Brillianter.com

I do believe that I am giving you a fair reading, and from the above quotes I believe that at the start of this discussion you clearly intended to use your firearm (preemptively if possible) in the face of an assault by a larger adversary.

You believed incorrectly, which led to uhh...18 or so comments back and forth that essentially amount to us talking past one another over a point that we fundamentally agree upon, namely "force is the last option". Fuck me Moses, I do love arguing on the internet though. It's the only place where two people allegedly on the same side of one, important overarching issue can pick squares with each other over a completely inconsequential side issue and get so completely butthurt about it that people are calling other people cowards and macho and all sorts of sporty insults.

So, I'll offer an apology for acting like a bag of dicks, but I do stand by my assertion that a smaller, relatively trained fighter is at a severe disadvantage in a h2h fight against a bigger, stronger attacker.

Caleb:

I just reread all my comments, and I can’t seem to find where a reasonable person would infer that I’d just blast a guy for threatening/shouting at/pushing me.

Let me quickly skim the comments and square you away then, since I actually consider myself to be a reasonable person:

...it’s still a much more dangerous proposition than using a stand off weapon.

I’m a small, trained fighter but I wouldn’t bet on my training and skill to get me out of a hand to hand tussle with someone that I gave up weight and height disadvantages to.

If I’m in a street fight with someone that is bigger and stronger than me ... Which means that a force disparity exists between me and someone who outweighs me by 60 lbs. That also means that my best bet is to 1) equalize the force with a weapon...

A guy that outweighs me 50 or 60 lbs of muscle is quite easily capable of causing me death or GBH with his bare hands. So if I can’t get away, then it’s reasonable (there’s that word again) to believe that I’m danger of death or GBH. So despite the fact that I’m trained in hand to hand combat, I’m not going to bet my life on my chop-sockey unless I’ve exhausted all other, more effective options.

I do believe that I am giving you a fair reading, and from the above quotes I believe that at the start of this discussion you clearly intended to use your firearm (preemptively if possible) in the face of an assault by a larger adversary. Once your initial position was demonstrated to be untenable you moved on.

Couple that with the shots at my personal character...

Actually, I didn't take any shots at your personal character, but your ad hominem attacks certainly lowered the level of discourse. You have accused me (without any citation) of:

...you wrote the whole “pepper spray is t3h l33t” posts a while back, which while being kind of okay also had a lot of bad info in them.
Note: Still waiting on what part of that info was 'bad', glad you enjoyed the 'kind of okay' parts.

...carrying a gun isn’t some macho he-man thing for me where I need to PROVE HOW TOUGH I AM RUAAAAAAGGHG.
Note: I assume that the implication that my carrying a gun was some how an implication that it had something to do with how tough I am.

It’s almost like you’ve actually been hit in anger….wait.
Note: I assume the implication here is that I am being accused of never actually having been in a fight.

And my personal favorite:

It really seems like you’re craving an opportunity to get into it with people though – you carry pepper spray so you can blast someone that doesn’t warrant deadly force, and you think that you should punch people that may not warrant deadly force, etc. I have a better suggestion – stop looking for trouble, and grow up a little bit.

I just hope that your desire for a fight doesn’t get you or someone else hurt someday.

So if this logic and standard of conduct holds then aren't you carrying a gun because you are "craving an opportunity" to use it? The fact that I actually possess less lethal tools and skills (in addition to my handgun) is somehow a negative and makes me "craving an opportunity"? Or is it that I am deluded in thinking that any of that will work? Despite evidence to the contrary?

You have asserted your expertise (or appealed to your own authority) in this discussion with vague credentials of two black belts, 5 years of MMA experience, military training and numerous "knuckle jousts." You have made a lot of remarks about statistical probability without any supporting statistics. You have attempted to distort the disparity of force that Marko postulated (a pro heavyweight fighter against a grandmother) into you with all of your training, against an untrained person 50 lbs. heavier.

My initial objection to Marko's post was that his example of smaller fighters against bigger fighters was an oversimplification. Saying "every martial art that involves direct unarmed hand-to-hand fighting has weight classes" isn't correct, and wouldn't be relevant to street encounters even if it was. The factoid of "even a trained fighter in prime shape has no realistic chance of winning an unarmed fight against a heavier opponent" is totally, demonstrably, false.

I believe that a firearm (especially a handgun) is not this magic equalizer that so many of the gun bloggers make it out to be, because as I said in my initial response to you: "[a firearm] is useless unless in a simple assault unless you can A. bring it into action and B. Justify it’s use." That is not to say that they aren't the appropriate tool in certain situations, and I have not said otherwise.

hahahahaha oh man, you guys are fun. I just reread all my comments, and I can't seem to find where a reasonable person would infer that I'd just blast a guy for threatening/shouting at/pushing me. Awesome. Couple that with the shots at my personal character, and I'd give you guys (on the Olympic scoring scale) a 5.6 out of 6 for "Internet Arguing Techniques". Not bad, not bad at all.

