prone to speeding — and if you own a gun, let alone carry one, you must be prone to violence. Many of the people in the jury pool fear guns and associate them with violent people. Opposing counsel can be expected to play on that as heavily as they can. It’s not a good idea to use for
defensive purposes firearms with a trigger pull lighter than what its manufacturer specifies for “serious business” as opposed to target shoot- ing. What a layman might perceive as a “hair trigger” opens the door to the false accusation you recklessly, negligently, accidentally shot the sus- pect whom you in fact deliberately fired in self-defense. Where does that sort of case theory come from? On the criminal court side, your pros- ecutor knows there is no such thing as a justifiable accident, but if the defendant can establish self-defense it is a “perfect defense” against mur- der, manslaughter or aggravated as- sault charges. A conviction for man- slaughter via negligence is a win for the prosecutor, and an acquittal on a charge of murder is a humiliating loss for him. On the civil courtside of the house, plaintiff’s counsel is
another gun that doesn’t have those features to begin with. The other side may play up the
fact your gun has custom grips, night sights, laser sight, etc. in an at- tempt to make you look like Rambo. A well-prepared defense attorney can shoot that down by bringing in expert testimony to show anything which makes it easier for you to hit what you aim at in conditions of poor light and high stress, concomitantly reduces the danger of a wild shot that could strike a bystander, and there- fore is an indication of competence and responsibility, not malice or recklessness. (Why can’t we use that same argument effectively to justify light trigger pulls? Because the well- known association of the light trig- ger pull with unintended discharge outweighs any advantage such a pull has when firing rapidly in real-world stress conditions.) “Don’t Say Anything To The Police!” This advice comes from criminal
after money
and will seek the deep pockets. Few people have a million dollars in un- protected assets the lawyer can seize to satisfy the court’s judgment if he wins, but most folks reading this have a million dollars worth of coverage in their homeowner liability insurance. The insurance company does have the money, if the plaintiff’s lawyer can just convince the jury you shot the burglar by inexcusable accident instead of justified intent. Hence, the “plaintiff’s theory of the case” be- comes one of an accidental shooting on your part. That’s why it’s not a good idea to
be using a gun with a light trigger pull for self-defense. In a similar vein, it’s not good for your defense if you have removed or deactivated a safety mechanism on your firearm, even if it is the magazine disconnector safety or the grip safety that many firearm instructors think is useless, and many firearms manufacturers don’t bother to put in their guns. It allows op- posing counsel a powerful argument against you: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is so reck- less with his guns that he deactivates the safety devices on lethal weapons!” Don’t go below manufacturer spec on the trigger pull — a phone call to the manufacturer’s customer ser- vice department can elicit just what the factory pull-weight specs are — and if you don’t like certain “safety features” on your gun, trade it in on
WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM
defense attorneys, the majority of whose clients are guilty of something. There is nothing those guilty people can say to police that won’t dig them deeper into a losing situation, so their legal representatives get into the habit of saying, “Don’t talk to the cops!” as a knee-jerk response. However, it’s been my experience, taking advice intended for a guilty man, can end up with an innocent man receiving a guilty man’s verdict Ask yourself one simple question:
“If I don’t tell the police what hap- pened, who will?” If the cops only hear what the wounded bad guy and his angry accomplices tell them — which probably won’t be the truth — it will be all they have to go on. If they don’t know your side of the story, they have no way of knowing what evidence there may be that confirms your account of what actually hap- pened. Witnesses will decide, “not to get involved” and leave the scene, tak- ing with them forever the testimony that might have confirmed your story. Evidence may be overlooked or lost, which could have proven your inno- cence had the cops but known existed and where to look for it. In more than 30 years as an ex-
pert witness in weapons and shooting cases, I’ve become firmly convinced there are certain things, which need to be said at the scene. I think there are five pertinent things to establish. “This man attacked me.” Establish
from the outset that you were the in- tended victim, and the man you had to shoot (or take at gunpoint or whatever) was the actual perpetrator of the crime against which you defended yourself. “I will sign the complaint.”
You are now officially locking in
the fact you are the victim/complain- tant, and the man against whom you are lodging the complaint is the crim- inal perpetrator. Point out the evidence.
Bloodstains wash away. Footprints
disappear. Spent shell casings from a shooting roll away, get picked up in the treads of passing cars and pedestrians’ sneakers, or are scarfed up by late-ar- riving onlookers as souvenirs. Point- ing out evidence to the police pretty much guarantees it will be preserved, to help prove your innocence later. Point out the witnesses.
If you don’t, their testimony sup-
porting your account of events may never be heard. “Officer, you’ll have my full coopera-
tion after I have spoken with counsel.” Once the four prior statements
have been made, stick to this fifth one with discipline. You’ll be shak- en. It may be hours before you recall certain key facts that are temporar- ily buried under more frightening immediate recollections from the incident that are in the forefront of your mind. The investigators will ask questions as they occur to them, but are writing your answers down in sequence, and this can result in the false impression that the notes indi- cate you gave a different sequence of events in the immediate aftermath than what you remembered later. There are too many pitfalls to dis- cuss here, but you can fall into any of those pits if you submit to a detailed interrogation in the immediate after- math of what was, for you, probably a near-death experience. Nail down the five points in bold letters above, and then shut up until you have sat down with an attorney and discussed the matter at length. The US Concealed Carry As-
sociation has adopted these rules in a handout card for its members. (Would have been nice if they’d given attribution, but that’s not important: what’s important is to know what has to be established at the scene.) Attor- neys who have defended wrongfully accused innocent people, and look at the suggestion I’ve just given, gener- ally agree that it makes sense.
The Bottom Line It’s relatively easy to research the
law. It’s a lot harder to research trial tactics, sneaky lawyer tricks and ef- fective means of countering such un- meritorious strategies. These things are learned in court, not in law school. They are offered here for your consid- eration because, in the words of San- tayana, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” *
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