Weekly Politics Thread

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[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If you get hit in the femoral artery, a TQ isn't fast enough considering most people don't exactly keep them on their bedside table. From what I've read it takes about 30 seconds to pass out from blood loss and minutes to die. It's really not much different from getting shot in the carotid artery. Not to mention the inherent danger of shooting someone in the leg to your person and others because it's a very difficult shot to pull off especially under stress and if the other person is moving meaning you'll probably miss and get shot or stabbed. If someone breaks in the best bet is to aim at their chest and keep shooting until they're on the ground. Gambling on a leg shot isn't something that makes sense from either a humanitarian or self defense perspective

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The arm is a better shot in that situation, but in reality if they don't have a weapon they're probably going to run away very quickly when they see you with a gun. My argument is there isn't really a situation where you would want to shoot them in the leg. Because logically you'd only shoot if you had too. Why would I shoot them in the leg if I wasn't 100% sure I had to? Like I'd only be shooting if they reached for something or I could see a weapon. Basically I'm saying the only situation where you should be shooting you're going to want to kill them. An unarmed burglar is very very unlikely to rush you provided you keep adequate distance between you and them (ie under no circumstances walk towards them). But really they're far more likely to run away then fight, and make sure you position yourself in such a place where they have that opportunity never put yourself between them and any possible escape route. Really the best thing to do and what I do is keep a fully charged go pro with my home defense firearm. Basically a body cam to prove my innocence. But then again this is all based on my situation which is on the second floor of a house where it's pretty easy to keep distance. Oh and another thing is if you shoot someone in the leg expect to be sued for everything you own after they're permanently crippled for life and lose function in one leg unless you lived in AB which passed a law preventing that

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Shooting anyone in the leg is a challenge in and of itself. A home intruder won't stand still, someone's leg silhouette is small enough as is, and not to mention that if you nick the femoral artery they're probably gonna die.

The PAL course already tells you to be aware of where you're pointing your muzzle, the environment, who / what is your target and who's around them.

If anyone draws a gun at you or you draw a gun at them the intent is to kill. I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

E: self defence firearms courses would be great but again, won't happen until we normalize self defence as an inherent part of gun culture in Canada.

[u/GinnAdvent → u/[deleted]]

From a target shooting perspective, if you want to stop someone that's coming at your or pointing a firearm at you, it's always number 1 rule to shoot center mass. This has been demonstrated multiple times in many scenarios, this is one of the misconceptions that people always tell the police why shoot to kill? Because it's a lot harder to shoot to disable, when they charge you. Go check out videos on how fast people can move from 5, 10, 15 ft before someone can draw and or react.

Even if you don't hit center mass, but extremities instead, you might nick a artery or vein, which will cause bleed out, but again, really hard to do so.

From a self defense perspective, Runkle has covered this multiple times, so say if someone break into your house, you have to have a list of questions checked before you can actually open fire on the guy. Which under stressful situations, is quite hard.

If the perp is looking for stuff to steal, you can't go look for him, and confront him with your firearm to scare him. You can sound the alarm, yell, and go hide or run to safety.

If the perp is coming at your with a stick, hitting things around, you should have similiar thing to go against him, not a firearm, and assume same size. Unless there are multiple perp.

You always have to go to a safe place, and get your love ones to a safe place to call the police. The only time you can fight back, is they caught you and trap you in a corner, or someone on the vicinity is trapped and being attacked by them. Against refer to what tool they use.

If they come with you with deadly weapon, in large force, and won't care to steal anything, and you can't run away or to protect someone about to be harmed, then that's a different story. If you have video recording with sound, and whole interaction is recorded.

One thing people have to understand, self defense is one legal entity of its own, and firearm usage has another own sets of law. When you combine both, it's overly complicated to explain in the court. So it's not like American castle doctrine to protect your property, or someone trespass. You have to series of law and evidence between self def and Firearm to reach a lawful conclusion. No matter how stupid it might be, at least for Canadian scenario. That's why I found it useful to review Ian Runkle videos because he explain it in great detail.

PS: the example provided is a very simplified version, of legal precaution to follow if you are in the court of law to explain yourself, from a self defense perspective. There are probably errors since I am not a lawyer, some things I have observed and compiled from friends who practice self defense and going through the legal process if situistions arises.

[u/[deleted] → u/GinnAdvent]

Technically there is no duty to retreat clause. Here in Southern AB someone fired a warning shot and hit someone else in the hand and got off despite fulfilling literally none of those. Like the guy went out of his house with a .22 to confront burglars trying to steal an ATV and they posed more or less no threat to him and he got off by saying he was firing off a warning shot. The argument could be made that anything from a plastic spoon to a baseball bat is a deadly weapon. Personally I'm a 5'8" 135lbs guy, most females could overpower me. If some guy is coming at me with a bat my only real option is to shoot him. Hence why I keep a handgun on my bedside table (it's stored in a quick access safe with a combo trigger lock on the firearm, it's all legal). Thankfully Alberta's judges are pretty loose on their intrepations of a self defense shooting.

[u/GinnAdvent → u/[deleted]]

The whole idea is that from a self defense perspective, you are not suppose to engage the perp unless you are physically blocked by them and can't escape.

From firearm perspective, I suppose you can discharge them on your property given that you live far away from neighbors and from main road. But you can't really fire warning shots to people, however, if it's rural setting, that might be taken into account by a learned judge? You definitely can't fire warning shots in the city.

If a guy is literally outside your door and you are trapped on the 2nd floor and might hurt yourself going out the window, then yeah, that's all you can use.

The premise is that if you want your case to be easier through the court, you adhere to both self defense and firearm acts and policy, there might be less legal hassle, but by no means you have to use it. Then again, every court case is different with jury so maybe firing a warning shot will work if police is an hour away.

There are always previous cases people build up on as precursor, and that would be something that court may decide to use or may not depend on some similar it is.

The only way to find out is that when your standing before the judge, so no one will know until then.

[u/DarseZ → u/[deleted]]

Like the guy went out of his house with a .22 to confront burglars trying to steal an ATV

That guy didn't get charged I guess, according to your story, but that is a complete abuse of the notion of self-defense.

Self-defense is the imminent threat of losing one's life. Someone stealing an ATV doesn't come close to meeting that definition.

[u/[deleted] → u/DarseZ]

It's Alberta, and Canada has no laws saying you have to retreat. I hope we can get a clear castle doctrine law. I think the only reason he didn't get any time was because he said it was a warning shot. He was charged but it was dropped. Personally I like the guy, he did the right thing. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/eddie-maurice-rural-homeowner-shooting-trespasser-lawsuit-intruder-watson-1.5295370 thanks to him, I can't be sued for shooting a home invader if they survive. Because the AB government introduced this beautiful piece of legislation: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-introduces-law-to-protect-rural-landowners-who-use-force-to/

Really the trick is to not say you intended to hurt them even if you did. If you say something like the gun went off accidentally or it was a warning shot you'll be okay because we have very sympathetic jurys around here

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I like where you're getting at but combat medical training, actual gun courses and threat assessment are all things that aren't available to the average gun owner here. You'd have to go and do your own homework on those subjects because of our pathetic gun culture. Don't you love overemphasized sports shooting?

The intent is both. God forbid it ever happens but yeah, I'd be taking someone's life to preserve my own or other innocent people.

You'd be right on your assessment but just because we live in Canada doesn't mean it's impossible for the laws to be changed.