Clearly, this discussion has gotten waaaay out of hand.

You know what I just realized? It's all a moot point anyway. I carry a .25 ACP most of the time (hard to conceal a real gun in business casual), so hell, that's practically a less-than-lethal option anyway. I've been told that if I shoot a mugger with it and he finds out he'll be real angry, so I guess I'll find out how strong my kung fu is then.

IC 35-41-3-2
Use of force to protect person or property
Sec. 2. (a) A person is justified in using reasonable force against another person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:
(1) is justified in using deadly force; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.
(b) A person:
(1) is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against another person; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person's unlawful entry of or attack on the person's dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.

I can't believe you made me haul out the Indiana Code. To make it really easy to understand, here's the definition of "serious bodily injury" from the US Code: "Bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. 18 USC"

If you don't believe that someone who outweighs me by 50 lbs and had height and reach advantages presents a serious and credible risk of unconsciousness or extreme physical pain to me, then you're clearly not occupying the same plane of reality as I am.

It really seems like you're craving an opportunity to get into it with people though - you carry pepper spray so you can blast someone that doesn't warrant deadly force, and you think that you should punch people that may not warrant deadly force, etc. I have a better suggestion - stop looking for trouble, and grow up a little bit. The world isn't a fistfight waiting to happen. I learned the hard way that most potential violent encounters are best fought if you walk away; and macho pride be damned. What you don't get is that if you carry a gun, every fight you get in is a gunfight, whether or not you want it to be. So if you mace someone, or punch someone, you stand a chance of that escalating to where you need to use deadly force. I would rather take a punch and walk away than get into a situation where I might have to use my gun. Force is, and always should be your last ditch option - I just hope that your desire for a fight doesn't get you or someone else hurt someday.

It really seems like you’re craving an opportunity to get into it with people though – you carry pepper spray so you can blast someone that doesn’t warrant deadly force, and you think that you should punch people that may not warrant deadly force, etc. I have a better suggestion – stop looking for trouble, and grow up a little bit. The world isn’t a fistfight waiting to happen.

No, Caleb, it's you that needs to grow up (no pun intended). You are the one that occupies an alternate reality full of imaginary lethal threats and straw men. In your world, you are a gunfighter, and everyone larger than you (which is a substantial number of adults) is potentially a lethal threat to you. You are completely terrified of simple assault, a crime that most normal men do not worry overly much about, let alone contemplate gunning people down over it. Who needs to grow up?

Being prepared for the more likely defensive scenarios (those that do not require killing someone) is dumb, according to Caleb. Having less lethal options across the entire force spectrum is dumb, according to Caleb. None of that stuff works, just take his word for it. He knows what he is talking about because he gets his ass kicked 99 out of 100 times.

I would rather take a punch and walk away than get into a situation where I might have to use my gun.

Really? That's not what you said earlier. You said, “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to get into a fistfight that I am statistically likely to lose. That’s just dumb”. You would simply shoot them instead. After all, that punch that you now say you are willing to take might disable or kill you. That's smart? You think using OC and other less-lethal options in situations that do not warrant deadly force is “dumb”. You have mentioned your “de-escalation options” but I must have missed your explanation of what they are. Who cares as long as you can escalate with a pistol, right?

Force is, and always should be your last ditch option – I just hope that your desire for a fight doesn’t get you or someone else hurt someday.

You are very disingenuous. This is essentially what MG and I have been saying from the beginning, now you are backpedaling and trying to make it sound like this has been your position all along. You have made it clear from your evasive and fallacy-ridden statements that you think that shooting someone in response to simple assault (not even battery) is a rational and legal course of action. Here at Brillianter, we have consistently argued in favor of rational, appropriate and legal use of force. It is you that is advocating irrational, reckless and very probably illegal use of force. I just hope that your desire to shoot someone who frightens you doesn't get you or someone else hurt or incarcerated.

I can't believe you actually made me haul out a real example. Have you ever heard of Yalanda Parrish? She thought she could preemptively shoot a man who frightened her. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is required to pay $2000.00 in restitution to the man she shot.

What is most amusing about this is that you allegedly have all this martial arts training, street fighting experience and a military background that has apparently prepared you for nothing other than defeating opponents smaller and weaker than you (which are pretty few and far between). Detailed explanations of your incompetence are not a good way to persuade people that you know what you are talking about. Why did you waste so much time and money on that worthless training? Seriously, why bother? You could have been improving your sprinting technique, building your self-esteem or learning how to actually win fistfights instead of perfecting the art of losing them.

