I live in Kentucky.
A couple of years ago, I moved out of a particular apartment. While I was living there, the landlord of the apartment proved to be mentally insane. He was very mean and aggressive, and he would at times use his key to open my door without my permission and then physically attack me for no reason. Sometimes, I would go outside in the yard of the apartment building and sit down, and as I did this he would sometimes show up and walk up to me and harass or attack me. Once, he and a friend of his dropped by and the both of them ended up ganging up on me and seriously trying to hurt me, but I fought them both off. Over a period of months when I was living there, he attacked me many times.
After moving out, I once was talking to a woman about the ordeal I had gone through. At one point she asked me, "Why didn't you just shoot him?" I thought this was kind of a strange question. I did not own a gun at the time, nor have I ever owned a gun, nor do I own one now. For a number of reasons, I don't like guns. But I found it odd that she just assumed I was a gun owner. When I think about it, it seems like anytime people talk about "self-defense" in the news, they are talking about the possession and use of firearms. Accordingly, when people talk about the laws pertaining to self-defense, they are also usually talking about the laws pertaining to the use of guns. As a result, I don't really hear much about the legal rules pertaining to self-defense without a gun, or when and how to take lethal force without a gun.
When I was living at that apartment and being persecuted by my landlord, there were several times where I came fairly close to killing him. At least twice when he would attack me while I was sitting outside, I tackled him to the ground and put my hands around his neck to strangle him; on both occasions, someone carrying a gun would come along and order me to get off him, and I did. Once, when he attacked me inside my apartment, we were scuffling on the ground and at one point I noticed a 45-pound dumbbell lying close-by, so I picked it up and smashed it onto the floor close to his head to scare him. I seriously considered just smashing his skull in with it, but was unsure of the legal implications if I had done that. And on several occasions, I threatened him with a knife and came very close to stabbing him to death. At one time, he and I were fighting outside and I managed to punch him enough times in the head that he fell to the ground, whereupon I started kicked him as hard as I could in his head; I was honestly hoping he would die, but he didn't.
My question involves the legality of killing someone in self-defense without a gun. One large distinction between a gun and most other weapons is that with a gun, death can be dealt instantly or within a small frame of time. On the other hand, weapons such as knives, dumbbells, feet, hands and fists tend to take longer and require more effort. With a gun, I could kill someone with one bullet or a rapid volley of bullets within a second or two; however, alternatively I may have to use multiple smashes to the skull with a dumbbell or multiple kicks to the head to achieve the same effect. A gun is a device that makes killing so efficient that you can kill someone with no hint of anger or excess, whereas gun-less killing can tend to seem more like something fueled by anger and malice.
While discussing this same situation on another thread, one person said to me that I could not choke my landlord to death after he attacked me in my apartment because at a certain point before dying he would have lost consciousness and ceased to be a threat, and that continuing to apply a choke would be considered excessive force. I don't know whether what that commenter said was true, but if it is true it doesn't make any sense to me. If I find myself in a situation where lethal force is legally admissible, I think I should be able to do it by whatever means are available to me. I don't think it's fair that people with guns are permitted to commit significant violence against others because that violence is rendered quickly and neatly, whereas I am restrained from dealing an equal amount of violence with my limbs or with simple objects because doing so would look relatively brutal and ugly.
You might think that it was the right thing to do for me to spare my landlord's life, since all turned out OK in the end, but hindsight is 20/20; my mercy towards him could have just as easily turned out badly. I think I should be able to kill people under the same circumstances in which a gun owner has a right to kill people. I don't think I should have to hesitate or show lenience just because I lack the appropriate death machine. You might think that instead of killing my landlord, I should have just moved out after the first attack. I realize in hindsight that that would have been the wise choice, but the central issue here still applies nonetheless.
I can't help but compare my situation to the recent "stand your ground" case that occurred in Florida. A gun-carrying man, in an instant, shot another man through the heart with one bullet and killed him . . . because the man pushed him. The shooter has now been arrested, but that doesn't change the fact that the law very nearly let him get away with it. This case was something of an eye-opener for me since my landlord committed exponentially more violence against me, and yet I felt handcuffed to do anything about it. To give another example, I can remember one time, in an unrelated incident, when a man pulled a gun on me to, presumably, try to shoot me. I struggled with him in order to control his gun hand and prevent him from getting a shot off at me. I grabbed a knife and began stabbing him in the side of his neck to subdue him, yet he still continued struggling. At that point, I really wanted to kill him; I wanted to stab him right in the throat and sever his trachea, or maybe slash his carotids, but I hesitated because I just didn't know what the law would have to say about those methods.
I suppose my question here is: what are the rules concerning me killing an attacker with my bare hands? What are the rules concerning choking someone to death, beating someone to death, stabbing someone to death, etc., in self defense?
