Pariah3j wrote:anygunanywhere wrote:montgomery wrote:... Noah Dukart told KTTC-TV. “Then my friend said, ‘I dare you,’ and he shot him right in the heart.”
Everyone knows that self defense applies as a legal defense only on double dog dares.
Excellent point.
the double dog dare made me chuckle
But in all seriousness, think someone says "I dare you!" while backing up or walking away? My guess is he did that while puffing up his chest and getting closer. Someone does that to me when I already feel threatened enough to pull a gun and point it at them, and I believe my trigger finger is going to start getting itchy. The situation would ultimately decide on the outcome, but I could see where that was justifiably perceived as a threat.
I'm picturing the LTC'er standing there with a drawn gun facing an aggressor who is very close to him. If that were me*, my focus would be on the other guy's hands, not his words. To me, this is much like the situations we have seen with LEO shootings of unarmed folks. We can infer from the friend's statements that the aggressor was not backing away after seeing the gun. To me, that would be a huge red flag that I might be dealing with someone who is either high or mentally unstable. We also know that the aggressor was attempting to escalate the situation by using words that are designed to provoke a reaction. If the aggressor moved his hand toward the gun, even slightly, a reasonable person would likely conclude that this aggressive, and likely unstable, person was trying to grab the gun. Once he gets a hold of it, he and his friend could easily overpower and then murder their victim.
If this goes in front of the same type of grand jury that has heard recent cases of officer involved shootings across the country, then this is an easy no bill.
*note that I would like to think I would have handled this differently prior to this point, and would not draw a gun against someone at bad breath distance unless I was going to immediately fire in fear for my life.