Caleb,

You can't take the definition from the US Code and apply it to what Indiana thinks of as justification for committing a homicide (which is what the action is of shooting someone dead, or trying to). Based on my understanding of force disparity, if you, a healthy male, shoot someone who is another healthy male, yet who does not have a weapon, unless he is very much larger than you (and I mean more than has just 50 pounds on you), you're running a very serious risk of ending up before a jury, and trying to justify to them why there's a force disparity. Getting a jury to acquit you is going to cost you somewhere north of six figures in legal bills.

Force disparity is a tricky defense. It's really best to avoid having to claim that if at all possible. If you're a woman, or infirm in some way, it helps a great deal. But just based on a size disparity, it's a very difficult claim.

But don't take my word on it. Talk to a lawyer who practices this kind of law. Typically they are the same lawyers the police use when one of their folks ends up under the microscope for a shooting. That's really the best way to get good advise on what kind of thing flies in your state, and what kinds of things do not. But based on my understanding, force disparity claims are to be avoided if at all possible. YMMV in Indiana.

I'd probably walk away - carrying a gun isn't some macho he-man thing for me where I need to PROVE HOW TOUGH I AM RUAAAAAAGGHG. In fact, I'm more than happy to back down from 99% of confrontations, with that 1% being ones where I've exhausted all my "de-escalation options" and I'm not in a credible threat of death or gbh.

So what are you going to do to that guy threatening you, OC him in the middle of a crowd? That's pretty dumb. It's almost like you've actually been hit in anger....wait.

Caleb,

Deescalate/Disengage or gunfight is a false dichotomy. You imply that carrying a firearm or being able to fight is some kind of macho ego trip for some. You also imply that I have not been "hit in anger." You will just have to take my word for it that I have actually been in a real fight (or two, or more) since grade school.

The fact is that your overly emotional 'theory' of use of force has essentially no basis in law. Every time I have asked that you back up your assertions with a facts you have decided to find some other avenue to continue the argument.

Returning to the crux of the matter, a disparity of force in a situation where opportunity and jeopardy (of death or 'GBH') a firearm is certainly an advantage. The issue we are having is that 50 lbs. between males (barring some unusual medical condition) does not constitute such a disparity. You have previously stated that you would use your firearm preemptively against a larger assailant, and have not provided any justification for doing so.

There's a big difference between "marginally" bigger and outweighing me by 60 pounds and having 6 inches. I'm small, everyone is at least marginally bigger than me.

I’m small, everyone is at least marginally bigger than me.

So, using your reasoning, you are justified in shooting virtually anyone because you are easily intimidated.

After reading these comments I am even further convinced that open carry at political events is a bad idea. What are the Caleb types going to do if some guy gets into their face and threatens to give them a black eye? Open fire into the crowd? Seems like OC and H2H might be a better response in that situation, that is unless you have already convinced yourself that the gun is a hammer and everyone is a nail.

The reason those fights are notable is because it’s unusual.

No it isn't. It is not unusual at all. You can still see this kind of thing happen in sports where the heavyweight division doesn't have a upper limit on weight. Not that sporting events have a direct correlation with street fights, but it is not at all unusual.

IIRC, you wrote the whole “pepper spray is t3h l33t” posts a while back, which while being kind of okay also had a lot of bad info in them.

Actually the point of the pepper spray posts was that they fill the gap between angry words and hitting people. Your gross mischaracterization of my position does nothing to prove your point. If I am putting out 'bad info' then please attempt to correct it with something other than your opinion.

...deadly force is legally justified to “prevent the commission of a felony”...

Punching people is not a felony (in and of itself) even if that person is bigger than you. In your nearest metropolitan area there are dozens of fist fights every night that do not end in gun fights, felony convictions, or even arrests.

...“death or serious bodily harm”...

Serious or grievous harm has a higher threshold than a bloody nose or a fat lip.

The bar for my gun coming out of the holster is set at “do I reasonably believe that this person could kill me/cause me GBH”.

The operative word here is "could." The fact that a person has "ability" is not enough to shoot them, you still need the other elements of opportunity and jeopardy (I am skipping preclusion entirely) to justify using deadly force.

You are making the argument that most reasonable people would believe that it is permissible to shoot people who have threatened to A) beat you up and B) they are larger than you. This "pipsqueak defense" of shooting unarmed, non-lethal, threats because they are marginally bigger than you is a very bad gamble in the courts.

And yet those are the exception, rather than the rule. The reason those fights are notable is because it's unusual. If it was the norm, then we'd not be having this discussion at all. You're using the exceptions to try and disprove the rule, when in fact it's the other way around.

