MEMBERS ONLY! Document Files: Waiting Too Long to Defend

MEMBERS ONLY! Is it possible to wait TOO LONG before defending yourself? It obviously is–and in today’s show we share some use-of-force videos that illustrate that point, and document it for your records as part of the specialized knowledge that may inform your own decisions in self-defense.

Such documentation is critical to ensuring that this kind of specialized knowledge would be admissible in court and available to a jury to understand why your use-of-force decisions were reasonable!

In addition to this Members-Only content, we’ll also be STARTING today’s show with an open-access follow-up to yesterday’s Law of Self Defense Show on Byrna.

Join me LIVE on Tuesday, July 18, at Noon ET as we provide our legal & tactical analysis of these videos!

References:

VIDEO: Man with stick attacks cop

VIDEO: Kyle Dinkheller

Andrew’s breakdown of Tom Cruise “Collateral” Movie Briefcase Scene

Become a Law of Self Defense Member for JUST 99 CENTS!

Not yet a Law of Self Defense Member? WHY NOT? Try our two-week trial membership, unlimited access to our show content, for just 99¢! Stay a member after that and it’s still just ~30¢ a day, less than $10 a month! Get the 99¢ trial membership by clicking on the image or link below:

Become a Platinum Member for ONLY 82 CENTS A DAY!

PLUS get EVERY class & book we offer, for FREE!
We ONLY consult on legal cases for our Platinum members!
BE HARD TO CONVICT, become a Law of Self Defense Platinum member TODAY!

http://lawofselfdefense.com/82cents
https://lawofselfdefense.com/trial

AMERICAN LAW COURSES

Get a law-school level education in typical first-year (1L) law classes, including criminal law, constitutional law, evidence, property, and more, at a fraction of the cost and time of law school, and without any of the political toxicity of today’s law schools. Spring semester starts soon with Constitutional Law!
Learn more at: americanlawcourses.com

americanlawcourses.com/conlaw

LAW CARDS!

https://www.lawofselfdefense.com/lawcards

SUBSCRIBE TO our STANDARD long-form YouTube channel:
“Law of Self Defense”
https://youtube.com/lawofselfdefense

FREE BOOK! “The Law of Self Defense: Principles”

Physical book, 200+ pages, we just ask that you cover the S&H:
http://lawofselfdefense.com/freebook

FREE 5-ELEMENTS OF SELF-DEFENSE LAW CHEAT SHEET!

Totally free cheat sheet explaining the 5-elements of any claim of self-defense.
If you don’t understand these five elements you have no idea what legally qualifies as lawful self-defense.
PDF download, zero cost:

http://lawofselfdefense.com/elements

Disclaimer – Content is for educational purpose only.

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

---

Transcript

(PDF Link)

NOTE: All LOSD video/podcast transcripts are prepared in rough form, provided solely for our members’ convenience & documentation, and are not thoroughly reviewed for accuracy. Refer to the original video/podcast for the authoritative form of this content.

Welcome to today’s episode of the Law of self-defense. Come on in, come on in, make yourselves comfortable. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Branca for Law of self defense. Thank you. Thank you.

That is very, very kind of all of you. Let’s make sure that we’re streaming in all the places that we need to be streaming. Let’s see. We are the, this will be a two part show.

So the first part of the show is open access. We’re gonna do a follow up on yesterday’s show about Bena burna pistols and burna ammunition. Uh I’ve aggregated all the law of self defense burna coverage over at Law of Self defense.com/burna. In fact, I think I made a little banner here for that purpose.

Let me see. Yes, right there. So if you’d like to um catch our burner coverage, uh we’ve done two pieces on them once, one, a couple of years ago in 2021 and one just yesterday, you can always find those at La self-defense.com/burna. So we’ll be doing a follow up to yesterday’s show and then we’ll get to the main topic of today’s show which is waiting too long to use force in self-defense. And I have a couple of use of force videos involving law enforcement that illustrate this concept. Um Both with unfortunate results. One of them is a truly tragic results.

Um We’ll share both those videos with you and of course, an important part of sharing those videos with our law of self defense members is because it documents for a prospective future court, a prospective future jury that the laws of defense member is informed on the dangers of waiting too long to defend themselves, understands the risks because they’ve seen the risks incurred and the consequences. And um because our members can document this kind of specialized knowledge, knowledge, not readily known to the common person because our members can document this both because they logged in and commented on the on today’s show as it occurred or they watched the replay and did the same. They also get the transcript of the show. We have a transcript for every show just for our members uh that they can download and save to document their acquisition of the knowledge shared in today’s show, which is essential, critical to being able to get that specialized knowledge, admitted to a court shown to a jury. So the jury can understand contrary to the prosecutor’s arguments, why your decisions in self-defense were reasonable decisions and therefore lawful. So the burner follow up part of today’s show will be open access once we get to the videos illustrating waiting too long for self defense.

In both those videos, people die. Uh Deadly force is used with deadly consequence. Uh And so we don’t show those on open access shows because we just get them monetized.

So at that point, once we finish to burn a follow up, the open access dreams will be ended and it will become only a members only show. If you’re a law, self defense member, don’t go anywhere. When that happens, the show will continue with you. If you’re not yet a law self defense member, I have to ask you why because it’s dirt cheap. You can become a trial member for only 99 cents for a two week trial, 99 cents folks. And it’s a 200% money back guarantee.

It’s a negative risk opportunity after the two weeks. If you stay a member, it’s still only about 30 cents a day, less than $10 a month. And you have unlimited access for this trial period to all our members only content including the second half of today’s show. So you could sign up for this right now.

Open up another tab in your browser law of self defense.com/trial. All right folks. So with that introduction out of the way, let me go ahead and launch the formal start of today’s show. And I should mention another benefit of being a law of self defense member.

Beyond the documentation, this transcript, the uh unlimited access to all our members only content like the second half of today’s show is it’s only the law of self defense members in the member stream in the member chat who get their comments and questions addressed by me. If you’re watching on youtube or Rumble or Twitter, uh that’s fine. Uh But I won’t see any questions or comments that you put forward in today’s show. We just don’t see those. Let me see if we’re actually screaming on rubble and we are all right. So first, the first half of today’s show, the open access part is a follow up on Bena.

Good old Bena. So yesterday I did this show entitled, another bad product idea from Berna question mark. Uh And it references these 12 gauge shotgun shells that you can purchase from them. Uh Some of Bernas products are, um, pistols that fire either kinetic rounds or a, um, a combination pepper spray CS gas rounds. Um Also rifles that appear very realistic looking, the pistols look just like a nine millimeter pistol, but perhaps for uh the color of the pistols, um, they do come in different colors as I talked about yesterday that said, I would note see if I have this available. I would note that although the burner pistols come in many colors.

