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Notes -
Turning to some good news:
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This is a WSJ article about the rise in justified homicides in the US in recent years. Much of it is about "Stand Your Ground Laws." I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the more lawyer-brained Mottizens on those kind of laws and their proliferation over the past decade or so.
On the culture war angle, this article is maybe the starkest example of "erosion of trust in society" that I've come across. A few of the anecdotes are pretty hair raising. They're cherry picked, I know, but the idea that a kid loses his father over an argument about a a fence and a property line made me sad. The "road range" incident they cover in detail seems like it was unfortunate but when one guy levels a gun at another, there's only one reasonable reaction.
Violence must be tightly controlled for a society to function. This is something that's bone deep in humans. We've developed methods of conflict resolution that fall short of violence for our entire existence as a species. Even within the context of violence, there are various ways of controlling it. Duels and so forth. Even informal ones; basic Bro code dictates that when one guy falls down in a fight, the other one backs off.
But this article hints at the idea that people are zooming past any of that to full lethality. It's impossible to compile the stats to determine if that's actually the case or not, but the larger point remains; in a society with plunging basic trust, you're going to see levels of interpersonal violence spike. How should state laws governing violence respond to this? Stand Your Ground is something I generally still support, but my mind could be changed if simple Bad Neigbor fights end up with more orphans.
As a counterpoint to this, there's the case of Scott Hayes and Caleb Gannon in Newton, Massachusetts, which was discussed here when it happened I believe. Hayes had his legal weapon on him, openly carried in a holster, while at a pro-Israel protest. Gannon took offense to this, ran across the street, and tackled Hayes. Hayes shot Gannon during the struggle. No nasty SYG in Massachusetts; Hayes was prosecuted and strong-armed into accepting pre-trial probation: he loses his license to carry, he has to take a course on "civil discourse" and he's banished from the city of Newton.
Gannon also got pre-trial probation.
So in Massachusetts, you can physically attack a man without lawful provocation and if he shoots you for doing so, the state basically says you're both equally at fault.
The issue in that case wasn't that he had an opportunity to retreat but didn't, but that the force used was disproportionate to the threat. Gannon committed a pretty clear case of misdemeanor assault and battery, but that's it. There was no gun involved, no other dangerous weapon, no immediately obvious risk of suffering severe bodily injury. There was certainly the possibility of sever injury or death, to be sure, but that's the slippery slope that people warn about and which point you're proving; to pro-gun people, any physical contact is a potential justification for use of deadly force in response. You can brush off the grocery store sample above as hyperbole, but it's not too far off from what happened here.
Hayes was charged with a felony and he got off with a slap on the risk. You omitted the fact that pre-trial probation means that the above conditions only applied for 90 days following the agreement, at which point the case was dismissed. Prosecutors had a pretty clear-cut case of assault with a deadly weapon and they bent over backwards to ensure that they wouldn't have to try it and that the guy wouldn't even have a record. I'm not necessarily arguing that they should have nailed his ass to the wall, but this is about as light a sentence as you can expect. As for Gannon, if he hadn't gotten shot he'd probably be facing a similar sentence anyway, so I'm not sure what you think they were supposed to do to him. You can argue that he won't have a record, but he did get shot and will likely have some sort of permanent impairment because of it, so it's not like he got off too easy.
I've seen too many head injuries from physical trauma to think that a tackle followed by someone mounting me isn't an unacceptable risk of serious injury. One bad fall, you can strike your noggin and just die, and even a concussion is not pleasant nor harmless.
It's not like even doing it recreationally/professionally in full-contact sports doesn't cause serious harm, and that's with trained athletes in great physical condition.
Something like getting slapped in the face? I won't condone lethal force. But something like a serious punch to the face from an adult male or tackle and an attempt to batter me into submission is something I would excuse, even if I prefer less lethal options. Those who don't want to be shot in such a scenario should ideally not be committing such acts.
I can appreciate that the risk of being tackled, or punched, or kicked, or whatever is greater than the general public appreciates. But can you tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to being shot or stabbed? Because that's the current standard. You can argue that the standard should be changed, and that's fine, but by that same token the penalties for punching someone without killing them should be comparable to those for shooting at someone without killing them.
Yes. Having some familiarity with the common outcomes of all three; If you give me the choice between getting my skull cracked open, getting shot or stabbed, or getting set on fire. I am going to choose the option of getting shot or stabbed every single time, it's not even up for debate.
That was not the question which @Rov_Scam asked, which was if you would rather be tackled or shot.
One outcome of tackling is a fractured skull, but it is not particularly likely. One outcome of getting shot is to get a bullet through a vital organ or major artery. My gut feeling would place p(fractured skull|tackled)=0.1, and p(life threatening gunshot wound|shot)>0.1.
Depends on what you're getting shot with. A non-trivial percentage of the decline in homicides over time in America has been street-level criminals switching over to weapons shooting smaller bullets from .45's, magnum revolvers, and sawn-off shotguns.
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No, the question for self defense is not whether you are perfectly proportional with your defense but whether you have a reasonable belief your attacker may seriously harm or potentially kill you. Once you do that, you ca. use lethal force while the threat remains.
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The mere threat of being shot or stabbed is enough to permit self defense, you don't have to wait until you're bleeding out to fight back. He actually was tackled, not just threatened with bodily contact.
Actually tackling someone is at least as threatening as aggressively brandishing a knife or gun, and both might justify lethal self defense. If Gannon had been shot as he was approaching, then I'd be a lot more sympathetic to your argument.
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If you are carrying a handgun or a knife openly and someone tackles you, you are at risk of being shot or stabbed.
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Can't find that in Massachusetts law anywhere. I did find a case where throwing a radio at a cop is considered deadly force.
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Comparable? Everything is comparable, even apples and oranges (they're both fruit). I don't claim that being punched is as risky as being shot or stabbed. But being punched can, depending on a variety of factors, cause permanent injury or death.
Since I think being slapped is so low risk it doesn't count for me (for almost every reasonable scenario), I'm clearly considering thresholds. Sneezing can kill you, and sneezing on someone can kill them too. I would rather that we didn't go around shooting people on the bus for not having a hanky at hand.
Note that I specifically suggested that actuarial evidence or a proper risk analysis be used to set the standards. In this particular instance, the facts (as presented here) would make me imagine that I would be in sufficient fear of permanent injury or death to not worry very hard about how I get out of it. I extend the same courtesy here, to people getting jumped by someone with clearly belligerent intent. Being tackled or shoved to the ground is rather different to being yelled at or having the finger flipped at you.
I also expect that the establishment of a norm that starting physical violence without cause might end in being shot would have a chilling effect. I can't recall the last time I attacked anyone in the past few decades, so I can live with the risk.
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