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Austinrealtor, thank you for your excellent and through reply. You outlined what I did last night (reread through all the statues to find the justification). While I did not consider the aggravated kidnapping application, the only thing I could see applying was attempted murder. I guess what concerned me was the definition of attempted murder. Does he have to take some very aggressive action like firing the gun or hitting someone before it's considered "attempted" or is pointing the gun and his displayed behavior enough? Again, upon viewing the video, my intuition said yes, his actions prior to actually firing were enough to justify intervention but I questioned the precise legal definition of attempted murder.

For some reason, I didn't even apply 9.22 thinking that was related to the Public Duty section only. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to my CHL renewal class coming up to reaffirm my understandings (or misunderstandings ) and align my "gut" with the law.

Cheers!

G192627 wrote:No question it would have been legal. There isn't any way in the world she could have not proven it was to protect the lives of those in the room. The bad guy doesn't have to pull the trigger first. He has to threaten your life first, and by 'waving his gun around' and dismissing everyone but a few, it's unquestionable what his intentions could be...

That was also my initial gut reaction to the situation. Glad someone else agrees (lawyer or not).

Regarding the lady who tried to disrupt the shooter with her purse. I've read a lot of comments on other gun boards (and a few here) that it would have been better had she had a gun and used it. While I don't disagree with that sentiment, I'm curious from a legal perspective (assuming this had happened in TX) if she would have been justified in shooting the man at that point? He was waving a gun around and I can't recall if he had threatened to shoot anyone yet. Even if he had verbally threatened, is that enough? Would her justification have been preventing attempted murder?

Obviously, once he fired a shot, it's game time and you do what the security guard did. But at any point earlier, would a preemptive use of deadly force by a CHL holder put him/her in legal jeopardy for this situation?

I went back and reread the TX CHL laws and haven't been able to fully convince myself that it would be defensible. Am I missing something?