by Gila Hayes
A trusted confidant can give understanding and the strength to go on for one going through the difficult time of recovery.
In recovery, the survivor comes to understand that although she is responsible for her own actions, she must never be held responsible or blamed for the actions of another person—especially those of the rapist. The attack is not her fault, and regardless of the circumstances around and preceding the attack, the rapist’s actions remain absolutely inexcusable.
Recovery takes time and requires a safe environment and a nonjudgmental atmosphere that allows the survivor to work through the anxieties, emotions and physical symptoms. It is a complicated problem, one that should not be faced without professional help and the love of friends and family.
Notes
1Association for Women’s Self-Defense Advancement, 556 Ft. 17 N., Ste. 7-209, Paramus, NJ 07652 http://awsda.org 1-888-STOP RAPE.
2Carney, Kathryn M, “Rape: The paradigmatic hate crime.” St. John’s Law Review. Spring 2001.
3“Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women,” Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, Nov. 2000.
4Kates, Don B., Guns, Murder and the Constitution, 1991.
CHAPTER 14
When Am I Allowed to Shoot?
Up to this point, we have discussed various means of self defense, lethal and non-lethal. In the following chapters we’ll focus on the safe, responsible use of firearms as self-defense tools.
I don’t think very many first-time gun owners immediately realize the power and resultant responsibility they assume when they take possession of a gun. I know longtime gun owners who talk as though they haven’t a clue about their responsibilities if a situation prompts them to draw a gun. I’m as uneasy with people who loudly proclaim, “If anyone tries to break into my house, I’ll shoot ‘em right through the door,” as I am with someone who has a gun but is convinced she could never shoot another human, even to stop a lethal assault.
When does the law allow me to use my gun in self defense? The question deals with issues of legality, morality and just plain common sense. The first issue, legality, varies from state to state, and is subject to the mood of the prosecutors and judges currently serving in your area. In our current age of internet computer access, there is little excuse for ignorance of the laws governing possession and defensive use of firearms. An afternoon of browsing through laws and statutes about use of force, self defense, and gun possession posted on most if not all states’ websites is a necessary responsibility for the armed citizen.
There are some broad parameters that define justifiable use of lethal force, however, and I credit Massad Ayoob’s excellent instruction and writings for the information that follows. Meeting Ayoob, listening to his lectures, and later assisting in teaching his classes have strengthened both my determination and my caution in matters of self defense. As we discuss the principles of justifiable use of lethal force, I think you’ll discern the constant interplay of caution and courage.
The legal and the moral codes underlying self defense have some foundation in plain old common sense. Our standard should be, “What would be the response of a reasonable and prudent person, under the same circumstances and knowing what you knew at the time?” This is the concept of reasonableness as introduced by Ayoob in his lectures on judicious use of deadly force.1 Most instructors who address lethal force teach that the presence of three elements is required to justify using lethal force: ability, opportunity and jeopardy. Let’s analyze each element.
Deadly danger consists of the ability of an attacker, the opportunity to use force against the victim, and the personal jeopardy so obviously posed by the attack.
Ability: If using lethal force in self defense, the survivor must be able to show that the attacker had the ability to kill or cripple. Presence of a deadly weapon, greater numbers, or superior physical size and strength all demonstrate ability.
Opportunity: Did the assailant have the opportunity to harm you? You cannot shoot a person who threatens to choke you from across a crowded street because he could not possibly enact the threat without laying his hands on you. Opportunity exists only when the threat can be acted out with such immediacy that the intended victim cannot escape.
Jeopardy: Has the assailant put your life in jeopardy? Verbal threats and gestures alone do not justify using deadly force unless the assailant’s actions make it clear he intends to kill or cripple you immediately.
In Your Own Home
Do different rules apply inside the confines of your own home?
Suppose you hear noises in the basement during the daytime. Home alone, you take your loaded gun to investigate. This is no time to burst in, gun drawn with your finger on the trigger. You must know the intruder’s identity before firing a panicked shot into a landlord, repair worker or other person authorized to be there.
I had owned my first gun less than a year when early one evening my landlady entered my apartment unannounced. She thought I wasn’t at home, but that didn’t lessen my surprise. Fortunately, I had received training that prompted me to issue a verbal challenge before pointing the gun at the opening door. Did I have a gun in my hand? You bet. Did the landlady know that? No, nor did she need to know. As has proven true in so many situations, training provided the confidence to act with discretion and to take the time to fully assess the situation, even in the grip of fear.
Unlike your duty to retreat if assailed on the street, there are few if any jurisdictions that require you to leave your own home to escape an intruder. Evan Marshall, a well-recognized author in firearms and law-enforcement publications now retired after 20 years with Detroit’s police force, told me that during all his years as a homicide detective, he never saw a citizen prosecuted for shooting a criminal who had forced entry into an occupied home.
The individual’s right to defend the sanctity of the home is upheld by most state laws and municipal codes. In civil court, however, the intruder or his survivors may charge that you overreacted or behaved recklessly, depriving them of the benefit of their son, husband or father’s support. Despite the widespread legal latitude about shooting home intruders, this is just one of the reasons we assiduously avoid shooting whenever possible.
