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Suppose you are carrying legally and concealed, but, some stranger civilian happens to notice or figure out that you are carrying. If that stranger civilian tries to grab your gun is that in and of its self reasonable cause for you to use deadly force?

I understand that there are many tangents this chat could take about how no one is ever supposed to see your gun or figure out that you are carrying one but, hey, it happens from time to time. So as not to get diverted down that, or any other tangential path, let me re ask my question:

Does the sole act of some unknown civilian stranger trying to take your gun from you by force constitute a reason for you to use deadly force to retain your gun?

I think it depends on the totality of the situation.

If it's some curious five year old, I think it's appropriate to use force but not deadly force to retain control of the weapon.

If it's a criminal trying to kill me or cause me serious bodily injury then I can use deadly force when it's immediately necessary to protect myself against the criminal's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force.

Boomerang,

The "five year old scenario" was one of the myriad of tangential lines I didn't want to go down.

As for the gun grabbers "intent", in my hypothetical I don't know. I know only that a GROWN civilian stranger person is trying to take my gun.

Is that alone sufficient to warrant use of deadly force on my part?

There are two sides of the question that must be considered. The first is the legal and the second is the tactical.

On the legal side, I would think you were justified in shooting. As a police officer, I have always taught and been taught that if someone is attempting to get my firearm, it is because he wants to use it on me. As a citizen instead, he may be wanting to use it on me or someone else, but he is still trying to get it to use. I still think you would be justified.

On the tactical side, it is a little harder to answer. The question here is how you are going to do so. While you are struglling with this thief, how will you manage to shoot him (or other weapon to attack with)? Do you have a back up gun or a knife? Do you know any types of weapon retention drills to help you? If you can get to the attacker with a different weapon, or with this weapon as quickly as you can control it, I would pull the trigger.

Power of articulation, I think (as with any use of force) as long as you can justify what you did (and it sounds reasonable and logical) then you would be ok. What is reasonable and logical? Good question (that depends on and will go as far as) who responded to the call, who reviewed the case and what judge/jury you pulled. As with anything, you will have to stand up to scrutiny but I feel if a grown man all of a sudden was fixated on taking your weapon you could easily articulate you feared for your life because this unknown male was attempting to take your weapon by force and you you feared if he was successful, he would kill you - either to conceal his crime or just because. I think that would be reasonable and logical, it can be shown that in instances of a BG successfully obtaining a cops gun, the cop does not fair so well.

Thanks for the input folks. That's sort of what I figured, specifically that a gun grab would make cause for use of deadly force against the grabber. As one pointed out, Implementation is quite the different matter.

I'm not supposing that I could necessarily pull off a retaliation to such an attack, just wondering hypothetically what the legalities would be if one person tried to take another's gun with no right or reason.

Thanks again...

Doesn't happen and if it did I would suggest that CHL holder run and call 911. Any person that would try to take a gun out of someone’s holster is either insane or willing to commit murder/suicide without second thought.

Everything is situational. A+B=C, A+D=E.....so it depends on what happens IF the nut gets the gun. Everything else is wasted consideration in my opinion. Good to think about things but, this doesn't even happen in open carry states so I cannot expect it would happen to even the least attentive CHL holder.

Well you could also add more hypothetical to it

Is he trying to grab it to use it on you (angry guy grab)
Is he trying to grab it to be a weasley worm (anti-gunner wormy guy grab)

It it seems the guy is attacking you by going for your gun 1st, its a bad situation, I would treat it as a threat upon my life...I have no training in how to defend for something like that..if its some guy trying to grab your gun to be a sneering jerk..he deserves a fist in the mouth.

"Doesn't happen and if it did I..."

That's a pretty bold statement. Do you mean doesn't happen as in the whole history of the world, or just based on your personal knowledge?

Weapon retention skills are valuable and there are some basics that don't take a lot of training. Shooting them off the end of the gun is a valid technique in some situations but it's nice to have more options.

I'd view it as someone trying to rob one of their possessions and use appropriate force to stop the assault and robbery.

As long as we're being hypothetical here, while someone is trying to grab your gun, just grab your knife and run him through and carve him up. Sounds like a hypothesis to me.

Another way to look at it: The guy is trying to steal your property. Maybe this is happening at night time too. There could be some legal justification right there.

shootthesheet wrote:Doesn't happen and if it did I would suggest that CHL holder run and call 911. Any person that would try to take a gun out of someone’s holster is either insane or willing to commit murder/suicide without second thought.

Everything is situational. A+B=C, A+D=E.....so it depends on what happens IF the nut gets the gun. Everything else is wasted consideration in my opinion. Good to think about things but, this doesn't even happen in open carry states so I cannot expect it would happen to even the least attentive CHL holder.

Hey Binky,

The cemetaries are full of folk who thought that "this" (whatever their "this" was) could never happen to them. Eh?

In this hypothetical case the CHL holder obviously was able to retain possesion of the weapon to be able to use deadly force against the gun grabber. That being the case the CHL holder would have used deadly force against an unarmed person. Once the CHL holder had control of his weapon I guess it would have to be pretty obvious that the unarmed person was going to continue to come after you with a gun pointed at him.