Do they give my gun back?


Graylon

New member
Out of all the the discussions I follow, there hasn't been anything I have seen about the after shooting investigation. If someone breaks in your house, you shoot and kill them Do they immediately take your gun? If it is a righteous shoot do you get it back?.... I'm walking about with a 600 dollar gun. If they take it, it's pointless for this to be my carry weapon..... I'm not familiar with this at all. Anyone have any feedback or stories as to how this works. I know it probably depends on the state or town or county ect....
 

Depends on where you're at. generalities would be that the gun is impounded until the case is closed, then you request your property back and at some point it's returned to you; unless it "disappears" from the evidence locker.

What they don't tell you is that while it's in the evidence locker it will remain in what ever state it was in when it was brought in, if it has blood on it the blood will stay on it. If it was soaking wet no effort will be made to maintain it and it will sit in that evidenc elocker until the courts decided they're done with it.

General consensus is that if you ever are involved in a SD shooting the 600$ you paid for your gun will be a drop in the bucket compared to your legal fees
 
General consensus is that if you ever are involved in a SD shooting the 600$ you paid for your gun will be a drop in the bucket compared to your legal fees

That is the bottom line right there. Well, that, and make damn sure that you were within the law to draw and/or pull the trigger in the first place. Either way, justified or not, in most jurisdictions, it will ruin you financially to shoot another human being. It comes down to how strongly you believe in the old adage of, "It's better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6."

One thing that must be considered in the first instance concerning the OP's question is what state do you live in? Does your state have a strong Castle Doctrine law and/or Stand Your Ground law? You can research your state's prosecution statistics for shootings in which the defendant claimed self-defense, then compare that conviction rate to the overall stats of justifiable homicides to get a feel for how your state supports (or not) the use of deadly force amongst its citizens. What you really, really should not do is take the word of strangers on the internet who give blanket answers to complicated and jurisdiction-dependent questions when they don't even know the jurisdiction they're answering about. The latter point of that statement can be fixed by editing your Profile to show what state you're in. Otherwise, all your questions will just inspire guessing-games that won't help you at all beyond the most meaningless generalities.

Blues
 
Could it be that only the big self-defense fiascos like Harold Fish and George Zimmerman make the news headlines and hundreds if not thousands of self-defense uses of a firearm occur every day where the police take the shooter's report and no charges are filed which don't make the news?
 
Could it be that only the big self-defense fiascos like Harold Fish and George Zimmerman make the news headlines and hundreds if not thousands of self-defense uses of a firearm occur every day where the police take the shooter's report and no charges are filed which don't make the news?

Yep, you can bet that the righteous shoots done in SD may make the local news. But, very few good shoots make it further than that.


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Could it be that only the big self-defense fiascos like Harold Fish and George Zimmerman make the news headlines and hundreds if not thousands of self-defense uses of a firearm occur every day where the police take the shooter's report and no charges are filed which don't make the news?

I don't know. That sounds much like a meaningless generality that doesn't take jurisdiction-specific issues and/or concerns into account. Even if true generally-speaking, it may more or less answer the question about getting one's gun back after a shooting, but jurisdiction dictates whether or not the shooter will potentially face civil litigation if he actually shoots someone, which is what my previous comments were limited to, and the OP specifically asked about after actually killing someone, thus making his question about whether or not he should be carrying a $600 weapon if he's gonna lose it to cops rather moot if, in his jurisdiction, he isn't protected by use of force laws that provide civil immunity in a justifiable homicide.
_shrug__or__dunno__by_crula.gif


I think it's also safe to say that hundreds if not thousands of self-defense uses of a firearm occur across this country where the police take the shooter's weapon into custody, take the shooter to jail, charge him/her with some crime and let a jury decide if the shooting was justified or not, as a general statement of course. The last group of people on Earth that I would trust with my financial well-being, my freedom, or to treat me with fairness and objectivity are cops, especially when they're responding to a scene where they know before they get here that guns were used and someone has been shot and/or killed. Just too many instances of cops being irrationally jumpy around citizens with guns for me to accept that being so trusting would be a good, safe or prudent rule to follow.

Blues
 
I think there is a whole bunch of self-defense fear mongering that goes on.....

And you have yet to even take a stab at answering the OP's questions. Or are you suggesting that there are no jurisdictional issues at play, that he should just take your highly generalized assessment that "...hundreds if not thousands of self-defense uses of a firearm occur every day where the police take the shooter's report and no charges are filed..." and rest easy that his questions were actually addressed?

You'd be the last one I'd expect to dismiss the jurisdictional issues as irrelevant, Navy. Since you haven't acknowledged my or Eidolon's broaching the subject, nor have you broached it on your own, all I can surmise is that you see it as irrelevant for some inexplicable reason. I know that you know better than that. What's up?

Blues
 
To answer the OP's question:

1. They may not take your gun at all if the police can easily determine at the scene that your shooting was justified.
2. They may take your gun and you'll get it back when the prosecutor decides not to press charges.
3. They may take your gun and you'll get it back after they determine you are justified at trial.
4. They may take your gun and you won't get it back until you pay a lawyer to obtain a court order forcing them to return it, and it probably won't be in the same shape that they took it from you in.
5. They may "lose" your gun and you will never get it back.
6. They may use some technicality in the law to keep your gun for as long as possible (I think they did that with the new Colorado laws).

I don't let any of the possibilities above be any determining factor in the gun I carry. I carry a gun that I feel offers the best protection for myself and my family.
 
