Doctrine of Transferred Intent.

A common misconception is that you are legally liable for every bullet you fire in a self defense situation. That is not exactly the case. The answer to this is called the doctrine of transferred intent.

The simple reason is that the shooter (self-defense actor) was not the proximate cause of the harm to the innocent bystander. Although that may seem counter intuitive to say (given he was the one who actually fired the gun), it was in fact the attacker provoking the self-defense actor who caused the bystander harm.

In the legal world this is called the doctrine of transferred intent. It has been recited in numerous cases (see State v. Green, 157 W. Va. 1031, 1034, 206 S.E.2d 923, 926 (1974)).

I don’t want to steal any more of attorney Phil Nelson’s thunder or expertise on this. Check out this article at his excellent self defense blog here. Know the law. Stay out of jail.

More on Defensive Shooting

Last month, I posted about a shooting at Applebee’s that later appeared to be a defensive shooting by a CCW holder. The police have released more details:

At some point, Hudson got into an argument with a male and female out in the parking lot, and as the pair left in a car, Hudson pulled out a handgun and fired three times into the air. Hudson then walked to a side door that the employees use, which is where a female friend of his tried to get him to leave before police showed up. The release shows that Hudson refused to leave, instead heading into the restaurant and demanding to know who called the police.

Investigators said that Hudson reached into his pants, prompting a patron — identified as 27-year-old Drew Manno — to fatally shoot Hudson. Police added that Manno had a concealed weapon permit and told police he was in fear for the lives of himself and those with him. Hudson’s handgun was not found at the scene, and its whereabouts are unknown at this time. Police said they were able to find the three shell casings from Hudson’s handgun in the parking lot.

Sounds like a good shoot.

Just Give Them What They Want

The antigun left’s mantra in self defense shootings is always one of a few responses, including:

  • Take Your Beating Like a Man
  • Just Give Them What They Want

Just give them what they want. The left claims that all you have to do is give them what they ask for, after all, they are probably just trying to feed their family. A few dollars isn’t worth killing over. Just comply. This clerk did, and he was executed for it. Even though it’s difficult to see, you should click on over and watch the video (sorry, can’t embed it).

This begs the question: What if what the criminal wants is your life? How do you know the difference? He is demonstrating the ability, the willingness, the means to kill you, over a few dollars. Remember.

Othering

Two men threaten physical violence against a restaurant patron. One threatens deadly force (“I will stick yo ass, nigga.”). The comments to this video claim that they are in the right because the man said he is a racist.

I wouldn’t have turned my back on them. These thugs went there with the intention of starting a confrontation. They brought an expensive camera with them and are clearly goading him into a response. So they walked up to his table and started a scene, so they could record the it after they started the event by stealing a drink from the table. So given these facts:

  • Thug in hat: “I will beat yo ass right now. Here, hold this camera.”
  • Turns hat backwards.
  • Gets in the guys face.
  • Outnumbered two to one

In this case, I think that it is reasonable to believe that there is a real risk of imminently becoming the victim of violence. Keep in mind that he has already threatened deadly force. They stole a drink. That makes this armed robbery, a forcible felony.

Would a warning be in order: “Back off right now, or you are going to regret it?” Or, is the threat imminent enough that immediate force can be used?

If force can be used or threatened, is it enough for the presentation for a firearm, or would you be limited to pepper spray? If you are wrong, you either die or go to jail.

Posturing

The nice folks over at GunFreeZone posted a link to a video and expressed an opinion on posturing. I invite you to go and check it out. Unfortunately, that opinion is incorrect. JKB makes the claim that the loser of the fight is displaying decorticate posturing. He is wrong.

What you see in the video is decerebrate posturing. In the difference lies a huge change in prognosis. All posturing is a common outcome of severe brain injury. It refers to involuntary and abnormal positioning, and the presence of posturing after TBI suggests a poor prognosis.

Both types of posturing often indicate some extent of damage to the brainstem, which is the part of the brain that controls important functions like breathing. Decerebrate posturing, which is what we see in the video JKB linked to, is caused by damage to deeper brain structures and is much more common than the other type, decorticate posturing. Decorticate posturing is caused by damage to both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex and is rarer than decerebrate posturing, but is generally associated with better survival rates.

Generally, the recovery outlook for individuals with abnormal posturing after brain injury is poor. Even though there are instances where individuals regain consciousness and recover, only 37% of those who display decorticate posturing after a head injury survive. Only about 10% of individuals with decerebrate posturing survive.

In the video JKB links to, the individual displaying this posturing has one thing going for him: Youth. If he is admitted into the hospital within 6 hours of his injury, he is likely to double his chances of survival, even though it is still likely that he will have some permanent disability. So an 80% chance of death, and a 20% chance of permanent disability. All of that from a punch to the head.

Think about that the next time someone says that a concealed carrier should just take “his beating like a man.”

Can I Eat Him?

If a deer attacks you on your own front porch, and it’s outside of hunting season, I would assume that it’s still lawful to shoot his ass. I’m sure a couple of handgun bullets to the cranium would take him down, no problem. (mute the audio. The woman screaming is annoying.)

My question here is: Would you then be permitted to add his meat to the freezer? Some venison steaks would be delicious!