Uh so do real pistols. These are a picture that was sent to me by a law self defense member from a recent gun show. These are real pistols in a wide variety of colors. So just because some guns in unusual color does not mean it’s not a real gun does not mean it’s not a real gun. So, um, the main issues I raised with this yesterday was, uh, with respect to this 12 gauge ammunition, which is intended to be fired from a real shotgun like a Remington 870 or Mossberg or really any pump shotgun. Apparently they don’t work well in semiautomatic, they don’t have the power to cycle the semiautomatic, but they’re intended for use in a real shotgun that would also fire real lethal shotgun shells.

Uh Now this doesn’t fire the pepper spray O CCS mixed gas. This is just a, looks like a plastic kinetic round. But my concern of course is that you’ll think you have one of these purportedly less lethal rounds in your shotgun, but you’ll unintentionally have an actual shotgun shell. So you’ll unintentionally be using deadly force when you thought you were only using less deadly force.

And that’s a guaranteed formula for an involuntary manslaughter conviction folks. So, uh, my concern is mixing up the ammo essentially, uh, especially since it’s being fired through a device that is a real firearm, not something that looks distinctly different from a real firearm. My previous concerns with Bena has been with the pistols that they sell, which look exactly like a real pistol. It looks exactly like a nine millimeter pistol. It has a thumb safety, it has a trigger, a trigger guard. I mean, it’s really indistinguishable even to people knowledgeable about firearms, especially in the stress of a moment. It’s indistinguishable, indistinguishable from a real pistol.

So not only do I have concerns that the user might think they’re holding a burner but actually beholding a nine millimeter pistol much like Kim Potter thought she was holding a taser but was actually holding a real nine millimeter pistol. Killed Dante Wright, went to jail for it on a manslaughter conviction, I think wrongfully. But nevertheless, that’s what happened. And in any case, obviously a tragic unintended result, the death of Dante, right? But I’m also concerned that observers of a user of a burner pistol that appears to be just a nine millimeter pistol would perceive a use of deadly threat, deadly force under circumstances where deadly force might not be warranted as the burn is intended to be used where deadly force might not be warranted as a less, less lethal tool. And I’m worried about third parties, observing the wielding of the burner might perceive reasonably perceive the wielding of a deadly force instrument when deadly force would not be privileged and decide to intervene, to stop that use of apparently unlawful deadly force. So those are the main high points of yesterday’s show. Again, you can, you can access yesterday’s show, at least if you’re a law of self defense member, you can access yesterday’s show uh by pointing your browser to law of self defense.com/berna.

That’s where we have yesterday’s Bena show and the show from a couple of years ago as well. Uh So, uh law self defense members, uh sent me a couple of links, um about exactly that kind of concern that others watching you wield a burner pistol, might believe you’re wielding a real gun and respond with their own deadly force. And in particular, it touches upon this case here. Let me zoom this in. This is from uh 2022. So, uh just last year, last spring and a year after I wrote my first burner post about my concerns about their pistol. Uh Let’s step through this.

The family of Kayla Gary was joined by their attorney Justin Bamberg on Wednesday morning to talk about what happened on Saturday night when Gary, a woman was shot and killed by a Lawrence County sheriff’s office. Deputy Gary’s family was allowed to view the body cam footage and lawyer Bamberg commended the Lawrence County sheriff’s office and sled. So this would be the South Carolina law enforcement division for their transparency. It’s a rarity to get that from law enforcement said Attorney Bamberg, according to attorney Bamberg, Gary, the victim here, the woman called 911 and reported that the house was being burglarized. Now it doesn’t, hasn’t said this yet, but, uh, Kay Gary had serious mental issues. She’d just been released from a mental institution about a week prior. She apparently had, um a bad case of schizophrenia which induces psychosis.

You imagine things happening that are not happening. Uh Her family knew she was in a bad way mentally, they were trying to get her back into the institution. Uh But as many of, you know, mental health support in many states is not great and apparently it wasn’t great here. So, but in any case, she was back home, she had a psychotic event. She believed the home was being burglarized and she called 911 to report that the home was being burglarized. So law enforcement is responding to a burglary in progress, which means a guns out response because it could turn into a, um, um, a kidnapping scenario where the burglars are bunkered down inside the home with the residents, whoever called 911. so the, that’s what the cops would have.

A reasonable expectation is going on. Uh, the family lawyer said the person, the burglar didn’t exist and no one was breaking into the house. Now, he also says she was calm and she was peaceful, but it doesn’t seem that way. Certainly wouldn’t seem that way to the deputies because the news report continues when deputies arrived. Kayla Gle was holding a long sharp object.

Ok. So it would be perceived as a kind of knife, right? Some kind of contact weapon capable of inflicting death or serious bodily injury. But you’d have to be in proximity for it to do that So as long as you maintain distance, in theory, she’s not yet an eminent deadly force threat. But then when she was told to put that object down, she pulled out a projectile device that looked like a firearm. The family lawyer said the device was made to look, feel and be perceived as a real firearm. Now, this article doesn’t use the term burner here, but I do have a little bit of news video, uh, because the attorney gave a, uh, um, a brief presentation talk to the media.

So let’s watch this from a local news report. The Lawrence County sheriff’s office says 26 year old Kayla Gary was shot and killed by a deputy Saturday night. A family attorney says Kayla was the one who called 911 to report that the house was being burglarized and who was the burglar. It was a person who didn’t exist.

Kayla’s family says she had schizophrenia. Justin Bamberg says body camera footage shows Kayla carrying a long sharp object as she meets the first deputy in the yard. As the deputy yells at her to drop it. She pulls out a projectile device that’s manufactured.

It’s made, it’s intended to look, feel, operate and be perceived as a real life firearm. Bamberg says body camera footage shows deputies continue yelling at Kayla to drop the objects. He says it goes on to show deputies trying to tase her then shooting her with non lethal pellets four times. She’s yelling, kill me.

She’s yelling, kill me before he says she was ultimately shot and killed. We wish they hadn’t. But after they did, they tried to help her. Now, of course, you would expect the family lawyer to want to be suing the police department. He, he doesn’t sound like it.

He, he sounds actually pretty sympathetic to the deputies probably because he’s seen the body cam footage and he knows that for all the world, it looks like Kayla Gary was wielding a nine millimeter pistol in her hand. Now, he also does not say the word burna here in this interview. But if we look at this case that he’s holding up right here, you can just see the top edge of it there. Um It’s a black case with an orange trim. And if we go to the burner website, the burner pistol is delivered in a black case, see if I can zoom in here. It’s the same kind of orange trim. You can see it here on the edge of the case.

So I think it’s reasonable. Also given the verbal description of the device that we’re talking here about a burner pistol. Now, I I certainly don’t want to suggest that Bernas is, is the sole cause of this tragic event.

Obviously, this woman had serious mental health issues. Uh The officers, the deputies responding can only respond to their reasonable perceptions of the events. I’m sharing this new story because I think it illustrates how readily this device can be misperceived by other parties as a real pistol capable of inflicting death or serious bodily injury and responded to as a real pistol capable of inflicting death or serious bodily injury. Now, of course, I can’t speak for Berna.

