3 ms·

The behavior this little cul-de-sac of law incentivises is clear. Say you missed.

by noonespecial 13y ago

hga 13y ago
Since she was convicted of attempted murder, that would have only sped up the verdict.
- rdl 13y ago
  IMO, it might have been self defense if she'd been in a genuine self defense situation, as reflected by "shooting to stop her attacker", even if she missed. Warning shots is a sign her life wasn't in danger, so she fired, which put him at risk, which is attempted murder. Which is weird, but sort of consistent. IANAL. (I also don't fire warning shots except to center of mass, and generally don't miss less than 10m with a pistol, and don't shoot unless it's a clearly justified situation.)
  - hga 13y ago
    An interesting line of analysis, but I think it fails because "warning shots" that weren't don't have to have the intent to kill, they could e.g. have had the intent to terrify, to coerce, etc. Although elsewhere in this discussion rdouble said "The mandatory minimum is for 'unlawful use of deadly force'" so it sounds like the outcome would have been the same, depending on the legal meaning of "use of deadly force".
    - rdl 13y ago
      In the ~10 self defense classes I've attended, warning shots have been nothing but soundly discouraged. Any discharge of a weapon is inherently dangerous and could be considered deadly force, even independent of intent. The exception was in ROE/ROF training in war zones, where warning shots were explicitly part of the escalation continuum (although, in practice, if it was dangerous enough, the warning shots were generally fired into the driver, or at least into the engine block -- lasers and frozen bottles of water and such were used before that rather than warning shots, if possible.)
- noonespecial 13y ago
  Had she simply stated "I was in fear for my life so I tried to shoot him. I guess I missed", this would have gone down quite differently. She probably said something like "I was afraid of getting beaten again so I fired some warning shots to scare him." So jail then. There's no part of this thats right.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    There's a lot missing from this article's account of what happened. The woman left the house, went to her car, got her gun, came back inside and then fired the gun, multiple times. Other articles go into more detail. It certainly doesn't seem like she was in any immediate danger after reading the other accounts.
  - hga 13y ago
    Well, this assumes she would have gotten away with lying. Since the court found her guilty of attempted murder, as long as there was a lesser charge possible it's clear she was judged to be lying, so it's unlikely she'd get away with a different lie like your hypothetical.

The behavior this little cul-de-sac of law incentivises is clear. Say you missed.

hga 13y ago

Since she was convicted of attempted murder, that would have only sped up the verdict.

rdl 13y ago
IMO, it might have been self defense if she'd been in a genuine self defense situation, as reflected by "shooting to stop her attacker", even if she missed. Warning shots is a sign her life wasn't in danger, so she fired, which put him at risk, which is attempted murder. Which is weird, but sort of consistent. IANAL. (I also don't fire warning shots except to center of mass, and generally don't miss less than 10m with a pistol, and don't shoot unless it's a clearly justified situation.)
- hga 13y ago
  An interesting line of analysis, but I think it fails because "warning shots" that weren't don't have to have the intent to kill, they could e.g. have had the intent to terrify, to coerce, etc. Although elsewhere in this discussion rdouble said "The mandatory minimum is for 'unlawful use of deadly force'" so it sounds like the outcome would have been the same, depending on the legal meaning of "use of deadly force".
  - rdl 13y ago
    In the ~10 self defense classes I've attended, warning shots have been nothing but soundly discouraged. Any discharge of a weapon is inherently dangerous and could be considered deadly force, even independent of intent. The exception was in ROE/ROF training in war zones, where warning shots were explicitly part of the escalation continuum (although, in practice, if it was dangerous enough, the warning shots were generally fired into the driver, or at least into the engine block -- lasers and frozen bottles of water and such were used before that rather than warning shots, if possible.)
noonespecial 13y ago
Had she simply stated "I was in fear for my life so I tried to shoot him. I guess I missed", this would have gone down quite differently. She probably said something like "I was afraid of getting beaten again so I fired some warning shots to scare him." So jail then. There's no part of this thats right.
- rdouble 13y ago
  There's a lot missing from this article's account of what happened. The woman left the house, went to her car, got her gun, came back inside and then fired the gun, multiple times. Other articles go into more detail. It certainly doesn't seem like she was in any immediate danger after reading the other accounts.
- hga 13y ago
  Well, this assumes she would have gotten away with lying. Since the court found her guilty of attempted murder, as long as there was a lesser charge possible it's clear she was judged to be lying, so it's unlikely she'd get away with a different lie like your hypothetical.