Legal problems using a Ak?

[TR675]

One thing to remember...[snip]

Outstanding post.

[TheTrevor]

When I bought my most recent shotgun, I had a choice between the "Threat Response" model in all-black or the "Turkey" model with forest-camo furniture. I went with the Turkey model, not because I thought it would hide me from the gobblers any better, but because it would be easy to articulate that its primary purpose is hunting turkey and coyote, not people. The mounted flashlight? Also for coyote.



It's not necessarily the tool I grab first, but it's nice having a force option that doesn't immediately scream "premeditated murder" to gun-ignorant Californians.

[Odin Bravo One]

Legally,

the means justifies the end.

On the books.

As a cop. a golf club once justified the means. As a private civilian, a crowbar was not seen in the same light. As a soldier, .300 WM from 1k was just fine.................

[Tamara]

Some very smart stuff. He who hath ears, let him hear.

I find it telling that, almost to a man, everybody I know with actual experience in this area says the same thing, while all the guys philosophizin' and hypothesizin' in GenDisc say something else. I consider this to be something of a clue.

Basing my choices on that information, I nevertheless do actually have an AR for home defense, to be used under certain circumstances:

1. Someone has gone through the rather large amount of fairly obvious and noisy effort it would take to get into the house and they are coming towards me despite my shouted warnings and frantic yelling to the 911 dispatcher, or
2. The horizon is flame orange against the night sky because the city I live in is being pillaged by rampaging mobs in the street.

Those are circumstances in which I feel any reasonable person would understand using the absolute most advantageous weapon I can get my hands on to protect myself, my roommate, and my home.

[TheTrevor]

"Temporary post-apocalyptic conditions following a Really Big Earthquake" is a credible and oft-cited scenario for having the AR out of the safe and ready to use in CA.

[Symmetry]

1. Someone has gone through the rather large amount of fairly obvious and noisy effort it would take to get into the house and they are coming towards me despite my shouted warnings and frantic yelling to the 911 dispatcher, or
2. The horizon is flame orange against the night sky because the city I live in is being pillaged by rampaging mobs in the street.

Those are circumstances in which I feel any reasonable person would understand using the absolute most advantageous weapon I can get my hands on to protect myself, my roommate, and my home.

No doubt, everyone should be adequately prepared for that.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Blah, blah - sorry to say that. Here's the deal. Many things influence juries. It has been studied into the dirt. Appearance counts. One should know that. YOU should know that because if you go to trial (so I guess it isn't a good shoot) - your lawyer should be aware of such factors and be aware of dealing with them. So if you use XY or Z - just as you should know how to shoot XY or Z, you and your team better be able to justify it or mitigate the appearance issues. I will remind you that jury research indicates that the DA doesn't have to make a big speech about your evil gun - the simple presentation of the gun can influence some - esp. if they have negative firearms attitudes. Such can reside in pure antigun folks or the followers of the God Zumbo.

Let me give you an example.

An officer gets into an incident with a developmentally delayed individual with a rake (IIRC - might have a detail off but the gist is correct). He ends up shooting the poor soul. So it's not a good shoot (now how could that be - all our shoots will be good shoots). He goes to trial. At the time of shooting, he has a brush cut and white sidewalls on his noggin. His official photo is a glowering, intimidating sourpuss. Now he is on the stand. Guess what, he is wearing a very professional three piece suit, his hair is grown out and neatly styled. He wears little half reading glasses when he looks at documents. Wonder why?

Now I go the range, the SO is checking guns. There is a guy with a Glock and a white skull Punisher icon on the back of the slide. Like to show that to the jury?

As far as an AR vs an AK - we never tested that one. The AR vs. other guns effect was strong. I'd bet that an AK would also look nasty to folks so inclined.

Jury attitudes are important. Yesterday, I after doing a jury talk, I discussed with several gun friendly female grad students about ARs. They wanted one but their male expert BF or Dads were pushing 12 gauge, you can't miss - ENUF SAID. I told them that an AR is easier to use and know the jury literature. That's the take away from the articles.

Bottom line:
A. Your shoot will not be necessarily good
B. Appearances count - be read to deal with it.

References for the general and specific appearance and gun issues:

Branscombe, N., Crosby, P., & Weir, J. A. (1993). Social inferences concerning male and female homeowners who use a gun to shoot an intruder. Aggressive Behavior, 19(2), 113-124.
Devine, D. J. (2012). Jury decision making: the state of the science. New York, NY: NYU Press.
Dienstbier, R. A., Roesch, S. C., Mizumoto, A., Hemenover, S. H., Lott, Roger C., & Carlo, G. (1998). Effects of weapons on guilt judgments and sentencing recommendations for criminals. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 20, 93-102.
Meyer, G. E., Baños, A. S., Gerondale, T., Kiriazes, K. Lakin, C. M. & Rinker, A. C. (2009). Juries, gender, and assault weapons. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 945–972.

Zumbo effect:

Bartholow, B. D., Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Benjamin, A. (2005). Interactive effects of life experience and situational cues on aggression: The weapons priming effect in hunters and nonhunters. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 48-60

BTW - years ago my local gun club (IDPA and USPSA) asked me to talk about this. One member decided that I was an evil pawn of the UN sent to take his gun. It took a couple of Federal agents to try to convince him he was missing the point. Nor am I in an evil conspiracy with a well known gun trainer (of some controversial reputation) to do some evil (that was on ARF).

Grins on that.

[Tamara]

No doubt, everyone should be adequately prepared for that.

There hasn't been an overturned cop car burning in the middle of the street within thirteen blocks of the chair in which I'm typing this in just over fifteen years, so I'm not excessively worried.

As long as the dope dealers keep their Magellans updated, I'm not terribly worried about the home invasion scenario, either, which is not to say that there haven't been some horrific ones recently in the Naptown area that fell outside the usual "one batch of dopers offing another" envelope.

[Tamara]

Bottom line:
A. Your shoot will not be necessarily good
B. Appearances count - be read to deal with it.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why half the gunternet sees those as some kind of wacky, radical assertion.

[TR675]

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why half the gunternet sees those as some kind of wacky, radical assertion.

Because we supporters of the 2nd must purge the heathens. If there are no heathens, we must create them.

Quite seriously. I think I got called a commie or something on another site when I challenged the "it'll be a good shoot, of course it will" orthodoxy.