Under the hypothetical the trespasser was not posing any immediate threat. Sure, if someone follows you to your house and jumps out of their car with a gun I wouldn’t argue if you ran for a gun of your own for a wild west reenactment.
That I can agree with, but in all of the cases i just read like 20+ the property owner did not defend themselves with force, and the criminal was caught and convicted. I want to find one with return of force, or force used on an unarmed intruder, but again the NY court system is not very easy to search. I feel bad for paralegals that have to wade through this shit all day.
You all have to remember that at the end of the day… A jury of reasonable thinking common civilians would be the ones making the final decision.
I dont care how compelling of a case or what interpretation of the law is presented to me. If I was on a jury and a man put 5 shots in the back of a fleeing unarmed robbers head, or what the OP’s initial question asked, (had he actually shot the guy) Im going to be a thorn in the other members sides because murder could have been avoided.
Now, proving any circumstances would be the difficult part of any trial like this. Things like “it appeared he had a gun so I shot him,” seems more than a legit enough excuse to get out of this
NYS law on the use of lethal force is actually pretty clear, and in this case, providing a little more detail it would be legal for you to shoot and kill him.
Here’s the little more detail part.
You pull the gun with reasonable fear of harm, and clearly state that if the person comes any closer you will be forced to shoot. If someone is around to hear you saying this loudly and clearly all the better.
If the person continues to advance there is no need for them to have weapon to present a reasonable and immediate fear for your life or the life of someone else (that’s the requirement for deadly force by the way). Why is is reasonable if he’s not armed you ask? Because you are armed. If you don’t shoot and he continues advancing it’s perfectly reasonable to assume there will be a physical altercation for control of the firearm, and if you lose, he has the gun. He was crazed enough to keep coming at you and take the gun so chances are he’s going to use it if he gets it.
The Reasonable Man test would fail in this case. And just because an individual continues toward you when you have a gun pointed at them does not give you justification for pulling the trigger.
What if the guy is deaf? What if he is mentally handicapped?
You could also back-up.
Just don’t shoot anyone and let the police handle things. That is what they are there for. It’s not like we all live in some remote area where police presence would be minimal and it would be reasonable for us to have to protect ourselves.
So what does the reasonable man think is going to happen when the aggressor finally reaches the citizen with the gun? They’ll calmly discuss their disagreement in an organized debate?
It’s only ok to shoot them if you:
A) live in a rural area
B) have heavy machinery to move dirt (dig holes, landscape, etc)
C) No one knew they were coming to your house
D) You shoot them at least 5 times
ppl please get ur shit straight, there are many documented cases where an intruder was shot and killed and nothing happened to the owner, its self defense. There have even been cases where the owner of the house had an unregistered pistol and got off without jail time, under self defense. But in any case thats why if ever in that situation you always shoot to kill.
The one interesting catch to it is if you shoot them in your driveway. NYS will want you to retreat farther, into your house. That’s pretty reasonable in your case though, considering you had to go into your house to get the gun in the first place. So back up into the house, keep telling him to leave or you’ll shoot, and if he comes through the door open fire.
