Reply #29: There is only one person who can adequately answer that question.

[rrneck]

I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.

John Castle as Prince Geoffrey
The Lion in Winter 1968

We all walk around in a cloud of sense impressions, memories, assumptions, emotions, dogmas, facts, and fallacies. One of the things that makes us human is our ability to predict future events based on past experience and present conditions.

I answered "yes" to the question because I gave the benefit of the doubt to the person being assaulted. That's because I assumed that the robber would probably be armed and willing to use the weapon against me or somebody else. But maybe not. Is the robber somebody's kid from down the street or someone that Mike Tyson wouldn't fuck with? It is hard to separate rape and beating, they usually go together. Sometimes people get robbed, beaten, and raped. In the case of beating, are we talking bitch slap, a shoving match, or lead pipe here? In the case of rape was the victim being stalked and harassed for weeks prior to the event, or was it a dark alley crime of opportunity? We could spin scenarios all day long and come no closer to an answer because the only person who can make that call is the one present at the event at that point in time. At that moment, the potential victim will have to asses a huge range of information regarding the tactical situation and decide to use deadly force based on that decision. The entire process probably takes about five seconds. And it could all hinge on whether or not a hand gets raised or a glance in the wrong direction. A confrontation like that represents a series of tactical reassessments compressed into an impossibly short space of time. But in the end, the moment we act, the moment the trigger gets pressed, represents a prediction of a future event. Welcome to the human condition.

I read a while back that mathematicians are having a terrible time predicting (mathematically) the relationship between a parachute and the air that surrounds it. The shape of the chute changes the airflow, and the airflow changes the shape of the chute. The variables involved in this simple interaction are astronomical, and that makes it very hard to predict. And that's just a parachute! We would all like to hope we would do the right thing when the time came, but that event depends on an impossibly large set of variables that get established along a time line well before the event. As the potential victim gets closer to the event s/he will be able to produce fewer and fewer scenarios (future predictions) about what will happen and how to extricate themselves from danger. The potential assailant has basically the same information. In the end, if no other options present themselves, deadly force is the only option available for somebody. And that represents a worst case scenario.

But at this point in time, in this forum, we have no way to know how to answer the question because there are no real exigent circumstances upon which to base a prediction. There are just too many variables that are little more than fiction. We can quote the law, but that won't help us answer the question really, because the law can only be used after the event to determine culpability.

So my too short post, "People are more important than stuff. If you have a choice, don't do it.", depends on the requirement of a potential victim to make constant and very rapid reevaluations regarding the potential threat and use only deadly force in the defense of human life rather than in defense of property. Of course, now I have written a too long post. Sorry. As you can see, I'm working through this issue myself.

But that's good, really. The original question was impossible to answer, but it was a question that needed to be asked. Once again, welcome to the human condition.