If you shoot someone in self-defense are you better off (from a legal standpoint) to kill the person rather than wound them?

Great Debates
41

Yeah, “shoot until empty” is a shorthand for “shoot until the threat’s neutralized OR you run out of ammo”. In a high stress situation you may be surprised how fast – or how slow – you fire and how much or how little you miss. You aim center-of-mass because it increases odds of a disabling hit whichever the case.

As mentioned, the law takes a dim view of obviously “finishing off” someone who clearly was out of the fight.

There seems to be a concern among some based on a popular notion in the USA that LEAs will have it in for the shooter, and/or that juries left to their druthers will fall for the injured party’s lawyer’s line and sock it to the shooter, even in a clean self defense, but that trope ISTM may often be based on begging the question that it was clean self-defense. (Plus, some people seem to believe “self defense” is some sort of magical incantation that should relieve you of having to expend any resources or effort to justify that indeed it was). Problem is, ALL shootings are potentially complicated, both short and long term, each is unique, and even if he’s dead you can’t keep Mrs. Widow InjuredParty and her kids from at least trying to take you to court.

42

This reminds me of the shooting of Sammy Yatim in Canada.

Verdict and sentence

On January 25, 2016, the jury found Forcillo not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter, but guilty of attempted murder.[8] The jury accepted the defence’s argument that Forcillo was justified in firing the first three shots, but found him not justified in the second round of shots, thus guilty of attempted murder.[47][48] The verdict meant Forcillo faces a four-year minimum sentence.[48][49]

43

No one has mentioned it yet but I also recall from the link in the OP that people were saying never fire a warning shot as you will only get in trouble if you later shoot the person. The notion being if you had time to shoot a warning shot you were not in imminent danger and could have done something else and that will get you in legal trouble.

44

[quote=“Whack-a-Mole, post:1, topic:914018, full:true”]
It was claimed that police will tell you this. Gun instructors will tell you this. Pretty much everyone who owns a gun seems to be in agreement. The reason being a dead person can not tell their side of the story and wrongful death lawsuits are cheaper than someone who has a lifetime disability.[/quote]

Sometimes I used to hear that if you ever shot someone and they fell outside your home that you should drag them into the house to avoid getting into trouble. This ignores the fact that people who are shot have holes in them and they leak all over the place so good luck explaining to a jury why a blood trail starts outside your home and ends inside it. But I’ve never heard this bit of advice from a police officer or gun instructor nor have I heard that I’m better off if I were to kill someone rather than simply wound them. As far as liability goes, I suppose it makes sense that I might be better off if the person dies rather than need lifelong care due to incapacitation. But that applies to any kind of incident where I’m at fault for injuring someone.

I would never tell a police officer I was attempting to kill someone. “Officer, he pulled out that knife and said to me, ‘Your money or your life,’ and fearing death or grievous bodily harm I shot him twice.” I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on the witness stand with a prosecutor asking me, “What did you mean when you said you were trying to kill Mr. Body?”

Not really.

45

In most states, deadly force is deadly force. And assuming a legal defensive use of a firearm, there’s no such thing as aiming for the legs really. You aim for center of mass because it’s the easiest target to hit. If it was legal to shoot someone in the leg it’s legal to shoot them in the chest.

46

So, couple of perspectives from the CCW class I took on the subject.

  1. You should never draw and use your weapon unless you are ready and willing to kill the target.

As others have said, you are taking an extremely final solution to a problem that could possibly be solved by other means. And once you consider the emotional, legal, and financial consequences, what level of threat justifies putting up with those consequences. The instructor (and all the fellow students with me that I spoke with) put it at immediate risk of acute physical harm to self or family, and strongly discouraged any efforts to intervene on behalf of anyone else, such as playing ‘hero’.

  1. If you apply (1) above, then yes, you should stop the threat.

Which meant shoot center of mass, which was approximated by target shooting at an 8.5x11 sheet of paper at ranges of about 15 feet. Why that size? Because if you do, you’re basically going to hit critical areas of the heart, arterial system, or lungs. Why that range? Because if you’re closer, things have already gone to hell and just getting a gun out is going to be problematic, and you’ve escalated a situation, and if you’re farther, you should be running away! (this doesn’t apply in a home invasion, but class tried to prepare you for multiple solutions).

