Monday, December 8, 2014

Paranoid and Insecure Gun Rights Fanatics - A Punch to the Head is Potential Deadly Force

A Punch to the Head is Potential Deadly Force

-(Ammoland.com)- If you watch television and the movies, you might get the impression that a punch to the head is no big deal.
That is not true.  A punch to the head is a very serious attack. 
It can disable. It can maim. It can kill.  The head is a vulnerable target, which is why an attacker aims for it.  I first became aware of the deadly potential of one punch to the head in the 1970’s, from a long forgotten news story.

Later, the son of a close friend killed a man with one punch.  He was eventually found not guilty of manslaughter, but only after a long and expensive legal fight.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Kokette of Madison, Wisconsin, for producing One Punch Homicide, which documents the surprising numbers of one punch homicides that occur in the United States and around the world.  From simple Internet searches, he has compiled a list of 114 one punch homicides in the United States.  I am sure that the list is far from complete.

The standard for the use of deadly force is that you reasonably believe that you are defending yourself from force that can kill or severely injure you.   Once you know that a punch can kill or severely injure you, you can explain to a jury why, as a reasonable person, you were forced to threaten or use deadly force to defend yourself or others.

You do not have to allow yourself to be beaten before you defend yourself with deadly force; but you have to be able to reasonably explain why you understood that you were under the threat of potentially deadly force.

34 comments:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwTMJroTbI

    orlin sellers

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  2. So are you going to explain what is "paranoid," "insecure," or "fanatic[al]" about observing the verifiable fact that fatal beatings without any weapon beyond fists and feet happen?

    To avoid being "paranoid," "insecure," or "fanatic[al]," is it necessary to pretend otherwise?

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    1. Well, for one thing, it's the infrequency with which they happen. For another, it's stressing this exceedingly rare possibility that makes insecure and paranoid gun owners shoot people prematurely and unnecessarily.

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    2. Well, for one thing, it's the infrequency with which they happen.

      I take it you're referring to the "infrequency" with which one punch kills someone? Not sure why we should limit ourselves to that. Are we to trust our assailant to satisfy himself/herself with one punch? Why?

      Secondly, if we limit ourselves to deaths, we ignore the much greater incidence of punches causing great bodily harm. Should I submit to a concussion (and the attendant possibility of long term brain damage--perhaps severe enough to cause me to advocate "gun control"), broken jaw, and a handful of lost teeth, just because I think that's "all" my assailant intends to do to me?

      But the bottom line is simpler than that. When someone initiates violence that is even remotely potentially fatal (or greatly harmful), that someone should expect his/her intended victim to respond with as much defensive violence as necessary to stop the attack. It's not incumbent upon the assaulted to gauge the likelihood of drawing the short straw, and becoming one of the "exceedingly rare" death statistics.

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    3. It's also exceedingly rare to die from a choke hold, but that gives no consolation to the family of Eric Garner or the ensuing angry mob.

      Kurt: " Should I submit to a concussion (and the attendant possibility of long term brain damage--perhaps severe enough to cause me to advocate "gun control")"

      Nice snark!

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    4. Oh, and about that "infrequency"--since more people are killed with "personal weapons" (fists and feet--and that's before adding in strangulation) than with all long guns (of which so-called "assault weapons" are only a subset), would that make it "paranoid," "insecure," and "fanatic[al]" to advocate banning "assault weapons"?

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    5. And how about the non-frequency of deaths by .50BMG chambered weapons, which has never happened in this country (mike doesn't seem to believe this)? It's gotta be paranoid to want to ban that.

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    6. https://www.vpc.org/snipercrime.htm

      There's never been any deaths in the US attributed to nuclear weapons, either.

      Don't you tire of such specious arguments?

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    7. Watch Kurtie try and massage the figures.

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    8. "Used in a crime" and "owned by criminals" does not equal death, Jade. I sure tire of your specious answers.

      FYI, the Wickizer case wasn't a .50BMG. Not all .50 caliber rounds are BMG, but don't expect Josh Sugarmann to care.

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    9. "Watch Kurtie try and massage the figures."

      Not much massaging needed Jade considering that its a VPC "study" we're talking about.

      The "study" goes back to '92, lets round down to 22 years. Once we eliminate the crimes that didn't even happen in the US (Mexico), in that 22 years, it looks like the rifles were actually fired criminally seven times resulting in one death. You can increase that to eight times if you include the nefarious group that started a wildfire by shooting at a stump.
      So yep, Kurt is incorrect, there has been one death attributed to the .50BMG in these 22 some years. I'm surprised Baldr hasn't noticed that they sell them in Walmart as evidenced by this incriminating video,

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCmt4cf8YTs

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    10. "FYI, the Wickizer case wasn't a .50BMG. "

      What kind of .50 was it? I was trying to picture someone holding a Barrett on someone and it didn't seem like something you could do for long.

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    11. FYI, the Wickizer case wasn't a .50BMG.

      Not to mention that at that range, a .22 to the neck could easily have been fatal--a .50 caliber ban would have done nothing to prevent that murder.

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    12. What kind of .50 was it?

      I can't find a source more authoritative than comments on news stories about the murder, but those comments say that it was a black powder rifle. Given Wickizer's previous felony conviction for arson, that would be the type of .50 caliber he could legally purchase. That, of course, does not rule out the possibility of his having acquired a .50 BMG rifle illegally, but I've seen no mention of Wickizer having faced felon in possession charges.

