What would you do?

[BluesStringer]

It is reluctantly estimated by the left that at least a million violent crimes are prevented annually without a shot being fired. The esteemed author and college professor John Lott puts that figure considerably higher at somewhere around 2.5 million. This confuses me a bit. Is drawing a weapon not brandishing? Where does the drawing of a weapon become legitimate and when is it illegal? At the obvious two ends of the argument it is obvious. Pulling your gun on kids playing on your lawn is a crime, without a doubt. There is however a grey area where you may feel threatened and you may or may not be in the right. It is that area that concerns me. In the article I submitted we don't know weather the muggers were armed. They were not caught and apparently the victim did not report seeing a weapon. Nevertheless, Im sure the victim felt threatened and frightened, had he been armed who knows what he would have done.

Apparently there is a lot of brandishing going on in this country if we are to take John Lott' statistics seriously. It flies in the face of any advice I have ever received. I have always been told to never draw your weapon unless you intend to use it. Using the gun to deter a crime by merely showing it is what people seem to be doing, by the millions.

"BLUES", don't bother replying to this post. It flies in the face of your non discloser policy. Just stay in your bunker with your WWII helmet on keep a close eye on your driveway.

Umm.... I'll reply to any post I dang well please, thankyouverymuch. As I was reading your post above, I was thinking that you actually understood what I and others were saying, because you asked general questions about studies and statistics that many of us are between fairly and intimately knowledgeable about, and not questions about what we'd personally do in hypothetical situations. Then your last paragraph kinda blew that thought outta the water, but whatever, your ridiculously childish and erroneous vision of me notwithstanding, I'll just say this about your admitted "confusion"......

I think the number of states that allow open carry is in the neighborhood of 40 now. It is not considered "brandishing" to show a weapon in all circumstances, because if it was, laws prohibiting such would "fly in the face of" open carry privileges/rights (as the case may be) in a large majority of states.

You are not the first on this forum to bring up the canard of "brandishing" as being any use of a weapon where a shot was never fired. It's such a commonly-submitted canard in fact, that it's not necessary for me to go find the many threads containing it in order for me to (generally) address it and debunk it from memory (with a little help from my Bookmarks to a summary of several studies that always gets cited when the canard is raised again.....and again.....and again.....and again).

Many of the defensive gun uses (DGUs) included in nearly all the various studies were of the nature where the threatening person never saw the weapon. Examples include the occupant of a dwelling hearing someone breaking in and yelling, "I have a gun. Go away!" Or a similar circumstance where the suspected burglar is in close enough proximity to hear the racking of a shotgun shell or pistol slide. Any verbal warning and/or visible showing of an armed status could qualify as a DGU, and most of those studies do indeed count them as such. Obviously, there are folks who disagree that that constitutes a "use" of a weapon, but I'm just relaying what the purported "data" you cite is partly based upon.

Some data is extrapolated from interviews with convicted felons serving prison time too. That was the 1986 Wright/Rossi study. This link summarizes it, as well as a later study by Gary Kleck (where the 2.5 million estimate comes from) and a DoJ-sponsored study conducted by the Census Bureau (where the smallest by far estimate of 100,000 comes from), and also mentions a Clinton-era DoJ-funded study conducted by hand-picked anti-gunners (Ludwig and Cook) whose research came up with the highest estimate of 3 million DGUs before trashing their own results and stating that it's "...impossible to measure the true number of persons who use guns in America for self defense." Sounds remarkably like the "scientists" of CRU in East Anglia who sought to "hide the decline" in phonied-up global warming data, doesn't it though? In any case, all of these studies took into account "uses" of guns that did not involve firing any rounds, which were the majority by a 75/25 ratio, and the numbers ranging from around the high hundreds of thousands to 3 million all referred to those uses as "self defense," as opposed to "brandishing," which itself is a crime in some jurisdictions, while all the studies were only considering legal "uses" of guns.