A couple of years ago, I moved out of a particular apartment. While I was living there, the landlord of the apartment proved to be mentally insane. He was very mean and aggressive, and he would at times use his key to open my door without my permission and then physically attack me for no reason. Sometimes, I would go outside in the yard of the apartment building and sit down, and as I did this he would sometimes show up and walk up to me and harass or attack me. Once, he and a friend of his dropped by and the both of them ended up ganging up on me and seriously trying to hurt me, but I fought them both off. Over a period of months when I was living there, he attacked me many times.
After moving out, I once was talking to a woman about the ordeal I had gone through. At one point she asked me, "Why didn't you just shoot him?" I thought this was kind of a strange question. I did not own a gun at the time, nor have I ever owned a gun, nor do I own one now. For a number of reasons, I don't like guns. But I found it odd that she just assumed I was a gun owner. When I think about it, it seems like anytime people talk about "self-defense" in the news, they are talking about the possession and use of firearms. Accordingly, when people talk about the laws pertaining to self-defense, they are also usually talking about the laws pertaining to the use of guns. As a result, I don't really hear much about the legal rules pertaining to self-defense without a gun, or when and how to take lethal force without a gun.
When I was living at that apartment and being persecuted by my landlord, there were several times where I came fairly close to killing him. At least twice when he would attack me while I was sitting outside, I tackled him to the ground and put my hands around his neck to strangle him; on both occasions, someone carrying a gun would come along and order me to get off him, and I did. Once, when he attacked me inside my apartment, we were scuffling on the ground and at one point I noticed a 45-pound dumbbell lying close-by, so I picked it up and smashed it onto the floor close to his head to scare him. I seriously considered just smashing his skull in with it, but was unsure of the legal implications if I had done that. And on several occasions, I threatened him with a knife and came very close to stabbing him to death. At one time, he and I were fighting outside and I managed to punch him enough times in the head that he fell to the ground, whereupon I started kicked him as hard as I could in his head; I was honestly hoping he would die, but he didn't.
My question involves the legality of killing someone in self-defense without a gun. One large distinction between a gun and most other weapons is that with a gun, death can be dealt instantly or within a small frame of time. On the other hand, weapons such as knives, dumbbells, feet, hands and fists tend to take longer and require more effort. With a gun, I could kill someone with one bullet or a rapid volley of bullets within a second or two; however, alternatively I may have to use multiple smashes to the skull with a dumbbell or multiple kicks to the head to achieve the same effect. A gun is a device that makes killing so efficient that you can kill someone with no hint of anger or excess, whereas gun-less killing can tend to seem more like something fueled by anger and malice.
While discussing this same situation on another thread, one person said to me that I could not choke my landlord to death after he attacked me in my apartment because at a certain point before dying he would have lost consciousness and ceased to be a threat, and that continuing to apply a choke would be considered excessive force. I don't know whether what that commenter said was true, but if it is true it doesn't make any sense to me. If I find myself in a situation where lethal force is legally admissible, I think I should be able to do it by whatever means are available to me. I don't think it's fair that people with guns are permitted to commit significant violence against others because that violence is rendered quickly and neatly, whereas I am restrained from dealing an equal amount of violence with my limbs or with simple objects because doing so would look relatively brutal and ugly.
You might think that it was the right thing to do for me to spare my landlord's life, since all turned out OK in the end, but hindsight is 20/20; my mercy towards him could have just as easily turned out badly. I think I should be able to kill people under the same circumstances in which a gun owner has a right to kill people. I don't think I should have to hesitate or show lenience just because I lack the appropriate death machine. You might think that instead of killing my landlord, I should have just moved out after the first attack. I realize in hindsight that that would have been the wise choice, but the central issue here still applies nonetheless.
I can't help but compare my situation to the recent "stand your ground" case that occurred in Florida. A gun-carrying man, in an instant, shot another man through the heart with one bullet and killed him . . . because the man pushed him. The shooter has now been arrested, but that doesn't change the fact that the law very nearly let him get away with it. This case was something of an eye-opener for me since my landlord committed exponentially more violence against me, and yet I felt handcuffed to do anything about it. To give another example, I can remember one time, in an unrelated incident, when a man pulled a gun on me to, presumably, try to shoot me. I struggled with him in order to control his gun hand and prevent him from getting a shot off at me. I grabbed a knife and began stabbing him in the side of his neck to subdue him, yet he still continued struggling. At that point, I really wanted to kill him; I wanted to stab him right in the throat and sever his trachea, or maybe slash his carotids, but I hesitated because I just didn't know what the law would have to say about those methods.
I suppose my question here is: what are the rules concerning me killing an attacker with my bare hands? What are the rules concerning choking someone to death, beating someone to death, stabbing someone to death, etc., in self defense?
