25 yards is too far away for legal defense nonsense.

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That post was deleted because it was “off topic”, I found it searching for the shooting that happened in TX as well where a man was shot, with a 243 IIRC, by the home owner as he was fleeing with a TV from the home. I couldn’t find it in a quick search but it he was over 100 yards away but inside 200 and the shooter was no billed by a grand jury, didn’t even make it to trial.

I suppose that’s off topic as well because it’s obviously not a defense shooting but points out that your not going to go to prison even if you are not making choices many would think are based on sound judgment as long as the law allows. No matter the distance.

The law as written is why the man was not convicted, despite how the prosecution presented its “intension”.

jmorris,

A no bill turns on a lot of factors but grand jury transcripts are not released.

For a counterexample, TX man shoots a guy with a pickax trying to break into a storage building and goes back to bed. Charged with murder. https://fox17online.com/2019/09/30/...-and-went-back-to-bed-police-say/?share=email

And this from Texas Law Shield, https://www.uslawshield.com/defend-property-texas/

Money quote,
"Texas juries will have a three-step process to decide if you were legally justified.

  • Step 1: The jury must find that you were justified under Texas Penal Code section 9.41 to use force to stop a trespasser or an interference with your property.
  • Step 2: The jury must decide whether you had a reasonable belief that deadly force was immediately necessary to prevent a perpetrator from fleeing immediately after committing a burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime.
  • Step 3: The jury must find that when you used deadly force to protect property, you reasonably believed it could not have been protected or recovered by other means; or using something less than deadly force would expose you to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury."
Thus, a grand jury in one place might not charge the shooter but one in another might issue a true bill. Similarly, a jury might or might not convict depending on the prosecution's abilities, the jury that was empaneled, and the defense.

The average cost to defend someone and get a no-bill can run about $10000, go to trial after indictment, $50-100,000 or much more depending on need for expert witnesses, jury selection experts, forensic testing, etc. For the most part, you do NOT want someone unfamiliar with defending a self defense case as a lawyer.

Now, shooting a burglar over a tv that can be replaced for a couple of hundred dollars does not seem like a good cost-benefit analysis.

I can buy about 5 years of homeowners insurance versus getting no billed which covers me for other things, and decades of property insurance for what a criminal attorney would charge to represent me at a trial. Then, there is the loss of expected future earnings at risk and risks of ptsd, possible harassment in the community, etc. Mas Ayoob calls it the Mark of Cain even if you are justified.

As a result, even if I lived in Texas, I'd let anyone not threatening myself or my loved ones go with whatever ill gotten gains they had. Not worth shooting over it to me.
 
Since this is the legal forum, has there been a case in which someone being shot at from a further distance returned fire and it was ruled not a good shoot?

This is the only relevant question here, so did anyone find a case where a sd shooting was deemed not legal based on nothing but the distance being too far?

Maybe a better way to look at this is how a prosecutor might attack such a case or on the other side of it, what a defense might look like if the question of legality boiled down to only distance. For instance, as a juror I might buy the idea that less lethal options (bean bag, taser, sprays) have a relatively short effective range therefore shooting was the only means available to dispatch the threat. Of course, that could work the opposite direction too, I suppose.
 
This is the only relevant question here, so did anyone find a case where a sd shooting was deemed not legal based on nothing but the distance being too far?
As has been discussed many times on different occasions, "has here ever been a case" is not a question that can lead to any useful conclusions.

Maybe a better way to look at this is how a prosecutor might attack such a case or on the other side of it, what a defense might look like if the question of legality boiled down to only distance.
Yep.

For instance, as a juror I might buy the idea that less lethal options (bean bag, taser, sprays) have a relatively short effective range therefore shooting was the only means available to dispatch the threat.
Yes, the question of Opportunity will almost certainly hing on distance, if only a contact weapon is involved.

With firearms, that probably won't enter into it, directly.

Where distance might become a factor in in the area of reasonableness. Was it reasonable to shoot back, or was there a better, safer response? Im many states in shic a legal duty to retreat is not imposed, the issue of whether the defendant could have retreated safely, but did not, may be considered by a jury to evaluate wihter the use of force was reasonable. If not, a legal defense of self defense would fail.

BUT--we should not be looking in advance into whether distance would affect the legality--that's for the courts to do, after the fact. In the event, we should be considering what is necessary.
 
I’m often asked the question of whether something is possible and my answer is usually something along the lines of it being possible that pigs will one day fly.

I think the relevant discussion in this thread is a point brought up by boom boom. Is it worth it? Personally, I don’t think I’d ever grievously hurt someone merely for the protection of property. My conscience wouldn’t allow it.