To answer the OP's question:

1. They may not take your gun at all if the police can easily determine at the scene that your shooting was justified.
2. They may take your gun and you'll get it back when the prosecutor decides not to press charges.
3. They may take your gun and you'll get it back after they determine you are justified at trial.
4. They may take your gun and you won't get it back until you pay a lawyer to obtain a court order forcing them to return it, and it probably won't be in the same shape that they took it from you in.
5. They may "lose" your gun and you will never get it back.
6. They may use some technicality in the law to keep your gun for as long as possible (I think they did that with the new Colorado laws).

I don't let any of the possibilities above be any determining factor in the gun I carry. I carry a gun that I feel offers the best protection for myself and my family.
That's what I'm going to do... There are a lot of reliable firearms out there that I could carry a lot cheaper... and its not all about the price of the weapon. I love the gun and I don't want someone to take it from me just because they can by law.
 
To answer the OP's question:

1. They may not take your gun at all if the police can easily determine at the scene that your shooting was justified.

That right there is jurisdictional, in some jurisdictions the police have no say they could watch the guy go after you with a battle axe and still have to take you into custody if you shot him. Also in most jurisdictions an autopsy is required so they may tek the gun for ballistic comparisson
 
It's ALL jurisdictional - and the mood and attitude of the responding officers, the attitude of the LEO leadership, the prosecutor, etc, etc, etc.

Then why have you spent the first two posts of your participation here claiming that trying to warn the OP that jurisdiction and the potential for extreme financial consequences are considerations that must be taken into account, is nothing less than "self defense fear-mongering?" Good grief. Who pissed in your Corn Flakes?
 
Get a hi point and let them take that. Just make sure it is the same gun you shot the bad guy with. More than likely they will take the gun for ballistics testing.
 
Then why have you spent the first two posts of your participation here claiming that trying to warn the OP that jurisdiction and the potential for extreme financial consequences are considerations that must be taken into account, is nothing less than "self defense fear-mongering?" Good grief. Who pissed in your Corn Flakes?

This is who pissed in my Corn Flakes:

General consensus is that if you ever are involved in a SD shooting the 600$ you paid for your gun will be a drop in the bucket compared to your legal fees

Here's the challenge - in the last 10 years name 10 big self-defense cases where the shooter had to expend large sums of money defending themselves. I'll bet you can't come up with 1 or 2 cases per year. One or two cases per year does not an epidemic make.

Want an example of fear mongering? Check this out:
CCW Safe defends those who carry concealed against criminal, civil and administrative actions.

Read the testimonials. It's hilarious. Where is the testimonial from anyone who has actually filed a claim and used their insurance to bail them out or defend them in court? Hmmm?

And then there is this:
https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/self-defense-shield/

Imagine this: You have successfully defended yourself in a near-death gunfight brought on by a violent felon looking to kill you for the wallet in your pocket, or for a chance to have his way with your family.

As devastating as it would be to have to use your gun in self defense… how terrible would it be to have the legal system that you’ve obeyed and respected for your whole life, suddenly turn against you, and try to paint you as a murderer?
Unbelievable? It happens every day.

Every day? Really? Name the daily cases.
 
This is who pissed in my Corn Flakes:

General consensus is that if you ever are involved in a SD shooting the 600$ you paid for your gun will be a drop in the bucket compared to your legal fees

I don't know if you've ever noticed or not before, but Eidolon and I have a rather rocky history since he's been here, but what he said there, as the general statement that he qualified it as, is true. When I took my first N R A Home Defense course back in like '78 or '79 (in Seattle BTW), the instructor jumped straight from introductions of himself and the participants, into, "The first thing I want to tell you about self defense with a firearm is that there is a lawyer behind every bullet that leaves your muzzle." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that same line since then, from the Basic pistol, rifle and shotgun courses that I've taken at ShootRite, to the classroom portion of training when I went to work for Brink's, to the (woefully incompetent) "trainers" at multiple armed security companies I've worked for, to right here on USA Carry. It is a "general consensus" that shootings will likely result in legal fees defending it.

Even if you disagree with the statement though, it's really a stretch to call his answering the OP's questions directly "pissin' in your Corn Flakes."

Here's the challenge....

No, that's not the challenge I opened the thread to discuss. The challenge was to answer the OP's questions. You did after some urging, and I don't disagree with all the maybes that you offered - any one, and probably some combinations of them, could happen depending on what jurisdiction we're talking about, plus the other variables that you mentioned as well.

I still see no "fear-mongering" going on from any participants of this thread though.

Blues
 
Sc has some awesome laws defending 'righteous' shooters. As long as the evidence of sd is clearly there you're pretty likely to get a "good shooting" from the police and be sent about your way. Obviously not in every case, but we have the castle doctrine, as well as stand your ground laws. Long story short, if it was clear cut sd (which it should be if you pull) you should be fine, and never have your firearm confiscated, here anyways. Like the others pointed out, this is by no means a blanket statement.
 
the instructor jumped straight from introductions of himself and the participants, into, "The first thing I want to tell you about self defense with a firearm is that there is a lawyer behind every bullet that leaves your muzzle." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that same line since then, from the Basic pistol, rifle and shotgun courses that I've taken at ShootRite, to the classroom portion of training when I went to work for Brink's, to the (woefully incompetent) "trainers" at multiple armed security companies I've worked for, to right here on USA Carry. It is a "general consensus" that shootings will likely result in legal fees defending it.

Blues

All I am asking for is PROOF that the "general consensus" is true in real life. Something nobody has been able to provide. Just because an opinion is the "general consensus" does not mean that opinion is true in real life.
 

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