Blues

 

[NavyLCDR]

Eidolon, yes easy to understand. Is that whats happening millions of times a year? I think you hit the nail on the head as to what action to take, but. long do you wait to see if the attacker is armed? At 75 I think I could be severely injured if pushed to the ground, broken hip, etc, who knows? It must boil down to individual perception of the danger and take your chances with the courts.

Depends on your state laws. I don't have to wait to determine if they are armed or not:

RCW 9A.16.050
Homicide—By other person—When justifiable.
Homicide is also justifiable when committed either:
(1) In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife, parent, child, brother, or sister, or of any other person in his or her presence or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished; or
(2) In the actual resistance of an attempt to commit a felony upon the slayer, in his or her presence, or upon or in a dwelling, or other place of abode, in which he or she is.

RCW 9A.56.190
Robbery—Definition.
A person commits robbery when he or she unlawfully takes personal property from the person of another or in his or her presence against his or her will by the use or threatened use of immediate force, violence, or fear of injury to that person or his or her property or the person or property of anyone. Such force or fear must be used to obtain or retain possession of the property, or to prevent or overcome resistance to the taking; in either of which cases the degree of force is immaterial. Such taking constitutes robbery whenever it appears that, although the taking was fully completed without the knowledge of the person from whom taken, such knowledge was prevented by the use of force or fear.

RCW 9A.56.210
Robbery in the second degree.
(1) A person is guilty of robbery in the second degree if he or she commits robbery.
(2) Robbery in the second degree is a class B felony.

 

[Deanimator]

What would you do in this situation?

I have three words for you: "disparity of force".

A few years ago, a couple of nitwits jumped a guy in a Dayton gas station. Neither was armed. He gut shot one of them and the other left the AO. No charges against the victim. As the saying goes, "That's why you don't do that."

 

[DGeorge]

So, "nearly all" but not all. Is that what you are saying Blue? Considering the numbers we are talking about that could be a lot of DGUsis where the gun is revealed . In states where OC is allowed you can still be charged with Brandishing, is that not true?

I personally know of an incidence here in VA where an acquaintance of mine allowed his coat to flop open revealing his weapon. It was a road rage incident and the other party came out of his car with a ball bat. It ended with the other person getting back in his car and driving away.

 

[DGeorge]

Yes Deanimator, disparity of force. Im 75, mugger is 25 and 50 lbs heavier than me. Sounds like a disparity to me.

 

[BluesStringer]

So, "nearly all" but not all. Is that what you are saying Blue?

I said "nearly all" in reference to the one universally-panned "study" by DoJ where the anti-gun agenda was so thoroughly embedded in the data as to render it meaningless anyway. That was the one that came up with 100,000 DGUs, and I can't say for positive because I have no interest in researching its underlying data, but with a number that low, I don't think they included non-fired weapons as a legal defensive "use" as the other ones did.

Kind of another ridiculous question in light of all the evidence my link provided that the majority of such studies do include non-firing weapons stopping a crime from happening as a legitimate defensive "use" of guns. What exactly are you attempting to challenge in what I said? I started out up-front saying that I was generally able to answer your question about brandishing etc. Nothing was intended as the last word, but none of it was dependent upon reviewing all the underlying data in order to generally summarize what the aggregate of actual studies shows either.

Considering the numbers we are talking about that could be a lot of DGUsis where the gun is revealed .

Sure. Whether we're talking about 100,000 uses per year, or 2.5 million uses per year, or 3 million uses per year, they average out between them to a 75/25 ratio of non-fired weapons being counted as a defensive gun use, and in all cases, 75% is "a lot" where a potential threat is made aware of the presence of a weapon on or in the hands of his intended victim. I have no idea what your point is. Every one of those "uses" were evaluated for their inclusion in the data as law-abiding citizens using their guns legally. "Revealing" is not necessarily brandishing, and all the studies rejected uses where the weapon was used illegally, so no brandishing cases are included in the underlying data.

In states where OC is allowed you can still be charged with Brandishing, is that not true?