Although I’ve, on occasion, been of the opinion that some are a waste of human life, I am no ones judge and am not so arrogant as to think that I could possibly know all there is to know of a situation.

As a practical matter, juries are very flaky animals and you can never KNOW what they’re gonna hang their hat on. I won’t risk that to save a $300 TV.
 
Define “accuracy”, means different things to different people and a pistol I conceal carry might not be the same one others do. So the answers to your question won’t really be comparable.

I can clear a plat rack (8” plates) with most of mine at 25 yards, standing using nothing but both hands.

And do you, and the other posters who have replied, feel you are only average shooters, or might you not be just a little above average ? I'm talking average guy, average CC, at 25 yards plus. Because I have my own shooting berm, and at 25 yards, I'm not much better than on the paper, with a CC gun. But I have to wonder how many folks out there don't have a shooting berm, don't get out, and down to a public range that often, what's their 25 yard accuracy like, with a CC, if they've even tried to shoot that far with it?
 
That’s fair, I suppose I might be above average but that’s the problem with blanket statements is that they don’t count on the non average, in either direction.

If CHL/LTC targets are any indication, I have seen more than a few not qualify over the years and that’s just getting all hits at three and seven yards in a roughly 12x18” area and they would pass even if they didn’t hit anything at 15 yards except the back stop. I would say 25 yards is too much for them, unless they are shooting golden BB’s.
 
I might also add that even though you may not have a legal duty to retreat, if no 3rd party is in danger, that is likely still the best option if available. We always have a fully justified scenario in mind when thinking about this stuff, but I figure things never look so clear to 3rd parties trying to piece together what happened.
 
This thread has had several folks point out that the specific situation details will be important in convincing a prosecutor, or a grand jury, or a jury that the shooting could be legitimate self defense. A couple have noted that "self defense" also can cover "defense of others." There have been one or two specific cases cited, but my read of the thread is that we have not yet listed Stephen Willeford's use of his rifle in Sutherland Springs as a convincing case of defense of others at long distance.
 
With all but one of my pistols (an LCR), I can stay on an 8" target offhand at 25 yards. There's nothing magical about that, and anyone who practices it at all should be able to do so.

What's you point?

Being able to stay on target at the range is very different from being able to stay on target during a high stress situation while someone is shooting at you.

Guns have been a part of my life for its entirety. I’ve been an avid handgun shooter for 35 years. I know I am a better shooter than most and I’ve been involved in two altercations involving gunfire, one of which included multiple bad guys.

I’ll tell ya, you can’t practice for that. I’m sure that there are some of you out there that have been in combat or have received specialized training as an LEO, but for the most part, being in a gunfight isn’t something you can practice for.

Statistically, LEOs hit what they’re shooting at about 20% of the time in a high stress situation. Civilians, about half that percentage.

As has been mentioned, there’s a practical side to this. The question of “can you?” should be accompanied by the question of “should you?”

You could be in a situation where a guy shooting at you from 25 yards away is a “legal” imminent threat. You shoot him, you’re a hero.

Now, what if during a totally righteous shoot your bullet goes through the bad guy and hits the kid standing 10 feet behind the bad guy that you couldn’t see. Or worse, you miss the bad guy and hit another bystander.

For all of the stories where a good guy is a hero, there are also those where a Good Samaritan made matters worse.

Just food for thought.
 
We always have a fully justified scenario in mind when thinking about this stuff, but I figure things never look so clear to 3rd parties trying to piece together what happened.
That bears repeating.
 
We always have a fully justified scenario in mind when thinking about this stuff, but I figure things never look so clear to 3rd parties trying to piece together what happened.
Monday morning quarterbacking. It's done to the citizens and police who engage a bad guy by people who weren't there and were probably never in such a situation themselves.
 
Being able to stay on target at the range is very different from being able to stay on target during a high stress situation while someone is shooting at you.
There's a local range that has proprietary shooting lanes where you shoot at moving computer generated targets. One of them is a live fire version of the video game asteroids. Shoot a moving asteroid and it breaks into smaller, faster moving asteroids. If you don't think that, or the zombies approaching a little girl will up your heart rate, you've never been on those lanes. Reloading, a heart hammering in your chest.... Everything but someone actually shooting back at you...

A lot more intense than shooting a paper target.
 
Monday morning quarterbacking. It's done to the citizens and police who engage a bad guy by people who weren't there and were probably never in such a situation themselves.
How might that differ from the criminal justice process of old, going back several hundred years to Blackstone and before?

It's reality.

And it is necessary. The alleged "bad guy" may not have been bad, and the citizens and police may not have been lawfully justified.
 
Twenty-five yards is the length of a lap pool and/or half the width of a football field. That is a long way to be shooting at someone whether you are the aggressor or the defender. Surely long enough to give the situation some thought before proceeding, unless you are out in a desert with nothing but you and him standing in the way. It will always be situational, anyway; real or imagined. Start to finish.
 