  1. Do not try warning shots, or shoot to wound.

Mostly what people have said before. Just by drawing a weapon, or holding a weapon (in a home defense) you are escalating the conflict. Shooting accurately is hard unless you have a LOT of time and money to practice. I normally go shooting for fun around 4 times a year, and only about 200 rounds each time. Which at current prices is about $50-60 in public range fees and ammunition (and I use a cheaper caliber). I would have zero confidence in striking a moving limb, especially with my blood pumping. Shooting to wound belies point 1 and 2 as well.
Lastly, something no one has has posted about, which really, really want to address is that especially with warning shots and higher-risk wounding shots, is that you are very likely to miss with a number of your rounds. Those rounds are still lethal, still moving, and can absolutely hit an unrelated party which you are 100% responsible for. So please don’t fire a warning shot in the air, for when it comes down again, you are going to have legal issues for anyone and anything it hits. Don’t try for tricky shots, or the same applies.
I did find it funny (and rewarding) that our CCW instructor spent as much or more of his time trying to talk us out of using the training as he did preparing us for safely using the weapons. And honestly, in the 7 years I’ve had a CC permit, I’ve carried probably no more than a half dozen times after I left the pharmacy job which prompted me to get it. That year, 4 of the pharmacies in my city had been robbed, and I was feeling at risk.
And don’t even get me started about legal consequence of defending yourself at work.

So TL:DR - just don’t. Unless your are defending yourself and family against imminent injury, and if you are, yes shoot with the intention of stopping the threat with the greatest possible efficacy. If you abide by the rules above, your moral and legal responsibility should be largely resolved.

47

For that matter, we discussed how even in the most ‘righteous’ shoot (home invasion with an armed assailant was the common scenario) you are going to be going to court. If you injure or take a life, it will almost certainly come to this no matter what. Yes, the ‘dead attackers tell no tales’ meme was brought up, but so was ‘do you want to explain those last 4 shots in the back’ meme. Shoot them until they fall down, then back away and call the cops if you haven’t already was the consensus.

(sorry this should have been part of my prior post after # 2, but apparently the paragraph got deleted and it wouldn’t let me edit it even 5 minutes later when I re-read my post for clarity)

48

There is an old joke that if you hit someone with your car throw it in reverse and run them over again to make sure you finish the job. You potentially are liable for more damages in a civil trial if someone survives. Medical costs are one big example but just having an emotionally compelling survivor in the court room can affect the jury. To a certain extent that does reflect part of reality whether the tool of deadly force is a car or a gun.

Now that says nothing about the moral or legal implications of intentionally killing someone who would have otherwise survived. If the prosecutor thinks they can prove you actually did that a civil trial is the least of your worries. Still it is basically the same argument, and joke, as making sure they die after shooting. It makes sense in the US legal system… if you ignore the risks of being convicted for the murder you just committed.

I would not be surprised if there are not some police and instructors that are stupid enough to say that as more than a joke. We are the 3rd most populous country in the world. Even rare things happen when the pool is big enough. I would be surprised if many said it as anything other than an obvious joke.

While states vary on gun use laws that one is pretty universal. Shooting is using deadly force whether you shoot at the ground nearby or center of mass. Ricochets go in all kinds of bizarre directions. Bullets can penetrate quite a bit of stuff and still be deadly to people you cannot see. Warning shots are legally dumb. If you are justified in using deadly force against an attacker, use it. If you are not, do not shoot and put innocent people at risk. To misquote an old Jedi, “Shoot or don’t shoot. There is no warning shot.”

49

What if you shoot your attacker and they go down but are not dead. You can not legally shoot them again but what about waiting to call for help? Let them bleed out first.

50

Don’t. Please. Guns are LOUD. Unless you’re in a frequent live fire zone, people are going to notice,and it’s going to be easy to determine when the shots were fired. You really don’t want to be in the situation where the cops are called to the scene by people around you, but you haven’t called. I’m not saying this will definitely end up deciding a case against you but it will NOT look good. And that’s assuming you were defending a home, if you’re in the street somewhere, odds are someone or something could have video of you.
On a more macabre note, if you’re doing this with proper planning (see my earlier posts), bleeding out is going to happen. This isn’t a gun forum where people debate penetration, expansion, 9mm vs 40 s&w vs 45 acp, or other ‘best’ home defense kings - but with most modern defense guns and defense ammunition, survival is going to be unlikely if you’ve shot someone 2-3 times in the chest.

51

Why would you do something that makes it look like you used deadly force to try to kill someone, instead of using it to stop someone trying to kill you? It’s really important to have clean hands when you are trying to avail yourself of a legal excuse for your actions, which is what claiming self-defense to an accusation of homicide is.

The police who interview the shooter here, the assistant district attorneys relying on those reports for whether to charge the shooter with murder, and the grand jury that ultimately decides whether or not to indict for murder: none of those people know the shooter ahead of time, or the relationship between the shooter and the victim. All they have to go by in making their decisions is the evidence.