One can be charged only with crimes for which there exists statutes defining the crimes. I only study in detail laws that pertain to me in the jurisdictions I am most likely going to find myself. Alabama has a very strong state preemption law that prohibits any municipality from enacting local ordinances having anything to do with firearms that exceeds state laws, with the only exception being that municipalities have statutory flexibility in determining specified distances from buildings and roads etc. one must be before they can fire their weapons on their own property. With that law in mind, the only jurisdiction I have felt compelled to study in-depth is the whole state of Alabama, and Alabama has no brandishing law whatsoever, so no, your statement is not true for the state that I know for sure about, but I seriously doubt that Bama is the only state in the Union with no such statute on the books. If your state has a brandishing law, I suggest you familiarize yourself with it and act, or don't act, on it however the spirit moves you, but your true/false question as possibly applying in all jurisdictions, is demonstrably false with only taking Alabama's gun laws into account.

I personally know of an incidence here in VA where an acquaintance of mine allowed his coat to flop open revealing his weapon. It was a road rage incident and the other party came out of his car with a ball bat. It ended with the other person getting back in his car and driving away.

Are you relaying this anecdote in the context that your acquaintance "brandished" his weapon in some illegal way? Unless that's the case, I don't understand the point of the anecdote. Otherwise, his accidental display of his firearm while under a threat of force with a weapon, seems to me to validate what the studies I've referenced show.

Blues

 

[DGeorge]

First of all I know nothing about Alabama law but I will bet that if you draw your weapon and point it at someone that is not attacking you but just annoying you, you will be charged with brandishing. Now in Alabama they may have another legal term for brandishing but is the same crime.I suggest you do some more research on the laws in your jurisdiction.

You are splitting hairs when you say that racking the slide on a shotgun, or saying you have a gun, or,or or, is not basically the same as revealing the gun

 

[BluesStringer]

First of all I know nothing about Alabama law but I will bet that if you draw your weapon and point it at someone that is not attacking you but just annoying you, you will be charged with brandishing. Now in Alabama they may have another legal term for brandishing but is the same crime.I suggest you do some more research on the laws in your jurisdiction.

I provided the law to you. I suggest you do some homework before spewing uninformed, contrarian crap and pretending that you're actually engaging in give-and-take conversation.

There are statutes here (and everywhere I imagine) having to do with criminal threatening, terroristic threats etc., but the word "brandishing" is not synonymous by any stretch to those types of crimes. You yourself said something earlier about "revealing" and "brandishing" being the same, and there is nothing statutorily wrong or illegal about simply revealing you have a weapon in Alabama, whether to deter an advancing threat or just plain ol' open carrying. Legally-speaking, both actions are the same.

You are splitting hairs when you say that racking the slide on a shotgun, or saying you have a gun, or,or or, is not basically the same as revealing the gun

Brandishing is a visible description of an action. Racking a slide is an audible action in the context in which I used it. They are not the same either in reality or in the law.

Who the heck put the burr under your saddle anyway? I haven't split any hairs at all, I simply tried to inform you what kinds of "uses" the underlying data of the most-oft-cited studies include. Did you even give a cursory glance at the link to the summary of at least four such studies that I provided for you? They're all named by both the Title and researchers who conducted each study, from which one could find the whole study and research the specifics of the underlying data for themselves, if they were interested in the truth of the matter, rather than just criticizing me for leading you by the nose to where you can find the truth! Who knows? If you actually did some research on your own, you might even find a misstatement or erroneous cite by me, which I would gladly cop to if you did find any, but your knee-jerk obsession with trying to make me wrong on your own conjecture about AL laws and accusations of my splitting hairs when I have done no such thing, sure as heck ain't adequate to demonstrate any error or unfactual statements on my part.

What's your freakin' problem anyway?

Blues

 

[DGeorge]

Here "BLUE" read this from this forum.

Brandishing and Improper Exhibition of a Firearm - USA Carry

I know you are terrified of the ALL SEEING eye that may be watching this site. I submit that your paranoia is what singles you out for the scrutiny you so much fear. That behavior is what the ALL SEEING eye looks for.