I presume Berner would argue that while in this kind of case, it was the mental illness that killed her, a reasonable person would not have approached deputies with our Berna device in hand would not have created this kind of confusion. And, and, and presumably that’s all true. But we can all imagine many many fact scenarios in which uh someone may be perfectly lawfully holding a burner in their hand. Perhaps they just drove off an aggressor and then they’re observed from some side angle by a third party who thinks they’re holding a gun, maybe by an officer who thinks they’re holding a gun. So the person wielding the burner doesn’t know that they’re presenting as a deadly force threat to some other party. But the misidentification, the misperception of the burn as a real pistol occurs with the tragic, the tragic event. So it’s not just a hypothetical concern.

Folks, this really happened. These deputies shot this woman Deb after trying nonlethal options and after they shot her, they tried to provide care. But these deputies shot this woman dead, this severely mentally ill woman. They shot her dead in the reasonable belief that she was presenting as a deadly force threat even though she wasn’t. But they reasonably perceived she was presenting as a deadly force threat because she was wielding this device in her hand, technically a non lethal weapon as described and marketed by Bruno. But the, but the deputies reasonably perceived it as a real gun, they responded accordingly and Calgary is dead now, not solely because Burna exists. But again, this is exactly the kind of misidentification of the device that I’m concerned about.

If the device had looked like wildly, not like a pistol, but was still capable of projecting oc like a, like a normal oc canister. Right? Doesn’t look anything like a pistol. Here’s my oc canister. Now, my oc canister doesn’t do what the burner does.

It cannot fire a inert projectile plastic projectile 60 ft. It doesn’t fire these O CCS ball 60 ft. Why you would need less lethal force at 60 ft? I’m not, I’m not sure if someone’s presenting as only a non deadly force threat. If they’re 60 ft away, it’s hard to envision how they would present as an imminent danger. It’s a separate question. Uh So, I don’t know, I mean, the capabilities this doesn’t have, I’m not sure under what fact scenario involving non deadly force, less than lethal force, which is what the burn is intended for, it would apply.

All right. So before I, that was the only part of today’s show that will really be open access folks. But before I shut things down, let me take a look and see if we have any questions from our law of self defense members. And if you’re not a law, self defense member now would be the time to join two week trial, unlimited access to all our members only content including the second half of today’s show for just 99 cents. Folks try it out for 99 cents. Worst case you don’t like it. If you tell us you don’t want to continue, we’ll give you 200% of your money back, which isn’t much, it’s a dollar 98 but we didn’t ask for much upfront either.

And if you stay a member, it’s still only about 30 cents a day, less than $10 a month to be a law self defense member. Open up another tab on your computer. Sign up right now at law self defense.com/trial. So both you can interact with the law, self defense community and me directly with your questions and comments in the members only chat. And uh let’s see. So Mike had sent me two, two videos, the person who provided me with the link to let me take a quick look at that.

That’s an article. That’s the one I used. Let’s see if I can do a quick, I’m not seeing a second video, Mike, I’m seeing uh two links to news articles and then one video, uh which was the interview I just showed. So thank you for your effort, but I just don’t see it. Hey, Steve Gosney in the member chat says there’s always a graduation picture.

Yeah, there’s always a graduation picture. All right. So let me take a look at the uh the member chat questions, see what we have here. Um And for everyone staying for the second half of the show, uh I, I want to caution upfront people die in the second half of the show, you’ll see video of people killed. Uh So if that’s not to your taste, and that’s the reason we do those as members only content because I just get demonetized every time I show it on youtube.

If that’s not to your taste, there’s important lessons to learn here, but people do die if that’s not to your taste. The second half of the show is probably not for you. OK. Let’s see, the member chat, member chats and I have some uh scheduling news, law, self-defense, content, scheduling news for the members too. Um uh By the way, for any of you who don’t know Steve Gosney. Steve Gosney is a public defender down in Florida. Good personal friend of mine, certainly a friend of the law, self defense community and a prolific author.

Many books. This is his most recent recent death penalty debates, death penalty will come up in the second half of the show actually. Um And you can learn all about Steve’s books at Steve gosney.com. I used to have all of Steve’s books here on my desk so I could hold them up. But, uh, they got too heavy for my desk. There’s so many different books now, but they’re all excellent. I wrote the foreword to one of them.

Let’s see. Uh, Richard says, uh, I need this, speaking of Bena, as I’m very, very hesitant to consider use of deadly force unless I am 100% certain of no other possible option. Um, and I think that’s reasonable.

I think, as I said yesterday in the burner show, there, there are edge cases where, um, I think Burna might be a reasonable option. For example, if, if you live in a state where you can’t carry a gun for personal protection, um, maybe that makes the burner a reasonable option. Um, but that doesn’t address any of my concerns that it could still be mistaken for a real gun or, you know, let’s face it if you have Children or somebody who’s mentally ill in the home and they have access to it, they’ll be presenting as someone with a real gun.

But again, I, I, as I said yesterday, I’m not telling anyone not to purchase burner products if it’s a good fit for you and your circumstances. Well, that’s a decision for you to make. Uh, I just want you to make an informed decision aware of the risks that I perceive.

Let’s see what else? Yes, we have uh American law courses are, will be starting up again soon with the fall semester. Let me see if I have a little ad here for that American law courses is a subsidiary of law self-defense. It’s law school level courses intended for the layman but taught by legal professionals.

Uh We have a whole bunch of them so far. We have criminal law. We have constitutional laws currently taking place. We have property, we have evidence.

Uh We have another criminal law course being taught by Steve this fall and we have a business law course coming up this fall as well. If you’d like to learn more about our American law courses, you can do that at law of self defense.com/con law would be the best way or just go to law American law courses.com, we’ll be, uh, we’ll be promoting the fall semester starting pretty soon. I believe it starts in September. So we’ll be getting there pretty soon. Uh Jeffrey says, whereas Benjamin Crump seems like his type of case. Uh II, I haven’t seen the actual body camera footage of this event, but I presume it’s so bad for any civil litigation that it’s, that’s just not gonna happen, at least, at least civil litigation against the police. So normally that’s the most desirable scenario for these plaintiffs attorneys because if it’s the police who used the force, uh you can go right to federal court.

It’s called a section 1983 action. Uh put a lot of pressure on the politicians to settle the case before you ever have to actually litigate. Um But it, it can’t be insane.

Um The facts for, for the plaintiff and I expect they were insane here, but I don’t know if they might have gone after Berna. They certainly seemed like he was interested in going after burner the way he describes the burner pistol, right? How does, how does he put it? Uh The family lawyer Bamberg said the device was made to look, feel and be perceived as a real firearm. And we know that from, from Burner’s own website and from the, the letter the comment I received from their CEO in response to my 2021 critique of the burner pistol, that part of the reason they went with that design is for deterrent effect. So it would present and be perceived as a real pistol.

So to the extent that creates II I don’t do civil law folks, but to the extent that could create potential civil liability. It, it wouldn’t surprise me if some kind of lawsuit happened. I but I didn’t look into it. I don’t know. Let’s see. Yeah, Richard said 60 ft away and my plan is to run away if possible.