If the evidence looks like the shooter waited an hour to call for an ambulance…the evidence looks less like an innocent person defending themselves from a deadly threat, and more like someone trying to kill somebody for XYZ reason, and claiming an excuse afterwards.

Go, call 911 as soon as possible after the shooting. It’s going to take some time for the ambulance to get there anyway.

52

The vast majority of people shot with a handgun survive. 6 out of 7, last I checked, and it’s probably gotten better since then. 2 or 3 shots to the chest is not helping someone stay in the 6 part of that population, and trauma care in a hospital is going to be required, but it’s not an instant death sentence either.

Handguns just aren’t that effective at killing people, unless you hit them in the head. And even then. I want to say the proportion goes to something like 1 out of 2 with a head wound from a handgun.

What usually happens when someone gets shot with a handgun is that they turn and run. The turning, incidentally, is how you get so many ‘he was shot in the back!’ events. The wounded person usually manages to flee the area, and is found, an hour or so later, in a local emergency room.

Stats from this 30 minutes or so talk by an anesthesiologist to EMS personnel on gunshot wounds and their immediate treatment:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3PAHu-5-aUM

Aside, I can see, and have unfortunately lived in, plenty of neighborhoods where a gunshot is going to go unreported. Particularly if fired indoors. People just don’t want to get involved, and a single loud noise is hard to classify, ‘what was that? Firecracker? Car blowout? That neighbor kid being an asshole again?’ ‘Pop-pop-pop’ is a little different, of course.

53

Heh. In our “neighborhood” gunshots are a common occurrence. People sighting in their gun/scope in anticipation of deer season, shooting groundhogs and other pests, target shooting, and just plain drunk and feel like making noise. Ahhh, country life.

54

I’m not disagreeing with you @Gray_Ghost. I was of course over-simplifying my arguments, because I’ve seen gun forum arguments that make the most crazed areas of the Great Debates look like a calm spring day in the country. :grimacing: Most of the guys that argue on those forums are of the opinion that the only use of a handgun is to get to a shotgun, and the only use of a shotgun is to get to a rifle. This group would put emphasis on self defense with a short barreled shotgun or AR platform carbine and is straying beyond the OP intent.

So I skipped over several books worth of argument with my phrase -

But since you bring it up, I’ll revisit. I specified a common defense scenario, of 10-15 feet, shooting for an area of a common sheet of paper corresponding to a center of the chest. Using a modern defense gun (which I would assume as a minimum of 9mm) and modern defense ammo which would be some form of jacketed hollow point most likely, yes, 2-3 rounds in the chest is certainly likely to be fatal.

But I totally acknowledge we are comparing apples to oranges. Most shootings do NOT correspond to a common defense scenario. They include drivebys, scuffles, longer range spray and pray scenarios, and so on and so forth. And a number of shootings (certainly police involved ones) are with FMJ ammunition, which is certainly going to be less lethal. And I agree 100% handguns are less effective at killing people than military or hunting grade weapons.

Getting back to the OPs point though, which is about the legal ramifications of a presumed defensive shoot, you probably don’t want to look as if you were a modern vigilante waiting for TEOTWAWKI, so I’ll stick to my guns :groan: and say that for my home defense scenario you are likely to inflict fatal wounds. And in most other scenarios, I’ll stand my ground [ double :groan: ] and say you should run away!

I could fill up a few pages of cites and articles, but I’ll include just an easy one that is super accessible from NYTimes rather than pages of gun minutiae.

55

And if you want to do a deeper dive, here’s one for people who want to get into nuts and bolts a bit more.

56

This is probably going to open you up to a manslaughter charge. You caused their injury which led to their death. Your initial action of shooting them would be justified by self-defense but what justification are you going to offer for your decision to not call for help?

57

Waiting for lower evening phone rates might have worked back in the day.

58

Or if you had one of those tracfone set-ups and you didn’t want to use up your minutes.

59

Hopefully, when you call 911, you won’t get put on hold.

Is the hold music for 911 “Help!” ?

60

I don’t think we disagree much at all, Parallel Lines. I do agree that the tone here is a lot less vociferous than many gun enthusiasts boards, and I also understand that you weren’t trying to write a book here.(Though, if people want to read a really good one on the subject, Dr. Vincent DiMaio’s “Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques,” is excellent.) FWIW, I take the view of those you mentioned, who stated the purpose of the handgun is to get to your carbine.

I appreciated your cites, even if I suspect the point of the first one was to lay the groundwork for a larger-caliber handgun ban. Further discussion I think gets too far from what the OP was debating.