GLOOB said:
...The wisdom is that if a shot is needed, then your life must be in imminent danger. And to draw a weapon, a shot must be needed. But is a center mass shot the only way to stop an imminent threat?
Also, some states have revised gun laws that makes it legal to draw a weapon without firing in certain situations. E.g., drawing a weapon is not necessarily the crime of brandishing. Does this change things? Is there any exception to the "rule" of only firing center mass, never shoot to injure,...
The bottom line is that shooting to wound is not a good idea and may not stop the attack.
[1] Yes, one may generally draw a gun in response to a reasonably perceived credible threat of an imminent potentially lethal attack. In other words, if under the circumstances you could reasonably anticipate an imminent attack that you would be justified in meeting with lethal force, you would be justified in drawing your gun. If the threat then ends without your firing your gun, you still have not unlawfully brandished it.
[2] The point is that if you are faced with a credible, imminent lethal threat, you need to end that threat as soon as possible. If it ends without your firing a shot, that's a good result. But if you need to fire a shot, your goal needs to end the threat right away.
[3] I’ve been taught that there were four ways in which shooting an assailant will stop the threat:
- psychological -- "I'm shot, it hurts, I don't want to get shot any more."
- massive blood loss depriving the brain of blood supply and therefore oxygen and thus physiologically impairing function
- breaking major skeletal support structures
- damaging the central nervous system.
[4] Of those, damage to the central nervous system is the quickest, surest and most likely to be fatal. And hoping the guy will stop because it hurts, is the least sure and most likely to be hazardous to your own health.
[5] People, both good and bad, have fought long and hard with serious, and often ultimately fatal wounds. And someone who has massive amounts of adrenalin in his system, like a bad guy under the stress of committing a violent crime might, may not feel much pain from even a serious wound.
[6] Since adrenalin or drugs can blunt the effects of pain, and people have continued to fight when severely wounded, effectively stopping the fight usually requires causing sufficient damage to render the attacker physiologically incapable of continuing the fight, such as from massive blood loss depriving the brain of oxygen, major damage to important skeletal support structures or damage to the central nervous system.
[7] We therefore are generally taught, and practice, shooting for the center of mass of our attacker, i. e., his chest. It presents a bigger, and generally less mobile, target than the head. And the idea is that within that area of the body there are a lot of major organs that will bleed a lot when damaged. So the center of mass is the usual target of choice because it’s the one we’re most likely to be able to hit. And we thus rely on blood loss depriving the attacker’s muscles of oxygen to stop the fight. The rub is that the effects of blood loss and oxygen deprivation can take some time – during which our attacker will most likely continue to try to hurt us.
[8] The simple fact is that the more damage that is caused, the quicker the blood supply to the brain will be impaired and the more quickly the attacker will lose the physiological ability to press the fight.
