legal issues

[Joecooke007]

I think that it's pretty cool having to register your self a a deadly weapon. I think really though, that you shouldn't have to. If someone so much as touches you after you tell them to stop harrasong you, it's perfectly legal to just open a can on their butt.

 

 

[Crouching Tiger Hidden Dr]

IN london, England you've got to be really carefull about how you fight someone in case it goes to the courts, where almost 9 times out of 10 it's the victim who ends up in trouble for beating up the attacker.

 

The law states that you can only use as much force as need to defend yourself. But that means nothing!

 

To me, if someone tried it on, I'd try and back out or run. Or if I'm really pissed off, I'd just beat the **** out of him and then run!!

 

 

[Crouching Tiger Hidden Dr]

Pardon my French, but the law here is very frustrating! Innocent people are always getting in trouble for beaing the hell out of a drug dealer, or mugger or whatever kind of criminal he/she is!

 

My real advice would be to try and back out, otherwise block a few attempts and if they continue then hit back - but make sure you really do end the fight! No point getting in trouble for a single punch, teach the bastar* a lesson!

[Kung Fu grunger]

where i live if I have to have a licence in order to be able to use my martial arts training as a form of defense

 

(pretty unfair because the police near me they don't class boxing as a martial art so you don't need a licence for that)

[tessone]

Where do you live?

 

It seems rather idiotic to say you have to be licensed to defend yourself. Guns, sure. No problem if I have to tell people I have something which is easily deadly and more frequently used offensively than defensively. But martial arts? Buh?

 

 

[ckdstudent]

In the shop I work in we have two black belts, myself and the assistant manager. We had a lot of shoplifting up until a week ago when the manager caught a big guy (6 foot something) shoplifting and called him to stop and pay for the book. He started to make a fuss, so the manager mentioned to him that there were two trained black belts in the shop. He paid for the book, and the shoplifting stopped. We also accidently overcharged him £50.

 

 

[BlueDragon1981]

I think that just because us martial artists have the discipline to do something other than sit on the couch that we should not be punished for it if some poor idiot decides he wants to pick a fight with us. Sorry man you picked the wrong person should be the response not Your under arest because you are a deadly weapon. A pencil can be a deadly weapon so do we have to register those.

[Chad]

In california, i believe it says that you have the right to use one degree higher against the degree of attack. If someone points a gun at you, you can take it and kill them.

[Don Gwinn]

Tessone--guns are NOT more often used offensively than defensively. The best reputable estimate is 2.5 million defensive uses per year in the US. Most conservative is about 500,000. Compare that to the number of attacks and crimes, and you'll see that defensive uses dominate by a long shot.

 

Re: Registering as a lethal weapon. Everyone has heard this nonsense, but I've never met anyone who actually lived in a place where it was required. It's always "my cousin knows this guy who. . . ." Now I've "met" one (Kung Fu Grunger) but I note that he lives in the UK where the best way to figure out if something is fun or useful is make sure it's been banned or regulated. I have still never been able to corroborate the existence of these laws anywhere in the U.S.

 

Grunger, what can I say? I'm sorry you live in the insane system you do. Good luck, man.

 

In the U.S., laws on level of force generally have only two levels. Deadly force and everything else. If you are attacked by anyone, you may use reasonable levels of non-lethal force to defend yourself. Lethal force (which does NOT mean killing someone but using any force that is likely to result in death--gun, knife, baseball bat, etc.) is reserved for situations where the jury is convinced that "a reasonable person" in your shoes would have been in fear for his life. If you are attacked in superior numbers, by an opponent of much greater size, you're elderly and he's 20, or with a deadly weapon, then lethal force is automatically justified.

 

However, there are places that require you to retreat as far as possible before defending yourself. Even if you are resolved to retreat first, you need to know what the law considers "as far as possible."

 

Gun owners are commonly cautioned to accept the fact that if they are required to use their firearm in self-defense in a perfectly "clean" and justifiable shooting, it will cost $10,000 and they'll spend time in jail. "Beating the hell out of someone" seems to me to be similar.

 

Depending on where you live, it's likely charges will be pressed. Maybe not in Texas or parts of Arizona, for instance, but in most of Illinois or California, definitely.

 

If you avoid or beat criminal charges, either your "victim" or his family (if he is deceased) will sue you for everything you own. He will be portrayed as a misguided youth who was getting his life together when the Sinister Killer Vigilante came along. The fact that you practice with a gun, reload ammunition, or study a martial art (especially some of you psychos who study more than one art) will be evidence that you are, in fact, The Killer Vigilante.

 

Be ready for this stuff. I'm not telling you not to defend yourself, I'm telling you that the aftermath of a successful self-defense can break the strongest fighter or the craftiest gunner. Know a good attorney who you KNOW is pro-self-defense and will be willing to take your case. Having him on retainer is better, but some of us are poor. If you're prepared for all this, you can weather it. If not, you may succeed in saving your life only to have it ruined.

[Eye of the Tiger]

If I were to use it I would let him have it, and do a good job of it too! Then Iwou8ld take him to the Police rather than run away, chances are he will go to the police and claim that you attacked him!