Not killing with a knife

[ShotokanKid]

Consider the following:

You are in your car driving when you see a large male choking a female. You stop your car and grab your trusty Gerber 3 inch blade from your back pocket. You prepare to make a horizontal cut across his throat. Suddenly, you stop to think. You don't want to kill anybody, even this man in front of you. Where would you stab or slash to stop him but not kill him?

[Martial_Artist]

You would so go to prison for life for that. I can see the prosecution:

If you didn't have to kill him to stop him then why did you employ lethal force?

Several factors are involved in such a situation and I am not fully familiar with California's draconian anti-self-defense laws, but I would have to say they probabl follow a national guideline but only stricter.

To employ lethal force there has to be ingredients some of which are:

Disparity of force

Threat of loss of life or limb of self or another

Intent.

Just as you cannot shoot to wound an assailant you could not cut to wound because you didn't want to kill. That's not how most laws are interpreted.

Back to the prosecutor's statement. If you didn't have to kill the person they why employ a lethal method? Could you not have simply hit him? Grabbed him? Pulled him off of the victim? How did you know the man was not the victim simply defending himself? How did you know that this was not a domestic situation?

You would be chopped to pieces in the legal system. Not only would there more than likel be criminal charges against you....possession of a deadly weapon, &c. There will most definitely be civil charges against you. The victim, the man you cut, will most definitely sue you and he would most likely win.

The rules of use of deadly force are much more stringent for civilians. And the rules governing such an archaic tool as a knife employed in the defense of another just wants to give me a headache.

Your best bet in that situation is to simply knock the guy off of her and find out what's going on. Otherwise you could open pandora's box and not like what you find inside.

[CloudDragon]

Your situation is why I carry a collapsable baton, totally legal, (at least where I am) and has a wide variety of employment options.

I would strike the arms, thigh, or shin at first, and then move on from there. Slashing folks just doesn't bode well in court. Not that breaking bones does, but at least you have more control of your impact.

"Honestly judge, I didn't know he was a hemophilliac and was going to bleed out before the ambulance arrived!"

[Martial_Artist]

An auto-baton would be much more pallatable[sic] in court.

[ShotokanKid]

Thank you for your responses. I was wondering how most of you would handle it.

[Belasko]

Check out this link that was in MA in polotics. A truly interesting legal view of how use of force situations are guided in the legal system. Plus it addressed a little bit on situations similar to what you bring up (without the knife though).

http://www.useofforce.us/