[Carl in Tampa]

Originally Posted by buggyone

To begin with - this is NOT a political issue.

Let's go back to the time of the very unfortunate mugging of the lady in the shopping area just off of 441 a couple of months ago. Lots was written regarding carrying pistols. Let's look at a few possible scenarios and how they might have impacted people.

1. The mugger runs up to the lady from the back, knocks her to the pavement and runs off. The lady has a pistol in her waistband holster. She gets to one knee, shakes the cobwebs loose from her bruised head, and fires 3 rounds at the fleeing attacker. She misses him but one bullet kills a person close to the the fleeing attacker and one more bullet strikes another person in the neck and he is made a quadriplegic from the wound. Does the mugging victim go to prison for killing one innocent person and gravely wounding another? Will she lose everything she worked for due to the civil suit the quadriplegic sues her for?

2. The mugger runs up to the lady from the back, knocks her to the pavement and runs off. She has a pistol in the waistban holster. She raises to one knee, shakes out the cobwebs, and fires a round at the attacker who is 20 yards down the parking lot. She kills him. Does she get charged with a crime and go to prison? Can his surviving family successfully file a wrongful death civil suit and win?

3. Same scenario but the attacker gets hit in the back of the neck, has his spinal cord severed and is now a quadriplegic. Once again, does the woman get charged with a crime and can the attacker successfully win a civil suit thus taking everything she worked for all her life?

This is NOT a gun control issue but rather is meant as a discussion of legal questions I honestly do not know the answers.

Did you guys miss the built in defense that buggyone included? Once the lady's head hit the pavement so hard that it was bruised, her defense became that she didn't know what she was doing.

I'll say it again. As cut and dried as a case may look, it's always up to the prosecutor's discretion and the opinion of one person on the jury.

Other posters are correct in saying that as a matter of law it is not permissible to shoot a fleeing suspect who poses no danger to you, unless you can articulate a reasonable belief that he may be an imminent physical danger to others.