Yeah. So a selling point of the burner from Burna is that the device can fire these kinetic projectiles or these pepper spray balls uh As far as 60 ft. So you have range. Uh, I just don’t understand how someone who’s not presenting as a deadly forced threat at 60 ft would be an imminent threat at all. If, if they have a contact weapon, they have their fists. I mean, if they have a gun they’re deadly forced. Right.

And presumably you’d be shooting at them. But, yeah, so someone 60 ft away with a, with something other than a gun. I’m, I’m probably trying to get away. Steven says, uh Steve Gosling, is there any reason at all to have a pepper spray gun that looks like a real firearm? I, I can think of reasons but I can’t think of many good reasons. I, I think some people they may live in a state where they can’t have a real gun so they want something that resembles a real gun because that can be legally purchased, I guess.

Um, maybe they live in a household where other family members are, are, are gun phobic and don’t want a real gun in the house. But they’ll allow this. Maybe they have a, a moral compunction about using deadly force upon other people. So they would never acquire a real gun for self defense even if they were permitted to do so. So this might be, I don’t know an option for them. Uh John asked Andrew, is there not a number of laws requiring that a non firearm be painted by the muzzle with orange paint? Berna actually addresses this on their website. Uh, and I believe their answer is that they don’t have to do that because they’re not marketing it as a toy.

Um, oh, but now I don’t see it here. I thought there was a bigger fa Q, I thought I saw a Lengthier fa Q yesterday. Hm.

Maybe here. Well, uh, I thought I saw yesterday on the website that they, they addressed that question and said, we don’t have to put the orange tip on the gun because it’s not a toy. It’s not intended for Children. I, I don’t know if that’s the law or not. Folks, I don’t cover that area of the law. Let’s see. I actually don’t know what the burner costs.

There must be a price here. So for the pistol product intended for self defense, the burna SD pepper spray kit, learn more $400. I mean, you can buy a real gun for $400.

I just saw in Palmetto State Armory they had a complete A R, I mean, you had to buy the upper and lower separately, but the total cost of both was like $330. It’s what a, what a country I love America. Let’s see.

Zachary says, Andrew, if you have time, Steve forwarded my email to you regarding setting up an independent study with true double blind testing for two mark analysis. I would love your input. Uh I think it’s a great idea. Zachary I, I can’t remember if I saw that email or not. I, I get those kinds of inquiries a couple times a year. Um And II, I was in a prior life, formally trained in study design, epidemiology, immunology, virology, all kinds of graduate level uh biological studies, including study design, but that was a long time ago. That was almost 30 years ago.

Uh So I’m not sure I would really be that helpful. I, I would talk to a genuine academic. Uh But to the extent I could be helpful, I’m, I’m glad to put in my two cents. Yeah, I wouldn’t expect to get a grant for, for that kind of study. Uh There’s too many people who is, who has their interest would be hurt by that kind of study. Uh Joe says, comment, maybe Berna changed her fa Q after yesterday’s show.

I don’t know, I know they saw the FA Q because they, they tweeted me on Twitter. Um So, um but I, I wouldn’t speculate that they changed their website just for me. All right, folks, those are, those are all the current comments on chat. So, uh at this point, we’re done with the Burna Update. We’re going to turn to the main part of today’s show which is waiting too long to act in self defense. I have two videos illustrating the risks of waiting too long for self defense. A big part of today’s show is intended to be documentary So you’ll be watching the show either in the live stream now, uh or in the replay, but only for law and self defense members, we’ll be cutting off the open access stream in just a moment.

Uh Plus the members will also in the blog post. Get a transcript of today’s show. It’s really important to document your knowledge of these forms of specialized knowledge that might inform your use of force decision making in the moment of crisis because that’s what makes your decision making reasonable and a jury won’t know this stuff. So because they won’t know it, inherently, you need to be able to introduce this knowledge as evidence at trial.

And you can only do that if you can prove to the court that you possessed the knowledge at the time you acted in self defense. So documenting this kind of self-defense knowledge, specialized knowledge, expertise is critical. And that’s one of the main purposes of the, the second half of today’s show and these videos.

So if you’d like to, uh if you are a law self-defense member, please don’t go anywhere. Uh I’m going to do a faux end of the show for the public access people. But you law self-defense member, stay right where you are and we’ll uh we’ll come back for the members only portion of the show if you’re not yet a law self-defense member. Now is your chance law self-defense.com/trial two week trial, 99 cents, 200% money back guarantee. If you stay a member. After that, it’s still only about 30 cents a day, less than $10 a month do it now.

And you can join us for the rest of the show over at law of Self defense.com. All right, folks with that out of the way, I’m going to end the open access portion of today’s show if you are on youtube. Thanks for joining us so far in the 1st 34 minutes of the show. But your time with us is over.

If you’re not a law self-defense member and the same with Twitter, Twitter folks, I love you all, but it is time for you to go as well. And finally, the rumble stream also is ending and now we are only law self defense members on this dream. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Thank you.

As always for all your support, I couldn’t do any of this, but for all of you, obviously, you’re all law self-defense members or you wouldn’t be watching this right now. But I also happen to know that not all of you are a law of self-defense platinum members and that’s just wrong. If you’re not currently a law self-defense platinum member, you’re doing it wrong because we’ve made it unbelievably cheap. Five years of platinum coverage, which is the only way to have me available to consult on your use of force case.

If you’re involved in a use of force event and facing criminal liability. Five years of that $3000 worth of every book course that we provide in every format we provide all of that for just 82 cents a day, become a platinum member today. 82 cents at law of self defense.com/eighty two cents. All right. So today we’re going to talk about waiting too long for self-defense and you may think this is obvious. Um And perhaps to us, to members of the law, self defense community, it is, but it may not be to a jury.

So I wanna share these videos with you. So you can say in all honesty, you’ve seen the consequences of waiting too long to act in self defense. What can happen as a result because that will inform your decision making in using force in real life. Should you find yourself in that moment of crisis? And that’s why your decision to use force was a reasonable decision because prosecutors love to argue that you could have waited longer.

You didn’t have to shoot right? Then if only you’d been more patient, this person didn’t have to die. And that made your discharge of that shot murder. Well, you want to be able to give the counter narrative to the jury in an evidence based way, perhaps share with them the videos I’ll share with you today. So they too can see the consequences of waiting too long to act in self defense. All because you documented this show.

This experience both through commenting in the chat, making notes to yourself, sending yourself an email about it, downloading the transcript of today’s show when we have available, when we have it available for you later today. Now, before we jump in, uh of course, part of what we’re talking about here is the element of imminence. Hopefully, as law of self defense members, you all know this, the five elements of self-defense. If you don’t shame on you, please download this absolutely free law of self defense cheat sheet on the five elements of self defense explains. The five elements provides a brief description of each you might even consider.

