In lieu of a Mundane Stories Leading To Actual Questions forum, I figured I’d throw this in here:
I’m notoriously afraid of being alone at night despite the fact that my neighborhood is extremely safe (SO FAR!). I usually deal with it alright because my girlfriend comes home before it gets too dark and I’m absurdly reassured by having a 5’3, 100 pound woman who’s even worse at firing guns than I am. Recently, however, she had to scurry off to play mistress-of-ceremonies at a fetish convention, leaving me perilously alone in my dark, eerie, creaky house. Beth (my girlfriend) reminded me that I’d lived here for ten years without incident and that it seemed unlikely that a burglar or serial killer would strike the one weekend she was out of town.
Placated by this logic, I vowed to brave the waters (or the carpet, I suppose) and remained calm despite my innate fear of vulnerable solitude. It was a bit creepy, but manageable, until I heard the back door rattling. My neighbors are all elderly or obese enough to the point of being unable to scale the backyard fence even in a life-or-death situation. In this case, though, I suppose it was burgle-or-go home empty-handed. Convinced that opening the back door would reveal my awareness of their presence, I decided to wait until they broke down the door to make my move. In theory I could have called 911, but the police here take about fifteen minutes to respond to a MURDER call, let alone a “possible burglary in progress.”
Alright, I was petrified as well.
So there I stood, poised at the door, waiting to strike… only to realize I had nothing to strike with. The door rattled again and I watched with trepidation as the deadbolt turned, desperately grasping around the kitchen counter for something, anything to protect me from the evil burglar. Just as the door opened, my fingers found purchase on a long, hard object, allowing me just enough time to swing it viciously at the head of the intruder - only to hear a decidedly feminine scream.
Flicking the lights on (yes, I only THEN thought of that), I was faced with the form of none other than my girlfriend, looking just as she had when she’d left for the convention… aside from the vivid purple lump forming on her forehead. I was horrified that I had assaulted my own girlfriend, so instead of apologizing I demanded to know why she was home a day early. Poor Beth was unamused by having the blame shoved onto her and looked about ready to storm off into her bedroom when she looked down to my hand, spotting the culprit of her suffering.
Lo and behold, the long, hard object in my grasp was none other than a ribbed vibrator. She undoubtedly had the mother of all headaches, but she couldn’t resist bursting into laughter at the realization that I had assaulted her with a sex toy.
Thus, I ask of you: can a vibrator qualify as a “deadly weapon” under the law? Fortunately, she wasn’t inclined to take that route, but I’m extremely curious since I know fists certainly can be and I recall a case of a shoe being classified as such. I took a few Criminal Justice courses in college, but I don’t think they covered that particular subject matter.
Can “assault with a deadly weapon” apply to any object? Are there restrictions? If so, what’s the criteria?
