Minnesota's controversial deadly force bill advances

[slackmaster]

115. DebJ, I believe that people who own deadly weapons should be trained in legal and moral aspects...

...of their use, and I recommend that every person get some self-defense training whether or not it involves weapons.

Any decent firearm self-defense class, or an edged-weapons class, or even an empty-hand self defense class, teaches that you use deadly force only as a last resort, when you really have no other alternate course of action that is likely to achieve the desired result - Stopping a potentially injurious or deadly attack.

The classes I have taken (including edged weapons and basic handgun) have all taught that there are three fights in most situations that involve defensive use of force:

- The first fight is the one between you and an attacker, which hopefully you win.

- The second fight is defending your actions against criminal prosecution. Lose this and you may go to prison.

- The third fight is the lingering effects the incident has on your life, including civil lawsuits, attacks by friends and family members of the person you used force against, and how the community you live in treats you going forward.

Your state of mind at the time of the defensive action (the first fight) is crucial to your survival of the second and third fights. The way you act and everything you say can potentially get you in deeper and deeper trouble as the police investigation proceeds and words gets out to other people.

Shooting someone is literally the last thing you want to do. The point of explicitly removing the duty to retreat from Minnesota law (and bringing it in line with the laws of almost every other state in that regard) will serve to protect people who were put in the unfortunate situation of having to defend themselves, from needless protracted post-hoc analysis of every detail of the situation in which they found themselves.