I mean, I hope you already have the book. But if you don’t, you might consider getting a free copy of our best selling book, The Law of self-defense Principles at law of self defense.com/principles, if not for you, then for a friend. But we do want to talk about the five elements of self defense, particularly the element of and of course, now I lost where I had it.

Let me close out a bunch of these. Oh, I didn’t want to close that one out. I confused my files. Let’s see, that are five elements of self defense cheat sheet. Wherever I put it, I guess I’ll have to open it up again right there because we’re going to talk about the element of imminence.

So, imminence is one of the required elements of self defense essentially it means that you can’t have used force defensive force too early or too late. You must have been using your defensive force when the threat you’re defending against is either actually happening or immediately about to occur. So for your use of defensive force to be lawful, the threat against, you must be imminent either actually in progress or immediately about to occur. Now, obviously, there’s a time period before that happens and there’s a time period after that’s over. So a useful way to think about the element of imminence is as a window that opens and closes before the window opens.

You don’t have the element of imminence. You don’t have lawful self-defense. If you use force after the window closes, you no longer have imminence, you no longer have a legal justification for your use of defensive force. So it’s kind of a goldilocks period. You have to time your use of force just right now if you use force too early and that happens all the time because people get genuinely scared of something of someone and because they’re scared, they jump to a defensive use of force under circumstances where arguably the threat was not yet an imminent threat, a threat actually occurring or immediately about to occur. And this can commonly happen if, if the person threatening is threatening with a contact weapon with a club or a knife or a fist or a foot, a boot, but they’re so far away that they’re not immediately able to bring that threat to bear.

They’re not yet an imminent threat. And for those interested, you can look into the toler drill for a useful metric for evaluating the relevant distance at which a person with a contact weapon becomes an imminent threat. Sometimes, of course, people use force too late so they were being threatened imminently with unlawful force and their brain is saying, defend yourself and maybe they get their gun out and now they’re unsure. They haven’t thought this through ahead of time. They’re thinking it through in the moment of crisis. And sometimes if it’s on video, you can almost see the wheel spinning in their head like a car tire spinning in mud.

They can’t decide, they can’t decide, they can’t decide. And then finally the wheel gets traction and they make the decision to fire the shot at which point their attacker is running away because the attacker saw the gun come out, decided they didn’t want to be in a gun fight because they left their gun at home and they’re running away and the attacker ends up getting shot in the back as they’re fleeing when they were no longer an eminent threat that would justify the use of deadly defensive force. So you don’t want to use force too early. You don’t wanna use force too late because it could no longer be lawful.

But of course, there’s another danger to using force too late. And that is not the legal danger but the tactical danger that if you wait too long to defend yourself against that act of aggression, well, then you’re dead, then the aggressor has brought his force to bear against you, whether it’s a club or a knife or fist or boot or a gun, whatever the case may be. And of course, we should be reluctant to use deadly defensive force on another human being. Certainly don’t be getting into fights.

You don’t need to be getting into, don’t be shooting people. You don’t need to be shooting, but there can come a time in the fight when you have to flip that switch from zero fighting to 100 and 50% fighting. And you need to think about where that inflection point is before the fight.

You need to brainstorm this ahead of time. Folks, you need to prepare yourself by doing things like reading about other use of force events, learn from other people’s use of force events by being a law self defense member watching our videos thinking if I were in that situation, at what point would I make the decision to begin using defensive force so that you’ve primed your mind for that tactical decision ahead of time. Now, of course, you always have to be guided by the real world events before you by the actual evidence that you’re observing that you saw some other event doesn’t justify by itself your use of defensive force in your event, but it can inform your decision making in your event and it should, you don’t want to be using critical bandwidth exploring the boundaries of your willingness to use force and self-defense that that should be defined well ahead of time if you’re prudent because we don’t tend to make better decisions under stress. We tend to make worse decisions and your bandwidth, your mental bandwidth is already going to be extremely constrained just by the stress of the violent encounter you find yourself in. So I’m gonna share two videos again. I caution people die in these videos.

Uh One of them involves a man with a uh with a large stick attacking a police officer who’s got his gun out. He’s got the stick wielder at gunpoint and the stick wielder is still attacking him with the stick. The second video involves uh the killing of Kyle Dinker Din Keller was a police officer who made a traffic stop back in 1998. Uh and tragically was, was killed, was murdered by the man. He stopped.

Many of you have probably seen that video, but you may not have seen it before in a way that is documentary for you being a defendant in a criminal trial, which is part of what we’re doing here in today’s show. So let me go ahead and open up the first of these. Now, I don’t know the facts surrounding this, this event.

So all I know is that it involves a uh a suspect, a tall suspect and a short chubby cop. It would be better if our police officers did not look like this. But I know a number of police officers who have this physique and they’re, they’re great guys, well intentioned serving their community, taking these kinds of risks. Um I wish they would be more fit. Also, this cops tactics and gun handling in general are pretty poor, but let’s go ahead and step. So this man here on the right with the, the taller man has a large stick, it looks like it’s five or 6 ft long.

He’s striking at the officer with an, the stick does break. So the wood may have been rotten or defective in some way. But of course, there’s no way you would know that when the blow is coming at you. Uh The cop has him at gunpoint. So this taller man is advancing into the muzzle of the officer’s gun. You’ll note the officer has his gun in one hand.

That’s extremely imprudent, especially at this distance. If any of you carry a gun for personal protection or even have a gun in the home, especially a handgun. And you’ve never taken a weapons retention course, I urge you to take one, uh even if you don’t think it’ll ever happen to you. If only so it informs you on how easy it is to strip a handgun from a wielder. It’s shockingly easy to take a gun off somebody, especially if they have it in just one hand.

So uh this officer is uh facing the sky. Let’s go ahead and play the clip and run right through it. Here we go man. Shoot today, shoot his ass. Sorry, I forgot to mention we have the shoot his ass guy in the car who’s taking this video.

My apologies. There’s bad language as well. Start it over. I’m I’m gonna start it from the beginning, man.

You today, shoot his ass. Damn. Ok.

So we have the man advancing with the stick. He strikes with the stick, the stick breaks against the cop’s arm. The cop still isn’t shooting the stick comes back up.

It’s brought down again, man is still advancing and about this point the cop decides, all right, I’m gonna shoot this guy a couple lessons here. One is, could either one of those blows with that stick have completely disabled that officer broken his arm, broken his head, knocked him unconscious. Is this a deadly force attack by this aggressor? An imminent deadly force attack by this aggressor? Absolutely. If he disables the officer and seizes the officer’s pistol, is he now even a greater threat, not just to that officer but other people around and we know there’s other people around because there’s a man recording this on his camera a good distance from that red light in the background.

So there’s likely a line of cars all full of innocent people. This lunatic with a stick could disable this officer take is gonna be a threat, not just to the officer, although certainly to him, but also to everybody else. What kind of lunatic is advancing with the stick into the muzzle, the drawn pistol of a police officer like this. This is obviously not a rational person whose reason is going to constrain them from using deadly force. They’re using deadly force force readily capable of causing death or serious bodily injury against this officer right now by the way, who comes to the officers help nobody, nobody, not even the dude in the car advocating the officer shoot his ass is getting out of his car to help the cop. Now given the nature of the attack by the man with the stick, could could three or four people neutralize that attack. Sure easily.

