[foxfluff]

Most in America? Shrug, maybe.

In many other parts of the world, someone having a weapon out is not sufficient evidence to show that they were going to murder you in 2 seconds unless you did it first. Even if they seemed angry and threatening. A threat of violence is not violence, a weapon is not violence, and an unstable person is not violence, and even violence doesn't justify killing unless that violence was life threatening.

That's the difference. The question here isn't about what they could in theory do. If you're going to kill someone in self defense, you'd better have very convincing evidence or other means to show that they were in fact about to kill you. Without signs of struggle, that evidence can be quite hard to procure.

So what do you do in this situation? If you can run, you run. If someone chases you with a knife and you can't outrun them, that's already much better for your self defense claim than if you just decided to shoot them the moment you got scared.. If you can fight or shoot back, you don't have to kill them, just respond enough to fend off the immediate threat. If you're not good enough with guns to make a non-lethal disarming shot, then I don't recommend bringing a gun (not that it'd be legal here anyway, guns are for sport and hunting). Your self defense can be regarded as exaggerated even if you didn't intend it that way. So if you accidentally make a lethal shot or accidentally punch someone to death, you're on the hook for it.

[defen]

> If you're not good enough with guns to make a non-lethal disarming shot

This suggests to me that you don't know much about guns, gun safety, or gun laws. I'm not trying to be insulting, but saying something like that indicates that you really have no idea what you're talking about. No use-of-force experts recommend attempting a "non-lethal" shot with a gun. In fact, you'd almost certainly get in more trouble for doing that than for killing the person, at least in the US.

A gun is a lethal weapon, and there is no way to reliably perform a "non-lethal" shot. If you shoot someone in the leg, they can very easily bleed out. Aiming for the arm or hand makes it extremely likely that you will miss and hit someone/something downrange.

[foxfluff]

Oh I know what the gun nuts in the US say. I don't believe their view is universally shared.

I agree that there is no way to reliably perform a "non-lethal" shot which gets us back to my previous message: you'd better not bring a gun to a knife fight if you don't want to end up sitting in jail for killing. Use-of-force experts here would not recommend shooting at all if there's any chance a missed shot is going to hit someone downrange, unless again it can be shown that killing is absolutely the only choice left.

However, if you read the news here, you find that the police regularly manage to hit a leg and thus disable the assailant without killing them. Every time this happens, there's going to be an investigation into whether gun use was justified. And if the assailant ended up dying, it'd be much worse for the cop.

I don't know if they're specifically instructed to aim for legs, but maybe it's easier to stop bleeding than to revive someone with a bullet in the heart.

[defen]

> Use-of-force experts here would not recommend shooting at all if there's any chance a missed shot is going to hit someone downrange, unless again it can be shown that killing is absolutely the only choice left.

Then it seems like we're on the same page? You shouldn't be shooting at all unless you're trying to kill the person. You shouldn't be trying to kill the person unless it's absolutely the only choice left. Given that it's the only choice left, potentially hitting someone downrange is a regrettable but possible outcome. Given that you're trying to kill someone, aiming somewhere other than center mass has an unacceptable risk of missing or not disabling the person.

[dahfizz]

> A threat of violence is not violence, a weapon is not violence, and an unstable person is not violence, and even violence doesn't justify killing unless that violence was life threatening.

> If you're going to kill someone in self defense, you'd better have very convincing evidence or other means to show that they were in fact about to kill you.

I don't understand this at all. A mentally unstable person shouting threats and approaching me with a deadly weapon is 150% enough evidence that my life is in danger. I can't see any other possible rationalization.

It is a complete failure of the state to make someone scared of defending themselves against legitimate threats.