A NOT visibly armed assailant running toward you.

[Bcwitt]

An attacker that does NOT appear armed is rapidly closing distance in spite of your warnings to stay away from you. You are not really able to run, due to injury, position, etc. You do not know he is not armed, but cannot see that he is. Could this be considered a deadly threat? What would the best response be? Would you be able to make a good call in that breif of a time frame?

 

[shoobe01]

How do you know he is an "attacker"? How is this not someone out for a run (as I was doing at midnight last night), maybe with their earbuds in so they cannot hear you or (like me again) just with terrible hearing and they are on a public street so I DNGAF about whatever "stay away from me" you are yelling anyway?

Unless you have some other reason like they just hopped the fence and are running at your front door, gonna need a reason that people are not allowed freedom of movement in public spaces.

Seems like a minor variation on becoming an Andrew Lester, or Rodney Peairs (shot people who knocked on their door; became infamous). Need an articulatable threat.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

So the situation is that there you are some place and then all of a sudden a person at distance identifies you as a potential victim and proclaims, "Bcwitt, I am going to hurt you!" and then runs at you?

Anything can be a deadly threat, though may not be recognized as such. In the last few years, we have seen quite a few people killed, brain damaged, or otherwise hospitalized in single punch attacks by apparently unarmed people that did not use a weapon, but just because a person threatened to punch you isn't likely going to go over very well (most of the time) if you retaliate as if it was somebody threatening you with a gun or knife and you shoot them.

Unless you can cite some other mitigating circumstances, an "attacker" not known to be armed who running toward you isn't apt to be considered a lethal threat unless indicated otherwise by action (e.g., trying to strangle you) or producing a weapon.

 

[Bcwitt]

I just did some math, a person that weighs 200 lb, running @ 10mph has approximately 1200 foot pounds of energy (906 joules). Thats more then most rifles. What makes that different then ,say , a knife or baseball bat attack? The potential is surely there.

 

[crstrode]

In this instance, "BC" is equivalent to "nit"

 

[shafter]

Absolutely not. How do you know they are a threat? Do they speak English and can they understand your commands to stay back? Can they hear you? Are they running towards you for help? Who knows.

You are definitely in a position to use force if they come within reactionary gap but unless there is a weapon you can't shoot them. This is why it's so important to have other skills and tools besides a firearm.

If I'm in this situation I'm going to be looking at hands and preparing to go hands on. My hands will not be in my pockets on a gun because I'm going to need them to hold off the threat. If things go lethal then I'll transition at that point.

 

[Kleanbore]

This started out about someone "rapidly closing distance" and switched to an unusual question of whetherr an unarmed attack can constitute deadly force. We recently had a thread on the latter. We do not need to do it again..