family.
But my use of extreme force just might end another person's life (even if unintentionally) which is sad and unfortunate but I will be in survival mode and
I CANNOT AFFORD TO TRY TO EXERCISE RESTRAINT while I am in survival mode fighting for my life and/or the lives of my loved ones. Can you guys tell the difference yet? Have I made my stance clear or must I still explain this over and over again?
Now if I'm getting ganged up on by multiple attackers I may have to use my firearm or another weapon and someone may lose their life.
MY PROBLEM is some prosecutor or judge telling me that I should have handled it in such a way as not to cause the loss of life and because I handled it the way that I did I am now facing criminal charges and a possible prison sentence. There are a million freakin' things wrong this, so many that I don't even know where to begin. And I am at a complete and utter loss for words that people in our society are too busy obeying orders (that do not make sense) to sit and ponder how wrong it is to be forced to obey certain orders.
Label me as you please and judge me as you please. But I have made the decision that I will not allow these
laws tell me that my life has no value while the people who make and pass these
laws set it up to where
their lives do have value. Much, much more value than us common citizens who do not live in gated communities next door to other legislators surrounded by security guards. Legislators who do not punch a time clock like we do and walk these streets of the concrete jungle like we do. To hell with them and to hell with their SD laws. If enough of you guys with your heads stuck in the sand were to take that position our society actually would become safer and less violent. It would actually be a win-win and I would be more than happy to elaborate on how if anyone cares for me to do so.
So that's my stance and my issues in 2 steps. 1) That if I'm fighting for the survival of mine or my loved ones' lives I simply cannot afford to be thinking laws and how far to go. My only thought is the survival of me and my family. And 2) prosecutors and judges possibly criminalizing my actions
when they weren't there in my shoes and in my situation. So they have
no idea of the fast paced pressure, the fear and the fight for survival I may have been in. But here they are
after the fact passing judgement.
All of what you write in your last paragraph may be true, except that the laws where you live may be very strict in allowing you to be too busy not to make rational decisions. As long as you are good with that, don't complain if any future actions by you should be determined to be against the law.
Well, I already explained that I have made my decision on what I must do under certain circumstances and I am prepared to walk the road that comes with making that decision.
When I participate in this particular thread I don't speak of threats as being a verbal altercation at the grocery store with another patron, or the guy behind the desk of a hotel with whom I've made reservations and things got heated. I'm not talking about some punk on the street who asks me
"what the f*** am I looking at" and asks me if
"I want a piece of him". Neither am I thinking about the auto mechanic who seems to be screwing me over or the annoying neighbor who keeps placing his trash can on my side of the street during garbage pick up. Nor the bastard who pick pocket me at the amusement park or something. When I talk about a
serious threat to my life I am specifically talking about
THUGS (who have no regard for life and no remorse),
SOCIOPATHS (who have no regard for life and no remorse),
PREDATORS (who have no regard for life and no remorse),
HOME INVADERS (who have no regard for life and no remorse), the
CRIMINALLY INSANE (who have no regard for life and no remorse) and sometimes (unfortunately) the non criminally insane who may have serious mental issues or may have had some sort of mental breakdown and just snapped. Perhaps that's what the situation was with the doctor who started shooting inside that hospital in Bronx, NY a week ago or that guy who shot that congressman a couple of weeks ago at the Republican baseball gathering. Sometimes people just snap and as unfortunate that is you still have a decision to make as to whether or not you want to survive this person's rampage.
And that doesn't make the laws wrong, except to you and anyone who thinks as you do.
And that doesn't make the laws
right, except to you and anyone who thinks as you do.