 

[BluesStringer]

Here "BLUE" read this from this forum.

Brandishing and Improper Exhibition of a Firearm - USA Carry

I know you are terrified of the ALL SEEING eye that may be watching this site. I submit that your paranoia is what singles you out for the scrutiny you so much fear. That behavior is what the ALL SEEING eye looks for.

You hate being wrong, don't you. There's nothing you can link to that says there's an anti-brandishing law in AL, and AL is not the only state without such a law. It's your canard, not mine.

There's also nothing that you can link to that suggests it's a great idea to state specifically what you would/will do in either a hypothetical or real-life scenario. There is plenty that I could link to that advises people to keep it general, not personal. You'll notice that I'm not alone in implementing that advice. Only one person has said specifically what they would do....well.... two I guess counting you, but whatever, I have been nothing but polite in stating my position(s) with you. How about you take your internet-forum psychology degree and stick it where the sun don't shine? That's what I would do if I were you. There. You got a specific answer about what would I do.

Blues

 

[DGeorge]

That is funny. Did you read the post? Brandishing is just a word as the post says. The definition however does apply to all states even if they use another term for it. Look at the definition of brandishing and see if you could get away with it in alabama. Brandishing: using a weapon in a Rude, careless, angry or threatening manner.

Look up the definition of canard. It doses nothing for your attempt to sound intelligent.

 

[BluesStringer]

Here's the sequence of posts between you and me, DGeorge:

You: "What would you do?"

Me: I'd remain silent and recommend that all smart people do the same.

You: Why silence Blues?

Me: I don't do hypotheticals because the goal posts are always moving for one thing, and I also have a personal rule that I don't state publicly what I, personally, would do because I prefer to evaluate laws/scenarios/news stories/whatever from a generalized perspective, not a personal one.

You: Is drawing a weapon not brandishing? (Obviously on to a new topic, but with a caveat at the end barking out an order to me specifically not to answer your question on the basis of another in a now-long line of canards, including you fantasizing about how I dress in my driveway. Weird.)

Me: I'll reply if I want, and the reply I gave was factually correct about how anti-brandishing laws are not applicable to the studies that you brought up. I bottom-lined it for you by saying, "In any case, all of these studies took into account 'uses' of guns that did not involve firing any rounds, which were the majority by a 75/25 ratio, and the numbers ranging from around the high hundreds of thousands to 3 million all referred to those uses as 'self defense,' as opposed to 'brandishing,' which itself is a crime in some jurisdictions, while all the studies were only considering legal 'uses' of guns." In that reply I linked to a summary of at least four of the most oft-cited studies that the leftists you asserted "reluctantly estimated" the high numbers of no-shots-fired defensive "uses" of guns would certainly, at the very least, in part, be based on. Simple review would've informed you that illegal brandishing couldn't be possible within those statistics, because those statistics only included legal uses of a gun for self defense embedded in the underlying data. You were, and remain however, much more interested in arguing the finer points of law in jurisdictions of which you know exactly squat, and still you apparently don't understand that the studies that you brought up could not have criminal brandishing embedded within their stats, because their stats only scrutinized legal actions of the intended victim of a threatening person.

You: "Considering the numbers we are talking about that could be a lot of DGUsis where the gun is revealed . In states where OC is allowed you can still be charged with Brandishing, is that not true?"

Me: "'Revealing' is not necessarily brandishing, and all the studies rejected uses where the weapon was used illegally, so no brandishing cases are included in the underlying data." Notice the exact same fact of what is embedded in the underlying data as I explained previously, was explained here again.

You: "In states where OC is allowed you can still be charged with Brandishing, is that not true?"

(At this point, we're no longer even referencing the studies that I was attempting to provide you some valid understanding(s) of. Instead, you're stuck on my correct assertion that "brandishing" is not a crime that one can be charged with in AL. The reason I can say with such certainty that my assertion is/was correct is because I provided a Link Removed that applies to firearms in any way in AL. Even now, a couple of days later and Lord knows how many posts later, you just can't admit that you were, and still are, wrong.)