He’s not gonna beat them all off with a stick. But here’s the lesson here folks. No one’s coming to save you. And if you’re a cop, no one’s coming to save you. If you’re a civilian, no one is coming to save you. Hey, if that happens, bonus. But we’ve all seen the videos now people on subways, people being attacked.

No one comes to save them. Why? Because we’ve all also seen the videos where people do intervene and they end up dead or maimed or prosecuted. So our society is created an environment in which intervening in other people’s fights is, is so strongly discouraged, you simply cannot expect any help. So this cop, I would argue could be using deadly force. The moment that man starts closing on him with that stick, this is an imminent deadly force threat already and he’s not, he’s waiting, he’s waiting so long that he actually gets struck hard enough that the stick breaks.

Are you required to wait until you’re struck before you can defend yourself? No, you’re privileged to defend yourself against the imminent threat. The threat that’s immediately about to occur when this stick is raised like this is this cop facing an imminent deadly force threat. Yes, absolutely.

He still doesn’t shoot. Could he be shooting here in self defense? Yes. Should he be? Well, what’s the risk of not the risk is getting killed or maimed with this stick? And it’s not just one blow. There’s another blow. I presume it’s off camera, but the stick is coming up again. The man is still advancing and it’s only now that the officers start shooting, by the way, how many shots does he fire before this aggressor goes down? Let’s play that part again.

So you can count them with me. And then at the end, I’ll tell you how many I counted ready. Here we go. Shoot his ass. Damn. And only then does the suspect go down? Now at this range? Almost contact distance? I presume the officer is not missing, right? He’s got a nice big blue circle there. I presume he’s getting center mass hits on this guy.

I count 12 shots, 12 shots, presumably nine millimeter mo into this guy’s chest at contact distance. And you would never know this guy was being shot until the very end when he finally falls over 12 rounds. Now, if you shot someone with 12 rounds, do you think a prosecutor might argue that that was too many? Why would you ever need 12 rounds to stop someone we all see in the movies a person gets shot once and they go flying backwards across the room. Can one shot kill the last medical examiner? Oh, absolutely. So why would you need 12 shots? Could all of those have been fatal shots? Meaning that if the CPI shot once eventually this aggressor would have died maybe, right? If they’re all into the pump, they’re all around the heart, the pulmonary arteries, the aorta, all of those would be fatal. There’s no recovery from that, but you’re not dead right away.

Are you, you’re still capable of aggressive action? What if this aggressor had a knife or had a gun of his own? Could he be returning fire during the time? It took that officer to fire 12 rounds to his chest? Sure. So one of the dangers of waiting is that your defensive force is unlikely to be instantaneously effective. Even if your defensive force is a pistol being fired at point blank range into the aggressor’s chest.

It could take 12 rounds a couple seconds, three seconds long enough for that person to kill you. So maybe you can’t wait until the last extremity to begin your use of defensive force because it takes time for your defensive force to have the desired neutralizing effect. And you cannot predict that ahead of time. You’ve now seen a video where a deadly force aggressor advancing on a cop had to take 12 rounds to the chest before he was effectively neutralized and no longer a threat. In hindsight, should this officer have been firing sooner? I would think.

So. Look at him, he doesn’t look, he doesn’t look at all disabled here and only now you see his legs start to go, he’s losing blood pressure, maybe pain. If he had a knife at this point, could he still be swinging? It? Could he still be striking with that stick? And of course, you don’t know, you can’t tell, can you, you can’t tell if you’re hitting? I mean, there, there’s no, it’s not like shooting at one of these, you know, the paper targets where the bullet impact changes color.

You don’t really know. I mean, you’d like to think you’re not missing at this distance. But what if the distance were a little further? 10 ft 15 ft. You, you, you don’t actually know where your bullets are striking, what effect they’re having, what drugs this person is on. What mental disorders they’re suffering under what psychoses, how able they are to fight through that deadly force that you’re deploying. Only then at the very end. And by the way, the cops stopped shooting and I can’t help but wonder if he stopped shooting because the, the gun just ran dry.

That was it. That was his maximum use of force available to him. All right. So that’s the first video I wanted to share with all of you. Let’s take a look now at the comments before we get to the second video, the Din Keller video.

Uh Steve. Uh So everyone’s excited about the Palmetto State Armory deal. Um Yeah, Zachary put the link in there. Palmetto always has great deals. I’m, I’m almost embarrassed at how many of their, uh their A RS I’ve purchased.

Um, they’re great. Even the kits, even just the lowers folks, they run sales on, uh they call them blemished lowers A R lowers, but just the uh uh I don’t mean the whole lower. I mean just the uh God, why am I blanking him? The unbuilt lower, right? The firearm part of the A R um unbelievable, sometimes 30 bucks, 39 bucks. And I’ve never been able to find a blemish on them and then that’s the part that has to go through the FFL. Um And then once you have that you can just mail order the rest of the rifle and build it out at your convenience. The at least the lowers are very easy to build.

Let’s see. Yeah. Uh, Jeffrey says he won’t take his expensive German motorcycle habit here to Ohio. Too many flat areas to make it interesting. I would ride around in Ohio. Ohio’s got some nice places to ride. Uh, but to get my motorcycle from Denver to Ohio, I have to go across Kansas.

That’s no fun. I’ve done that. Let’s see.

Yeah, Zachary says the amount of hits before that guy stops advancing is surprising, right? So if you didn’t have the benefit of this video, if a jury didn’t have the benefit of seeing this video and all they heard was the prosecutor saying obviously 12 rounds to someone’s chest from 3 ft away was unnecessary, excessive force. Would that be a compelling argument to a jury? An argument that gets a lot less compelling if they saw this video? Let’s see. Yeah. So, I mean, could this officer have fired five or six shots into the chest and then started shooting into the head? Yeah, of course. I mean, there, it’s all deadly force.

It’s not like it’s more deadly force if you’re shooting him in the face. Um, he’s, he’s probably not, doesn’t think himself competent to take a headshot even at that range. It, it would not be common training. I mean, headshots at all would presumably he’s been trained somewhat, but it would be a very tiny fraction of his training. Uh, Joshua asked what was the name of the raw video. So I can look, look it up after the show.

I’ll, I’ll put a link to the just the raw video stand alone video in the description for the uh the law self-defense blog version of today’s show, folks for both this and Din Keller, uh Stogies and boom sticks. Question would using force too soon be worse or the same for the validity of your claim of self defense. It, it’s too fact sensitive a question to give a blanket answer. Um You know, they can always argue you were what, 1/10 of a second, a second too soon. That’s not where people tend to get into trouble. They tend to get into trouble where there’s a wide margin between when you chose to use force and when a reasonable person would actually have perceived the threat as being imminent.

