What You Need to Know About Carrying a Gun to Protect Yourself and Your Family
By Space Coast Daily // September 7, 2022
No matter what you hear on the mainstream media about the Second Amendment being dismantled, do not believe it. The amendment, which constitutionally allows men and women to carry firearms for self-protection, is here to stay.
Despite mass shootings which no one condones, more guns are being sold to U.S. citizens of both red and blue states than ever before, especially in lieu of the largely senseless “Defund the Police” movement.
Still, since individual states largely establish regulatory matters regarding who cannot carry a concealed or non-concealed weapon, the laws differ from one border to the next. But one gun law is almost universal throughout the U.S. If an armed intruder breaks into your home, and you feel for your safety, you retain the right to shoot and kill that person. Full stop.
However, this doesn’t mean that in some blue states like California, New York, and New Jersey, the police won’t be required to confiscate your gun or guns until a legal hearing is conducted. Since said hearings can be postponed for months or even a year, it is best to contact a gun possession lawyer who can fight for you right to get your gun back sooner than later.
With all this mind, what do you need to know about owning a gun to protect yourself and your family in these dangerously political times of spiking crime rates? According to a recent report, the only real way to avoid a violent and potential lethal situation is to avoid it altogether. If you own a gun, it should be considered “a tool of Last Resort.”
Firearms are not to be used to solve a simple disagreement or argument. It is instead intended to protect you and your family from imminent lethal danger and therefore to protect innocent lives.
When Shooting in Self-Defense if Justified
Says an NRA Trailing Counselor and firearm personal protection instructor, the question of when a shooting is justified or not is not always easy to answer. Laws differ from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The point is to protect yourself while escaping legal trouble and possibly even jailtime.
Most states, including the most anti-gun far left states, will allow you to protect the lives of your loved ones and your own life with your firearm. Your right to defend yourself during a violent and/or life-threatening situation is not the question. What will be examined by a local DA and/or attorney is if you were justified in said shooting by utilizing the “reasonable person test.”
The DA in charge of your shooting case will immediately ask himself if it’s possible to convince 12 “reasonable” jury members that your actions were not justified. Also, will he have the power to convince the jury that your actions were unnecessary, excessive, or even reckless.
The question for the shooter then becomes not “Can I shoot?” but instead, “Should I shoot?”
What You Need to Know When Carrying a Firearm for Protection
According to gun experts and gun possession lawyers, several elements exist regarding a valid self-defense shooting. It is said that all of these elements must be present simultaneously for you and your lawyer to conclude that a DA will not press criminal charges (keep in mind that in a blue state, a George Soros financed DA may still press charges regardless of your innocence).
The first two elements are that you must be an innocent victim of a violent attack. Second, the presence of an impending threat must exist.
You then must prove ability, opportunity, manifest intent, and preclusion.
Ability
The attacker must be able to cause serious injury to you and/or a family member or innocent bystander. The threat can come in the form of a weapon or no weapon at all.
Some attackers don’t need weapons to possess the ability to inflict a potentially lethal blow such as a “sucker puncher,” or an attacker who possess a black belt in karate. However, if the attacker is wielding a weapon such as knife, a baseball bat, or a gun, he or she possesses the ability to seriously harm you. In all of these cases, a shooting may be justified.
Opportunity
Your attacker must possess the opportunity to inflict potential lethal harm. If he is carrying a firearm, he can kill from up to fifty feet away or more. He must be only a foot away from you if he is carrying a knife.
Experts say that the effective range of an attacker is an important aspect to the jury. You need to ask yourself, could I legitimately run away from the danger and not have to use my firearm?
Manifest Intent
If you find yourself in “imminent jeopardy” which the attacker will make “manifest” by his actions and verbalizations that he intends to kill you now, you have the right to shoot to kill.
That said, in many cases, an attacker might not verbalize his intent to cause you harm. In this case you must judge for yourself what his violent intentions are. In other words, if he is aiming his weapon at you, pointblank, or running at you with a blade, you have the right to shoot.
Preclusion
In legal terms, preclusion means that you had no other option but to shoot to kill to protect your life and the lives of your loved ones. This especially true in the case of a home invasion when you are literally “boxed in.”
It means all other “options were considered and precluded.” You gun possession lawyer’s job is to convince a 12-member jury of preclusion and therefore your innocence.