How might that differ from the criminal justice process of old, going back several hundred years to Blackstone and before?

It's reality.

And it is necessary. The alleged "bad guy" may not have been bad, and the citizens and police may not have been lawfully justified.
It's not different, merely something that really needs to be born in mind when one is going down the list of options when in that situation and to take an extra moment to be sure there is no other option.

The old trope of "I'd rather be judged by 12 than buried by 6." kind of presumes you'd be judged by 12 who had "been there". Even police whose actions are being watched over by a citizens group aren't being judged by their true peers. Although a lot of police suffer from blue blindness and are more ready to excuse over reach by a cop, it would help to have a mix of overseers.

Is there a perfect solution? Hardly. But it's a system overseeing a lot of imperfect people, as in all of us.
We were both replying to this:

Monday morning quarterbacking. It's done to the citizens and police who engage a bad guy by people who weren't there and were probably never in such a situation themselves.

Basically we agree, it bears repeating and keeping in mind.
 
There's a local range that has proprietary shooting lanes where you shoot at moving computer generated targets. One of them is a live fire version of the video game asteroids. Shoot a moving asteroid and it breaks into smaller, faster moving asteroids. If you don't think that, or the zombies approaching a little girl will up your heart rate, you've never been on those lanes. Reloading, a heart hammering in your chest.... Everything but someone actually shooting back at you...

A lot more intense than shooting a paper target.
Wow. I wish something like that were available on every range.
 
I can't say this distance for an attack is inconceivable, when I walk the dog on the property, I carry an extra mag, because even tho we are
under a cell tower, sheriff's 30-45 minutes away, at best. Not likely, but it could happen.
 
What always gets me about the majority of self defense discussions is that it seems to always be around SD from another human.

IMHO, while 25 yards may be questionable for SD of humans, 25 yards is NOT questionable when it comes to SD from dangerous animals such as bears, and some other animals as well.

As fast as bears run, it only takes a bear a few seconds to run 25 yards. So you better start shooting at 25 yards if he is at a full charge towards you!

SD isnt only used against two legged threats but also against threats that have more then 2 legs or even from some without legs!
 
MHO, while 25 yards may be questionable for SD of humans, 25 yards is NOT questionable when it comes to SD from dangerous animals such as bears, and some other animals as well.
The laws about defending oneself against animal attack are entirely different.
 
Legally, a lot of variables would be in play. How easily could you get away from the threat? How far away is the closest cover that you could use? Who is with you that you would also be protecting? Is the threat actively shooting at you, waving a gun in your general direction, or engaging others? At that distance, how much of a crowd is between you and the threat, which might become collateral damage? There are no hard and fast rules in self-defense, which is why no one can prepare for it.

Some states its legal to stand tour ground and you have absolutely no requirement to retreat. this of course depends on where your at, but in all cases where you have no obligation to retreat is that you are legally allowed to be where your at.

Now some states require that you retreat if you are able too.

In Texas though, if we are legally allowed to be at the location we are NOT obligated to retreat.

If i am eating lunch at the local restaurant and someone comes in shooting, i can shoot back, even if i could retreat. No different then if i am in my own home. I am not obligated to retreat.

Yet other states, even if your in your own home, if you can retreat you are required too!
 
The laws about defending oneself against animal attack are entirely different.

I will agree to some extent with you, but it varies from state to state, and even depends on if your on federal property as well. National Park versus State Park. Even when it comes to SD against a human it will vary from state to state and even federal to state as well.

Things that vary include things as simple as duty to retreat, which some states have and some states dont. Which in some states duty to retreat is the same for humans or animals.

however if you lay out a slab of bacon on your back porch, in most states or on federal land, killing a bear in SD wont be justifiable.
 
For a counterexample, TX man shoots a guy with a pickax trying to break into a storage building and goes back to bed. Charged with murder. https://fox17online.com/2019/09/30/...-and-went-back-to-bed-police-say/?share=email

This has bothered me for a while and I realized why. The statement is misrepresentative. The homeowner didn't get charged for shooting a guy trying to break into his storage building (at night, as it was). That would have actually been a justified shooting under Texas law. He shot and killed a man fleeing his property with no knowledge of the man having taken anything. In fact, the title of the news story was that he shot a fleeing burglar.

This was not a self defense shooting. At best, this was a possible defense of property shooting, but it would not qualify for that either. He was charged with murder because he shot and killed another person without any sort of legal justification. His first shot, that apparently missed, would have been justified under the law, stopping a burglar from damaging/gaining entry to his property at night. The second shot "in to the dark" was no justified in any manner under the law.
 
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