Certain this stranger has no just reason to enter the home, the citizen facing this terrifying specter is allowed considerable latitude in her defensive response.
The decision to shoot must be based only on an inescapable threat to yourself or other innocent occupants of the home, never on panic. If you or occupants of your home participate in illegal activities that could result in a police raid, you must consider how to deal with law enforcement officers entering to serve an arrest or search warrant.
Armed citizens should accept responsibility to live by higher standards than the average American. Part of this responsibility includes adopting a lifestyle that avoids entanglements such as illegal drug use, theft and other crimes. If sharing a dwelling with roommates, you will to some degree share the peril of illegal activities in which they may engage. Choose your companions carefully. In any case, gun store commandos and internet chat groups exaggerate the frequency of “no knock” and surprise police raids. While officers use surprise to successfully serve search and arrest warrants, unannounced entry is scarcely a common or accepted tactic.
Finally, you must not shoot a criminal as he flees from your home. You may not shoot him as he is escaping. Some argue that you may kill a burglar as he escapes with your television or computer, but that seems quite uncivilized to me and is expressly unlawful in numerous jurisdictions. Let him leave; the cost of that television is tiny compared to the legal fees you could incur defending yourself from a civil lawsuit for crippling or killing this person.
Notes
1See Ayoob’s lecture on DVD, Judicious Use of Deadly Force, sold by Police Bookshelf, op cit.
CHAPTER 15
Safe Gun Habits to Live By
We have spoken in previous chapters
about various means of self defense. We have referred, in passing, to the defensive role that firearms can play in well-trained hands. In the following pages, we will specifically discuss the safe and responsible use of firearms as women’s self-defense tools.
“They said the gun was unloaded.” Have you ever heard these words?
Uncounted firearms tragedies are “explained” by people who believed the gun they held was not loaded. You can prevent enormous tragedy if you always treat every gun as if it is loaded…even if you just unloaded and put it down or if someone tells you, “It’s OK, it’s not loaded.”
The Four Rules of Gun Safety
The sages of the firearms fraternity have correctly noted that gun safety is a state of mind. Although we enjoy firearms of all types in a variety of shooting sports and recreation, a gun must never be considered capable of anything less than lethal results. Strict adherence to a few sensible safety rules will prevent the vast majority of negligent or unintentional firearms discharges. These are taught in many of the world’s leading firearms training schools as the Four Universal Gun Safety Rules and begin with TREAT ALL GUNS AS IF THEY ARE ALWAYS LOADED.
Do not accept that a semi-automatic pistol is unloaded until you have carefully checked it by both sight and feel, assuring that the chamber is empty and that the magazine well contains no magazine.
At the gun store or shooting range, check any gun you are handed to determine that it is indeed unloaded. Before too much involvement with firearms, complete a basic gun safety class, so you have the skills to safely check or unload common firearms.
Learn to check for ammunition in the gun by both sight and feel. Some semi-automatic pistols have chambers that are obscured by the slide even when the action is locked open. It is likewise easy to miss a cartridge in the chamber of a bolt action rifle if checking visually. A round of ammunition may be in the chamber, ready to fire if the trigger is pulled. By probing with a finger, you can detect the presence of a cartridge you cannot see. Training yourself to verify an empty gun by sight and feel increases understanding of the gun you intend to use under the stress of a self-defense emergency, sometimes in darkness or other unfavorable conditions.
Next, safe gun handling demands that you NEVER POINT THE GUN AT ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOOT. This second rule applies equally to loaded and unloaded guns. Always know at what and whom the gun muzzle will point. Determine a safe muzzle direction before picking up the weapon—that way you won’t cross yourself or someone else with the muzzle while you look for a safe place to point it. And remember, a visual obstruction, like a sheet rock wall, will not stop bullets. Avoid handling firearms off the range unless you are safely practicing dry fire, cleaning the gun, or securing it for the night. Don’t show off the gun like a toy or curiosity. Off the range, treat your personal protection weapon as a very private item, even more personal than lingerie or cosmetics.
The revolver shooter checks for empty chambers with a finger.
Treat every gun as if it is loaded; and never point a gun at anything you are not willing to shoot. These are the first rules of safe gun handling. The third rule, KEEP YOUR FINGER OUTSIDE THE TRIGGER GUARD UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON TARGET AND YOU HAVE DECIDED TO SHOOT is equally important.
Suppose you hear noises in the kitchen some night. Gun in hand, you go downstairs to investigate. As you approach, the noises continue. You are convinced you will soon face an unknown intruder. In the grip of this stress and fear, unexpected noise or movement will alarm you. If startled, your muscles will contract as part of the body’s natural fight-or-flight response. When the fingers gripping the handgun convulse, the trigger finger also contracts. It can do nothing else: in this reflexive state the hand’s fingers respond as one unit.