Where I tackle a sacred cow

Stopping power is a myth. There, I said it. Every time there is a shooting, some yahoo comes forward to talk about how this gun or that one would be better because stopping power…

It’s bullshit. There are only four ways to stop a determined attacker:

  • A catastrophic hit to the brain or spinal cord (CNS)
  • Lower his blood pressure to the point where his brain is incapable of operating
  • A ‘mission kill’ where his body is so damaged that it can’t continue the attack (for example: damage his pelvic girdle so an attacker armed with a melee weapon can’t close the distance)
  • Convince him that he is out of the fight

Hitting the brain or spinal cord will usually end an attack. A hit to the head that misses the brain will not work. I can think of seeing at least three shootings from my years as a street medic where a bullet hit a person in the head, but didn’t penetrate into the brain. One of them was a suicide attempt. A good example of a head hit NOT taking someone out of the fight is Navy SEAL Matt Axelson. He took a bullet to the head that left his brain matter exposed, yet continued the fight.

Punch enough holes in someone’s vasculature, and they will lose blood pressure to the point where the brain is no longer being supplied with oxygen, and the person is rendered unconscious. Even a lucky shot with a small caliber like a .32 is capable of doing this- say if it hits the aortic arch and causes a transection. Sometimes it takes several hits. I have seen people take multiple hits to the torso from a .223 and stay in the fight.

A mission kill is where you damage a person’s body severely enough that they physically can’t continue the fight. Say, a hit to the pelvic girdle preventing someone from chasing you down. An excellent example of this was Kyle Rittenhouse shooting Gaige Grosskreutz in the arm. The hit not only rendered that arm as incapable of firing shots, but also made it impossible for that arm to release the handgun it was holding.

Then there is simply convincing someone that they are done. This is a well documented phenomenon where a person will be shot, and the wound is far from incapacitating, but the person simply lies down and is out of the fight.

There are people out there, however that still insist in the magical properties of this caliber or that bullet. Bullets are simple tools. They are a tool that delivers the chemical energy stored in the gunpowder to the target in the form of kinetic energy. The force with which a bullet hits the target is equal to the force that’s directed back into the shooter. It’s one of Newton’s laws- every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Any bullet that has enough power to “knock down” the target will do the same to the shooter. It is at this point that many will point to Marshall and Sanow’s work, and I will admit that I was a follower and believer in this study when it first came out.

The Marshall and Sanow “study” was fatally and egregiously flawed. The most basic flaw was “selection bias” in that the study excluded any shooting where it took more than one shot to halt the attack. So if I have a situation where I shoot someone and he doesn’t go down, so I shoot him three more times before he does, that shooting would be excluded from the study, even though that shooting demonstrated a complete failure to stop the attack.

What a bullet does is simple: the chemical energy in the gunpowder is converted to kinetic energy that is transferred to the bullet. That energy is then transferred to whatever that bullet strikes. If the object struck is a person, then physiology takes over from physics there. The damage done is dictated by how much energy was transferred to the targeted person, and what body parts of that person where targeted.

So there are a couple of things that are important in stopping an attack: the amount of energy transferred, and what part of the body that it is transferred to. Suffice it to say, you want a bullet to have enough energy to damage the body system that it strikes, and that means you want it to penetrate far enough to transfer that energy into something physiologically important. You don’t want a bullet bouncing off of the grizzly’s skull or getting stuck in a denim jacket. It does not do any good if that happens. You also don’t want that bullet to over penetrate. What ever energy that bullet has left after passing through the target is useless in stopping the target from doing things that you don’t want them doing.

You also want to work on shot placement. Hitting a right handed shooter in the left arm isn’t going to do you a bit of good.

Buy yourself a gun that you can shoot well, then spend time practicing. Load it with some high quality defensive ammunition, make sure the firearm functions well with that ammo, then practice.

Why? Because you want to keep shooting until the attack is over. That means if you have to shoot him to slide lock to stop the attack, then shoot him to slide lock. Make sure that you can hit a person-sized target 100% of the time at 10 yards, rapid fire WHILE UNDER STRESS. Make sure that you can hit a person sized target 80 percent of the time at 20 yards while under stress. Sounds easy, but studies show that shooting to this level is rare while experiencing the stress of an actual gunfight.

If you do carry a handgun, use a .38/9mm or larger if you can. If you can’t carry something that large, carrying any firearm is better than not carrying one at all.

Put good quality defensive ammo in it. Don’t worry about finding the perfect latest and greatest ammo, but do get something that is modern as well as being accurate and reliable with your chosen firearm.

Practice. A lot. At least 100 rounds per quarter at a minimum. Shooting is a perishable skill. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

To all of you 10mm or .45ACP fans: If you really believe in stopping power, then provide the physics or physiological basis for stopping power. How does it work, what causes it, why do you think your caliber is different from all of the others?

Killers Planning and Training

The Parkland shooter admitted to a psychiatrist that he had planned a school massacre for over 5 years. He looked at previous shootings and studied what previous shooters had done. He learned to pie corners, he learned police response times, he learned to not let people get close.

He knew that he would have 20 minutes to carry out his plan without police interference.

Think about that while carrying in your day to day life. The shooter has a plan, he has the initiative, and you will be playing catchup.