Now, let's talk about size disparity w/regards to lethal force. IIRC, you wrote the whole "pepper spray is t3h l33t" posts a while back, which while being kind of okay also had a lot of bad info in them. For example, you completely neglected to mention (as you're mentioning here) that the bar for lethal force in most states is whether or not a person believes that they are in danger of "death or serious bodily harm" (or grevious bodily harm/GBH for short). In fact, Indiana doesn't even make that distinction, as deadly force is legally justified to "prevent the commission of a felony" in Indiana. But anyway, back to the whole "death or GBH" issue. The bar for my gun coming out of the holster is set at "do I reasonably believe that this person could kill me/cause me GBH". If the answer is yes and running away isn't an option, then I'm fighting for my life. A guy that outweighs me 50 or 60 lbs of muscle is quite easily capable of causing me death or GBH with his bare hands. So if I can't get away, then it's reasonable (there's that word again) to believe that I'm danger of death or GBH. So despite the fact that I'm trained in hand to hand combat, I'm not going to bet my life on my chop-sockey unless I've exhausted all other, more effective options.

No, I did not say that BJ Penn in specific would be doomed. I said that a smaller trained person stands a lesser chance of success against a larger, stronger (not necessarily fat) person. If BJ were to get into a knuckle joust with a guy that he gives up a foot in height and 70 lbs of strength to, he'd have a damned hard time winning that fight. I'm not discounting the skill and mindset factor, but there's a certain aspect of physics that just can't be overcome. I also never said that the smaller, little guy can't win against a bigger stronger attacker, but the little tough guy sure as hell isn't the mathematical favorite.

When I was fighting, if I had gotten into the ring with someone 1 or 2 weight classes above me, they most likely would have killed me based on being able to dish out and receive more damage. Same rules apply in real fights, but to a greater extent. I'm not discounting the training factor, but people who believe that because they've been taking Chop-sockey at the Y for six months they're going to be able to fight off a larger, stronger attacker are living in a dream world. They should have spent that time developing a fast 40 yard dash.

Caleb,

Stop talking about math and statistics, You have offered neither in the course of this discussion. You continue to move the goal posts, you are lowering standard of training of the smaller person while increasing the size of the assailant.

Stating that because you would have been killed by fighting up a weight class or two doesn't prove your rule. There are too many examples of fighters beating opponents between 60 to 400 pounds heavier than they are. Hackney (200lbs) vs. Yarborough (600lbs) is one example.

None of which really matters because the standard for "disparity" between two males is still a lot a lot higher than you think and "disparity" by itself is still not a justification for the application of deadly force.

Okay, let me see if I can explain this. I'm small. 5'6, 145 lbs. I also have two black belts, 5 years of MMA experience, and a bunch of minor knuckle-jousts from when I was in the military.

If I'm in a street fight with someone that is bigger and stronger than me, I am going to lose 99% of the time. In hand to hand combat, it's always better to be bigger and stronger. Yeah, I'm trained. And I'm fast. Which means that a force disparity exists between me and someone who outweighs me by 60 lbs. That also means that my best bet is to 1) equalize the force with a weapon, or 2) run the hell away. Option number is actually my preferred option, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to get into a fistfight that I am statistically likely to lose. That's just dumb. Being small and trained is great, but only a foolish indian believes that a couple of sets of black belts are any kind of force equalizer against a bigger, stronger opponent.

I am not going to argue that being small and weak is an advantage, but your argument is that B.J. Penn (or a similar athlete) is doomed against some random fat guy on the street. That is absurd, and in fact it would easy for the fat guy to claim a disparity of force (since the smaller fighter is a trained professional.) Simply being smaller than an assailant doesn't constitute a justification for deadly force.

You keep referring to statistics, so please show them to me.

You have to remember, that a professional street criminal is often a more experienced fighter than a lot of people who step into the ring.

This statement is true in the sense that they have been in more fights, not that they have any training. Watch some youtube street fight video and you see a lot more monkey swings that you do good jabs. There aren't any statistics on size and training disparities in self-defense encounters. The goals and end states of the defender and the assailant are different things.

On the one hand you point out that fights are quick brutal affairs. On the other you refer to a stand off weapon. Your stand off weapon (presumably a firearm) is useless unless in a simple assault unless you can A. bring it into action and B. Justify it's use.

Smaller trained fighters have a better chance against a larger, untrained opponent, yes - but it's still a much more dangerous proposition than using a stand off weapon. You have to remember, that a professional street criminal is often a more experienced fighter than a lot of people who step into the ring. I'm a small, trained fighter but I wouldn't bet on my training and skill to get me out of a hand to hand tussle with someone that I gave up weight and height disadvantages to.

The thing that a lot of people don't get is that actual fights are quick, and brutal affairs, often settled in less than 10 seconds. One or two punches from a larger, stronger antagonist would often be enough to disable a smaller, better trained fighter - and yes while the opposite is also true, it's also less statistically likely.