Active Self Protection

This comes from the recent video "Argument Over Keys Escalates To Fists And Bullets"

Y'all made it pretty clear in the Lessons that you assess the defender's use of deadly force was not justified. For awhile now, I've benefited from understanding Moral Defensive Use of Force, but your stance on this one confuses me.

I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around how this won't be seen as justified.

1) Larger, stronger man.
2) Has proven a willingness to harm me.
3) Castle doctrine.
4) I have no place to retreat.

If I don't strike back effectively, the outcome I can reasonably expect is to be backed into a corner and pummeled into unconsciousness.

I agree that a fist full of POM would have been a better choice -- but that wasn't available.

I also get that I'm not able to articulate two factors of force disparity (the camerawoman hardly qualifies, by what we see in the vid at any rate, as contributing to any kind of multiple attacker scenario). So we only have the one (bigger/stronger/etc.).

But if I assess that my fists will not be effective against his, how can it be that I am not allowed to defend myself IN MY OWN HOME? Am I really expected to just take it until my face is disfigured and bleeding? I don't get it.

I generally don't win arguments with you, John, I instead generally learn something new.
Looks like school is in. But I'm failing the pop quiz.

What am I missing here?

HI Steven,
Let me you some questions on this to help answer better. John, Neil & Stephanie may be able to add to this though.

1) Larger, stronger man.
What is that larger strong man doing inside your home? Stealing property, drunk neighbor in the wrong house or attacking you or a loved one? These factors matter.

2) Has proven a willingness to harm me.
I am assuming that you are referring to inside your home. But, are you talking about a imminent threat of great / serious bodily harm or death? Or are you talking about ordinary physical force?

3) Castle doctrine.
4) I have no place to retreat.
I am not aware of any state that puts a legal obligation on you to retreat inside your home. But, let's go back to the questions I asked above.

The video you are referencing I agree 100% with John's assessment on and I would have made the same judgement based on the totality of the circumstances seen in that video. People simply punching you does not automatically reach the level of deadly force. It is the result of that force being used against you that you have to address RIGHT NOW. In that video the man who shot didn't even try other options, he got punched in the face and instantly went to the gun. He didn't fall and hit his head or have any other injuries that would have at least from the video shown serious or great bodily harm.

I do not believe that the gun was the right answer in that particular moment, yes the man punching him was causing harm and had the manifested intent, ability, & opportunity to do that. But I don't think the jeopardy level rose to the level of deadly force.

Brandon, thanks for weighing in. Still confused, but we have a few footholds to work from.

I will say I'm a bit confused as t why you are asking contextual questions to the first two points but then make it perfectly clear you know the context and have watched the video in response to the last point. Not a complaint, but I'm not sure I understand the point of asking the questions since it seems evident you already know the answers.

But in an effort to move forward, I'll answer the questions.

1) What was he doing in the victim's home?

Apparently he was brought as muscle to coerce the resident to comply with the other persons's demands using force and intimidation. And, as we see in the video, he's completely ready to batter without warning or provocation.

So I agree, context matters -- and this guy is here to hurt me until I comply. In my home. Given the strength of the first punch, I'd say the strategy is clearly to escalate as far as is necessary to coerce compliance. If I do not comply, this guy is just going to keep ramping it up until it does become disfiguring or knocks me out, at which point my ability to defend myself is gone. The natural and logical conclusion is that I am at great risk of great bodily harm. If I had someplace to retreat to, I could possibly try some activities to evade, but I'm cornered in a room with the assailant standing in the doorway, blocking my egress.

I could try fisticuffs, but nobody is a better judge than me about my skill levels; although from the video, it sure looks like our victim will never be at risk of being confused for being proficient at HTH combat.

Were it me, of course, there'd be a POM in each pocket, and this story would be radically different. But our victim appears to have been caught without his POM handy.

He could try verbal judo. Oh, wait, he did. The result was a sucker punch to the face. Scratch that.

And then there's the firearm in his pocket or similar holding location.

So facing down this thug muscle, trapped in a room in my own home, with no other effective tools at my disposal, you're still going to tell me it's my duty to take the beating.

I'm not seeing it.

2a) Assuming it is in the home. Yes, my interpretation of the video is that he was in his home.

2b) Are we talking about ordinary force or deadly force? Given the totality of circumstances, the logical assessment is that this is heading to deadly force. I've mentioned this several times, so I'm not sure why you're asking.

As far as I can tell, the difference seems to be in how we are assessing the totality of circumstance. Given the sequence of events, coupled with the fact that she brought a heavy in to force compliance, it is painstakingly clear to me that this will absolutely result in great bodily harm.

How do you not see this?

Steven,
I am not saying you have to take the beating but I think that there is a lot that I don't think you understand here. Tell me how you see this causing great bodily harm when the punch rocked the guys head but didn't cause is body to move or unbalance.

I asked you those questions to gain some understanding of what you know about the legal side. Since I don't know you or your background I need some context of why you are coming to this conclusion.

If you notice the guy who punched the man is not wearing shoes that gives me reason to believe that he lives in this location and this is a domestic issue. I didn't see any true attempt to de-escalate / use verbal judo. What I saw and heard was argument and resistance from the man without the shirt.

You also stated given the totality of the circumstances that it was "heading to" deadly force. You answered your own question right there. It had not risen to that point yet.

Ah. I think I'm starting to grasp my error; in three parts (two are critical).

But first -- thanks for explaining the logic behind the questions. That makes total sense, and I myself will often ask a question not for the question's sake but to see how the other person is approaching the problem. It did not occur to me that this might also happen in reverse.

And that blindness, my friend, is almost always the result of pure ego. Which means Mr. Steve needs to joust a bit more with Humility. I appreciate the unexpected opportunity to peek under my own covers and find a path toward self-improvement.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch...

1) I may be prematurely assessing the impact of the first hit, assigning too high an effect and inappropriately beginning the Deadly Force calculus at too high a value;

2) I missed a few indicators which might have balanced out my assessment of how quickly, and to what point, this might escalate, and thus prematurely assessed that it was already on an unavoidable track toward Deadly Force.. Because of this, I dismissed the "haven't gotten there yet" argument as irrelevant -- and that is a critical error we see time and time again in Use of Force cases. I never expected I would make this error, especially from the armchair quarterback position -- but here we are.

3) A minor error was not making a complete assessment of the state of the assailant. It never occurred to me he might actually be a roommate or similar. This contributed to my other errors, but is probably more applicable as an object lesson in how third-party intervention carries the risk of the unknown details, as John covers on the channel with some frequency.

Well, dang it. As I had predicted, I don't generally win these kinds of arguments, but learn something new. I honestly (and, apparently, arrogantly) believed I'd learned enough over the past two to three years of studying it that there wasn't much of anything left for me to learn in this space.

Still in school, it seems.

And, of course, a reminder that Arrogance and Blindness are frequent travelmates.

Thanks for the dialogue!

I appreciate the conversation about this. To be fair I have a significant amount of training in the use of force space and am a force science analyst also. I can not look at these things the same after that at all and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on it from the videos and prior training prior to that. But, it absolutely changed how I look at these things and notice odd things about the encounters that might seem pointless but may be relevant. Don't get me wrong there are ones that I know what the law says and how it applies and logically I can give an answer from that space but emotionally I'm like nope. That is hard to separate sometimes but has to be.

Thanks for helping keep those things sharp for me.