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    13. That’s what I saw too, Kurt. There is no definitive confirmation of the type of rifle. One news source said “.50 caliber”, while others just said “rifle”. Black powder or .50 Beowulf are far more likely than .50BMG which at shot to the neck at that range may have separated his head from his body (which you think would have made huge headlines). Plus Mr. Wickizer doesn’t seem like a man with the means to be able to afford a $5,000+ rifle that costs about 5 bucks per shot considering he lived in a trailer park (and Mike just had that post about how trailer park = poor). Additionally, we need to consider that it may not have even been .50 caliber at all, considering that the news media has a track record of reporting information on guns horribly wrong. Imagine how many deaths by machine gun Sugarmann can claim by counting every newspaper report that says “automatic rifle”. I’d probably say it was a .50cal black powder muzzle loader deer hunting rifle (near the bottom of all the gun-banners ‘to be banned’ list), which is quite common in Pennsylvania since there is a special muzzleloader hunting season.

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    14. "So yep, Kurt is incorrect, there has been one death attributed to the .50BMG in these 22 some years."

      It's TS who keeps repeating the lie.

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    15. It's TS who keeps repeating the lie.

      Ah--again with the "lie" accusation. I'm starting to think you just can't help yourself.

      Do you care to address the enormous amount of doubt swirling around the notion that the one homicide mentioned here was really committed with a .50 BMG rifle, rather than something vastly less powerful, and almost certainly never to be banned?

      But even if Wickizer, against all odds, really did use a .50 BMG rifle, it seems to me that TS's statement would be far more likely to have been a mistake, rather than a "lie."

      That murder happened in 2013. I started pointing out the fact that there have been no domestic deaths attributed to .50 BMG fire in 2006:

      This, despite the fact that since Ronnie Barrett first started producing these rifles in the 1980's, there have been exactly zero documented deaths in the U.S. attributed to .50 BMG rifle fire

      I'd think it would be a very understandable mistake to not catch that one (quite dubious) exception that finally (may have, but probably didn't) happened in 2013.

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    16. No, it's Josh Sugarmann's lie. I just showed you how there is no evidence Wickizer used a .50BMG. And what about all the others? Shouldn't Sugarmann's list have a bunch of other .50BMG deaths that are confirmed?

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    17. Exactly, Kurt. I've also been saying that for years, and as recently as a month or so ago I looked into it again and found the Wickizer case on Sugarmann's list. After a little bit of research, it is safe for me to continue to make the claim that no one has died from a .50BMG round in this country. Had the story not been another Sugarmann inflation, I would change my line to "one person has died..." and my point would remain unchanged. It is almost as silly to ban every weapon chambered in a round used for one death, as it is for no deaths, especially when the round's properties are immaterial to the circumstances of the death.

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    18. "Well, for one thing, it's the infrequency with which they happen."

      Infrequency indeed. Considering the not very imaginative attempts of the VPC to inflate the numbers of their "study", I would want to see some sort of documentation that proves it was indeed a .50BMG firearm.
      And to think that based on an almost complete absence of crimes committed over the long term by these firearms, California and the country's crime capitol the District of Columbia have gone to the trouble of banning them.
      Its laudable that the Barrett Company has done its part to eliminate the scourge of .50BMG rifles in California by vowing not to provide service to ANY of their .50BMG firearms in that state owned by the government.
      And of course, they developed a much safer and law abiding round known as the .416 Barrett.

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  3. So every fist fight is to be considered a lethal force incident? Proof again these gun loons just love to kill.

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    1. Anon it is not always just two people in a fist fight....would it be a fist fight if a 280lb 6'2" man punched a 5' 98lb woman no that is battery..pull your head out of your ass and give objectivity a try some time

      MBIAC......

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    2. Thanks for the links you sent me but the article I posted already covered that. These things happen at the rate of about 100 a year.

      What's funny is when we talk about kid shootings, you guys love pointing out how relatively rare they are. But this, and you're all about how dangerous it is.

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    3. I would, by the way, question why we should limit this discussion to death by punch--would it not make more sense to include all homicides committed without a weapon (or at least without a weapon that is not part of the killer's body)?

      Is Eric Garner any less dead, because the "weapon" was a cop's arm? Is it any more just? If cops had punched, kicked, choked, etc., Michael Brown, Dillon Taylor, and Tamir Rice to death, rather than shot them, would you be any less outraged?

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    4. My outrage is for idiot gun loons like you who promote gun shot deaths. By the way, if you initiate the violence (a fist fight) but then find your opponent is much better and getting the better of you, do you have the right to shoot to kill?

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    5. We've covered that scenario before, anti-anonymous, and have explained that in a scenario like that the shooter would be properly charged with anything from manslaughter to murder depending on additional circumstances.

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    6. "We've"?
      Do all you gun loons agree with that?

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    7. Kurt, your contentiousness knows no bounds.

      "I would, by the way, question why we should limit this discussion to death by punch"

      The post is about one-punch deaths.

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    8. The post is about one-punch deaths.

      I realize that, but I think it's an artificial distinction. Whether one's violent assailant punches you, kicks you, strangles you, etc., armed self-defense against that assailant is equally justifiable. Likewise, whether it takes one punch to kill you, or several, the justifiability of armed self-defense against a violent brute is unchanged.

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    9. AnonymousDecember 10, 2014 at 10:51 PM

      ""We've"?
      Do all you gun loons agree with that?"

      Ummm, yup, pretty much, yup.

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    10. Just wondering because that's not what has been said by gun loons as the individual cases get posted, but then hypocrisy is not new to you dishonest gun loons.

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  4. You're repeating yourself, Kurt. You already mentioned the non-deadly punches. The solution is obvious - shoot first and justify it later.

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    1. You're repeating yourself, Kurt. You already mentioned the non-deadly punches.

      Not sure what you mean. Where, apart from here, did I "mention non-deadly punches"?

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