Me: There is no anti-brandishing law here in Alabama, so no, that is not true. Note here also that you even capitalized the word "brandishing" when referring to it as something one can be charged with, so I answered the exact question you asked, there is no crime with the Title "Brandishing" to be found in the Alabama Criminal Code, therefore, no one can be charged with "Brandishing" in Alabama, and I further surmised that Alabama was likely not alone in that regard, but whether it is or it ain't, it still is not true that, "In states where OC is allowed you can still be charged with Brandishing, is that not true?" Get it?

You: "First of all I know nothing about Alabama law but I will bet that if you draw your weapon and point it at someone that is not attacking you but just annoying you, you will be charged with brandishing.

Me: Brandishing and criminal threatening, terroristic threats etc. are not synonymous. One cannot be charged with a crime that doesn't exist in the Criminal Code. Absolutely nothing in the studies that you brought up are about pointing a gun at someone just because they're annoying you. The data were based entirely on legal uses, the aggregated majority of 75% of which involved reacting to a threat (not an annoyance) successfully when the threat became aware that his/her intended victim was armed, and then broke off whatever action would've made the displaying/drawing/even firing of a gun legal in the first place. As I said in the very beginning, the reason I don't indulge hypotheticals from a personal perspective is because the person hypothesizing invariably moves the goal posts all around the field. You have proven in spades both the prudence and prescience of me first saying in this thread that I wouldn't indulge the hypothetical, and advised others to do the same.

You: Here, read this, it's a blog post, and dammit, it's Gospel!

Me: Stick it where the sun don't shine. It's not about the studies that you brought up, and those studies are all I engaged with you about.

You: "Did you read the post?"

Me: I skimmed the first couple of paragraphs before I realized that it had absolutely no bearing on the studies that you brought up, and that I have attempted to cure your self-admitted confusion about. No matter what you, Ben Findley, I or anybody else thinks about brandishing as being a crime in all 50 states, it has no relevance to curing your confusion about the studies, because none of the people who "used" their guns successfully without firing a shot were subsequently charged with brandishing no matter which state they're from, because all "uses" were screened for being legal before they were included in the studies.

You: "Look up the definition of canard. It doses nothing for your attempt to sound intelligent."

Me: Oh, the freakin' irony!

You have to work at being this obtuse. I hope you get paid overtime, because you've certainly earned it.

Blues

 

[DGeorge]

Got you on the run HUH? Wow, you sure spent a lot of time and words trying to cover your butt and you still don't know what brandishing means. Of course alabama has a brandishing law, they just call it something else AS THE POST POINTS OUT. And it is from this site! Look up Canard and see what the definition is.

 

[Troop_494]

I feel as if it depends on how you personally would react. Now days you will here people respond saying " well if they did this, I would do this" but In reality they don't know what they would do because they have never been in that situation, you can always train for situations but you never truly know how you will react until it actually happens.

 

[DGeorge]

I agree Troop.

 

[debbie42256]

Give them your wallet.

 

[XD40scinNC]

In my state, and many others, if you feel your life or someone else's life is in danger, the use of deadly force is justified. This would include serious bodily harm or sexual assault.

 

[Eidolon]

if you feel your life or someone else's life is in danger, the use of deadly force is justified.

No.

If you can articulate specific circumstances in which any reasonable person would feel that their life or someone else's life is in danger, the use of deadly force is authorized.

And you won't be the one to make the final determination on that

 

[XD40scinNC]

No.

If you can articulate specific circumstances in which any reasonable person would feel that their life or someone else's life is in danger, the use of deadly force is authorized.

And you won't be the one to make the final determination on that

Then that leaves the question, would you rather be carried by 6 or judged by 12?

 

[Eidolon]

Then that leaves the question, would you rather be carried by 6 or judged by 12?

Sounds good until you really do get sent to prison