Uh Let’s see. Yeah, Mozambique, the Mozambique drill. Uh for those uh who may not be familiar, it’s uh two shots to the chest, one shot to the head. The idea being that if the two shots to the chest are ineffective, uh, it may mean the person’s wearing body armor and therefore you go to the head, the head is typically a, a more difficult shot but more decisive if you make the head sometimes. But that’s the drill. I learned it from Jeff Cooper himself back in the day. That’s how old I am.

John says, question Andrew. Although waiting to discharge a firearm is compromising the imminence element of self defense law would not waiting, enhance the avoidance and reasonableness of self defense. Sure.

Uh But at what cost? So, II I just do the legal side of use of force events, right? But um the physical side is the more important side. If, if you don’t survive the fight, the legal stuff doesn’t really matter. So you have to win the fight first. So you always have to think if, if you’re, I don’t get into fights, you don’t need to get into consistent with your safety and the safety of people. You have a duty to protect.

Now, I can’t tell you where that line is. How long, how patient you should be, how long you should wait. When you should start using force only, you can make that decision based on what you’re being presented again. Small changes in facts lead to big changes in tactical and legal outcomes. But I urge you to watch videos like this shows like this and think about when you would be prepared to use force, maybe you would have backed up longer than the officer. And I, I’m not saying that’s the wrong thing to do, but it comes with consequences, right? It comes with risks.

Maybe you would have shot sooner than the officer. I probably would have. But it’s not like that doesn’t come with legal risks either. So you have to make your own call again, I can’t tell you what to do. I, I won’t tell you what to do. I just want you to make an informed decision.

Uh, Steve. Yeah, Steve, I’ll give you a call when I get off the, uh, get off the show. All right. So let’s move on now to the second video. This is a, uh, well known video from 1998. Uh, a police officer, Dink Heller pulls over a suspect driving a pickup truck.

The whole video is only 3.5 minutes long, but it feels like it’s 30 minutes long. Folks. It’s that it’s that hard to watch.

It’s become uh an extremely common. I, I would think universal now in police training, uh most civilians interested in self defense at a meaningful level have probably seen this video, the Dink Heller video, uh Dink Heller, fair warning. He dies in this encounter. He’s murdered right there beside his patrol vehicle. Um Well, let’s run right through the right through it and uh and then I’ll, I’ll share my thoughts and comments on it again.

This is in large part, a documentary and also I’ll put a link to this raw video in the description, a stand alone link um in the description for the law self defense version of today’s show here. Uh Let’s see, I guess I gotta pull it up before I can play it. So obviously, dash cam footage.

Uh This is the patrol car. There’s the suspect’s vehicle in front of the patrol car. Driver, step back here to me.

Come on back here for me. Come on back. How you doing today? You come on back here, keep your hands out of your pocket.

Keep your hands out of your pocket, sir. But here I am. Come here, sir. Come here 37 radio since 78.

So sir, get back. Where are you from, sir? Get back now, get back, get back, get back now get back, get back now. Get back sir. Go and get back and back and I am not hurt.

Step back now get back, get back, get back now. Can can I say sir? Step back now so get back now. Ok, thanks.

So that you go now your I do my life. Get back here now. That’s the way you talk to God know.

Well, I got now again I be wrong. I don’t put it down now. Put the God down just to go now. She no uh mhm. Mhm. Go got it.

You do. Ok. Ok. Yes, you got it.

Ok. And that’s the end of that tragic video, Dan Keller again. I’ll put a link to the stand alone video in the comments for law self-defense members. 3.5 minutes, three minutes, 34 seconds and so many tragic lessons to be learned. But I’d like to preface my comments by saying I’m not saying any of this to disparage Dinker. The officer um his own father, King Keller’s father gives talks to other police officers about the the tactical mistakes his son made here so that other officers can learn from it.

So I don’t mean to be personally disparaging Dan killer, but he made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Uh Before we even get to those. The first lesson here, did the suspect here know he was dealing with a police officer armed with a pistol? Sure he did.

Of course he did. Was he intimidated by the fact that the police officer had a pistol? No, this guy turns out the suspect was a combat veteran. Obviously new small unit infantry tactics used them here. You can see them, he couldn’t care less that officer had a gun. You think a bad guy particularly cares whether you have a gun, you think he’ll be intimidated by that? I mean, maybe and a lot of self defense gun uses no shots are fired. The bad guy sees the gun and runs away. But can you count on that or might the bad guy still aggressively come at you despite the fact that he knows you’re armed.

Do you need to be prepared for that possibility? Because that’s what happened here. The suspect, a monster, by the way I mentioned in the context of Steve Gosney book death penalty debates available at Steve gosney.com that uh we would be touching on the death penalty in today’s show. And that’s because this suspect Andrew Brannan was ultimately executed for the killing of deputy Kyle Dinker. Kyle was killed in 1998.

The execution didn’t happen until January 2015, but he was ultimately executed for the killing of Din Keller. Doesn’t bring Dan Keller back to life. Doesn’t give the son back to the father.

How many times did we hear Dink Heller give verbal commands to this suspect? Even after the suspect had apparently shot him with a rifle, he’s still giving verbal commands to the suspect, sir. Stop. What is the real purpose of verbal commands? Again? In my view, the real value of verbal commands is not to compel the other person to obey your commands. That’s not up to you.

That’s up to them if they do obey great. But, but that’s, that’s just a bonus. The real benefit of verbal commands is to strip away any ambiguity from the scenario. Now, was there ambiguity here? Uh Initially arguably the suspect gets out of the truck, you’re telling him to come back to you, then he walks back to his truck. He’s going into the truck. And by the way, folks, if you’re in a dispute with someone and they create distance with the apparent intention of coming back, they’re not coming back because they like you, they left and are coming back because they left to get a weapon, they left to get friends. It’s not going to get better for you when they’re back.

This is why cops are so nervous when a suspect who’s out of the vehicle reaches back into the vehicle. Can the officer know that there’s a weapon being retrieved from the vehicle? Of, of course not, we can’t see the future. Have police officers seen scores of videos like this one where, what the suspect came out with was a weapon from the vehicle, which of course is where the weapon would be, would be, that’s where the weapon would be accessible. Absolutely.

So I’ve seen many shootings where officers shot a suspect and it was described as a suspect being unarmed at the moment, they were shot, but guess what they were doing, they were reaching back into their vehicle. So there are points early in this encounter where it’s not obvious there’s going to be a deadly force fight but the suspects being non compliant. So I, I don’t know exactly why Dan Keller gave so many verbal commands that were clearly ineffective even after the suspect had a rifle out, even after the suspect was shooting at him, even after the suspect apparently shot him. I don’t know if Dan Keller had just been through some training where he was discouraged from going to deadly force if he just been chastised, maybe for an earlier premature use or threat of deadly force. So he was, he, he, it had a chilling effect on his use of force decision making.