If the finger rests on the trigger, the trigger will be pulled. On a single-action semi-auto, this pretty much guarantees that an unintentional shot will be fired. A revolver or double-action semi-auto is only slightly less likely to be fired during the startle response.
In more ordinary day-to-day circumstances, keeping the finger off the trigger will prevent almost all the negligent gun discharges. High quality guns of modern design don’t just discharge by themselves. Someone has to press the trigger. Never break the safety rules because you think the gun is unloaded. Your actions are the basis for habits that will be repeated under circumstances that are not safe.
Learning to keep the finger off the trigger until the sights are on target and the decision to shoot is made. This requires careful attention until the habit is well formed.
Range Time
Spend the $150 to join a local rifle and pistol club, or pay $20 to rent a lane at an indoor gun range where a safety officer is present all the time. Shooting in isolated areas is a dangerous activity, not only because of thieves, also because of unsupervised, hazardous gun handling by “weekend warriors” sharing the shooting area.
Informal outdoor shooting areas also pose great peril to hikers, dirt bikers or careless children who may come over your backstop. When you fire your gun, you must know that your target is safe to shoot at, as well as being certain what is behind that target. The fourth universal gun safety rule is KNOW THAT YOUR TARGET IS SAFE TO SHOOT AND THAT IT IS SAFE TO SHOOT INTO THE AREA BEYOND. I believe this safety rule is probably the strongest argument against shooting in the woods or at a gravel pit. You must know the terminal resting place of each bullet you fire. On a formal range, bullet traps or earthen berms provide backstops to catch the bullet.
Handgun cartridges expel bullets that can travel from 1 to 1-1/2 miles; unimpeded rifle rounds can come to rest from 1-1/2 to 2-3/4 miles from the point at which they were fired. Do not discharge a gun if you do not know where the bullet will land. You must know that the area between your muzzle and the bullet’s terminal resting spot is empty of people or property that could be harmed.
Even if you shoot at an indoor range, take responsibility to keep the area safe while you are there. Don’t be afraid to correct unsafe gun handling by others or notify the range safety officer of safety violations. If you complain that guns have been pointed at you and the offense continues uncorrected, leave the range because it is not safe. People become over-stimulated while shooting, and just because they claim the weapon is unloaded is no guarantee that they haven’t removed the magazine, but forgotten to eject the round from the chamber. Do not accept this or any other explanation as a valid reason to violate the safe muzzle direction rule.
Make Sure Ammunition and Gun are the Same Caliber
Be careful that the ammunition you buy and shoot is the correct caliber for your firearm. Some ammunition-gun misfits are more readily apparent than others. For example, the powerful .357 Magnum cartridge is identical in diameter to the .38 Special cartridge, but it cannot be fired in a .38 Special caliber handgun because it is slightly longer, preventing the .38’s cylinder from closing. In other instances, smaller cartridges will fit in the chamber of a larger caliber gun, and dangers include malfunctions that happen when the case doesn’t eject from a semi auto, as well as bursting the cartridge’s case wall as it expands when the powder is burning.
You can be certain you’ve bought the correct ammunition, if the caliber shown on the box corresponds exactly with the caliber stamped into the frame or barrel of your firearm. If you’re not sure you have the right caliber of ammunition, ask a knowledgeable gun store clerk for advice.
The difference between .38 Special and .38 Super has confused many a beginner over the years.
The .38 Special shown at the left is a revolver cartridge, while the .38 Super is for a semi-auto. Differences in overall length as well as the rim are obvious on closer inspection.
The handgun’s caliber is marked on the barrel. Be sure it matches the caliber of ammunition, as identified on the case head of most cartridges, as well as in greater detail on the ammunition box. If uncertain, do not shoot.
If you own several handguns of different calibers, only fire one at a time when you
’re at the range. For example, set out the .380 ACP and its ammunition. When you’re done firing the little gun, put it away and bring out the 9mm semi-auto. While the .380 ACP ammunition may fire in the 9mm barrel, the case rarely extracts properly. We’ll have more to say about handgun ammunition later.
Protect Your Senses
On a firing range you must protect your hearing and vision, both of which may be damaged by gunfire. Repeated exposure to gunshots has robbed a lot of shooters of their hearing. At a minimum, use foam protectors inserted deeply into the ear canal to block the noise when you go to the range. Good quality ear muffs are the better choice, since they block more of the noise. Muffs also cover the sound-conducting bones around the ear that transmit damagingly loud concussions. Many beginning shooters display an exaggerated flinching reaction when shooting their handgun. There are several reasons for the flinch that we’ll discuss later, but one is the anticipation of the painfully loud noise. That’s avoidable with a $20 to $30 investment in hearing protection ear muffs.
Equally important is tightly fitting, wraparound eye protection. When shooting a semi-automatic, or shooting beside someone with a semi-automatic, you quickly realize that the bullet isn’t the only object expelled from the gun. The semi-auto ejects the empty metallic case from the fired cartridge. The hot metal case burns when it falls between the lens of safety glasses and lodges on the shooter’s cheek. Be sure your safety glasses fit tightly at the eye brow and extend to your temples.