But when that suspect’s hands go inside his vehicle, Dan Keller, if not already shooting should have been prepared to be bringing lethal fire on that suspect in the next instant. And certainly when a suspect comes out with a rifle, is there any ambiguity anymore about what’s going on or do we have and clearly unlawful, eminent threat of deadly force happening? You don’t have to wait to get shot. You don’t have to wait for the muzzle to be at you. Frankly, I would argue, you don’t need to wait to see the rifle, an erratic non compliant suspect out of his vehicle reaching back into it.

I think that’s a defensible deadly force scenario for a police officer right there. But certainly once the weapon becomes visible, the time for talking is over, but not for Dan Keller. Dick Keller just kept talking, kept talking, kept, he even says at one point, I’m in fear for my life.

Why would you say that? Why would you say that either you are or you’re not? And if you are, you should be using deadly defensive force to neutralize that threat to your life. Again, the time for talking is over, there’s, there’s no sense to verbalizing that. I mean, what so it’ll be caught on, on body camera on dash cam for the record. The facts support the use of deadly defensive force tr tragedy. Just a complete tragedy and, and talking, talking, talking, talking. So what did Dan Keller do? He waited too long.

He waited too long. He should have been prepared to have his pistol in hand here. His pistol should have been out of the holster when this man’s advancing and ready to engage with fire right here. And when this guy goes back to the car reaches in, comes back with that weapon. He should have killed them at this point.

We’re one minute 20 seconds into this video. So another two minutes, the video will continue with Dean Heller shouting verbal commands at the suspect who’s just retrieved a rifle from his vehicle until Dink, he is ultimately killed two minutes in which Dan Keller is. I mean, he starts returning fire but the verbal commands never stop and then he returns fire ineffectively. I mean, understandably he’s, you know, a handgun against rifle. It’s not a good bet, but this is a common distance in which police officers need to be able to deploy their handguns effectively, right? A car length behind another vehicle.

Tragic. So what are one of the consequences of waiting too long from Dink Keller? Of giving too many verbal commands? You die. You die.

Now, might a prosecutor argue for you? I didn’t bring it back up. This is one minute 20 seconds into the video. Dean Keller just brought his rifle out of the vehicle. That’s it.

He should have died right there. The suspect, uh sorry, Dean Keller didn’t bring his rifle out. The suspect brought his rifle out of his vehicle.

Dean Keller should have been engaging with deadly force right there and effectively and neutralized the suspect. We have two more minutes of verbal commands and an exchange of gunfire from a disadvantageous position for Din Keller resulting in his death. So there comes a point at which the ongoing giving of verbal commands is never, first of all, verbal commands are not legally required, right? Verbal commands are not an element of self defense. It’s nice if you can do it. If you have the luxury consistent with safety to give verbal commands, if there’s ambiguity about what’s going on, strip away the ambiguity with the verbal commands, compel that other person to either stop doing what’s scaring you or to act consistent with being a deadly force threat. But when the prosecutor says, well, you, you could have kept talking, you didn’t have to be shooting.

Might it be nice to be able to explain to the jury in an evidence based way one of the consequences of talking too long that there comes a point where the verbal commands no longer make tactical sense in addition to not being legally required in the first place, that one of the consequences of continuing to attempt to talk to the person trying to kill you is that they kill you. So that was the second purpose for today show. All right, let me take another look at the chat here. Uh Let’s see, Allen says, thank you for your presentation of the video viewing.

The police officer’s discharge of 12 rounds of department approved ammunition is unsettling at best nine millimeter ammunition. After the FB FBI Miami event was reported to be much improved. It is much improved nine millimeter ammunition. Today is head and shoulders above what it was uh in the 19 eighties, it’s still just a pistol round.

Uh Let’s see. Yeah, Eric can’t believe how long this officer is waiting and he paid the ultimate price. Uh Joe says, comment Tom Cruise demonstrates the Mozambique drill on two Attackers in the 2004 film Collateral. I did a show on Collateral on that shooting scene.

Let me see if I can find it quick if I can find it. I’m, I’m not gonna play it here. Uh But uh I’ll put a link to it. Yeah, I think I did it back in 2020. I’ll have to, I’ll have to dig it up folks. If I can find it, I’ll put a link in the comments. Let’s see.

And Tony says if only he had a burner, it was 60 ft away. That’s funny. Steve Gosney says tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on my Rumble Channel, I will discuss the beyond a reasonable doubt, standard of proof. That’ll be good.

Join Steve 8 p.m. Eastern Time tonight on his Rumble channel. Yeah, folks, if you, if you Google Dink Heller, you’ll get not only the Dink Keller video but lots of other similar videos.

There’s dozens of them that are very similar traffic stop suspect comes out with a gun kills the officer. Uh Let’s see, John says in Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Cooper Cooper has two Os John, I presume just a typo. Um, the book entitled Principles of Personal Defense.

It’s almost more like a pamphlet. Uh I, I have it, of course, he talks about the, the second principle is decisiveness. Um And that’s true. Again, I always urge people don’t get into fights, you don’t need to get into. But when it’s time to fight, you have to fight 100 and 50%. So you have to think ahead of time about when are you prepared to make flip that switch? Don’t fight ambivalently. That’s, that’s pointless.

Let’s see. All right, I think those are all the uh substantive comments besides the uh chatting of the members amongst yourselves, which of course is totally fine. It’s part of being a member of the law of self defense community and we’re just over an hour and 20 minutes into the show, which is about my limit. Um Oh, I said I was gonna share some scheduling, so I’m about to leave for my Eastern European motorcycle trip and I am preparing a bunch of pre-recorded shows for the law of self defense members.

Um These are going to consist largely of readings of the three major seminal Second Amendment Supreme Court decisions since 2008. Uh Heller macdonald and Bruin. Bruin, I’ve recorded in full uh both the majority uh decision and the dissent, the majority of the concurrences. There’s, I believe three concurrences with Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion. Uh, and the dissent, uh Heller and mcdonald, I won’t have time to record in their entirety. Uh Heller’s al already recorded the majority decision, which is really what counts.

Um And I’m going to try to get the mcdonald’s majority decision done as well, but I leave in 24 hours. So I’ll have to see if I can get that done. But that’s kind of the plan. Uh I’m going to bring my little portable law self-defense studio with me. Um And if I have the opportunity during the course of the trip to, uh I’m told the wi fi there is excellent. So if I have the opportunity to do a live stream from Eastern Europe, I’ll set up my little studio and do that, but I won’t know that until I’m on the ground.

Um So that’s kind of what we’re looking at for the next week or two until I’m uh back in the office and doing the normal schedule again. All right. So folks, that’s all I have to share with all of you today. I just remind all of you that if you carry again, carry pepper spray, learn B JJ, whatever you do so that you’re hard to kill. So your family is hard to kill.

You also owe it to your friends and your, your, your friends, I guess your friends do. You also owe it to yourself and your family to make sure you know the law. So you’re hard to convict as well. Until next time I remain attorney Andrew Branca for a law of self defense. Stay safe.