During an armed robbery, if you're in a position to draw your gun and drop the robber(s) before they can shoot you or any innocent people, you've got a legal GREEN LIGHT to "go to guns" and take out the trash, right?
Right. Let's all assume that's true, without question. Armed robbers who are spotted by armed citizens in the process of robbing a store at gunpoint are fair game. It's open season on them, for the purpose of any of the "use of deadly force" justifications in Code sections 16-3-21 through 16-3-24.
Suppose you witness an armed robbery in a store where you're shopping, and you immediately draw your gun and start shooting. That's legal, right? Right. There can be no liability on your part for what happens next, right? Well...
Ummm....
Let's see here......
NOW, what if one of your bullets misses a bad guy, or overpenetrates through him (maybe you only struck his bicep, not the middle of his chest) and hits an innocent bystander?
What if you miss the bad guy with your first 2 shots, and while your bullets embed themselves harmlessly in the insulated wall of the Kroger meat locker, the bad guy fires back at you, and HE nails some innocent shopper down the aisle a few feet from you?
Can you be held liable in a civil action later, for the gunshot wounds suffered by innocent victims, based on the idea that you were negligent in choosing to open fire on the bad guys, and thus provoking them to shoot back in your direction?
You MIGHT SAY "no way, because the armed robbers were endangering the lives of everybody ANYWAY, so even if my actions were dangerous, nobody can say that the innocent victims would have survived the encounter without being shot anyway. Some robbers just shoot people at random, on a whim, even when nobody fights back or refuses their demands."
But consider this: Only a very small percentage of armed robberies of businesses at gunpoint involve a murder. Per statista.com's website on statistics and data, in 2015 there were 123,300 incidents of armed robbery in the USA that year.
In contrast, there were only 6,400 murders with handguns for any reason, under all circumstances (not just involving robberies).
Even if EVERY SINGLE HANDGUN MURDER in the USA had been an "armed robbery gone wrong" scenario, that leaves about 117,000 armed robberies where nobody got killed. That's 95% of the time.
But since we know that many handgun murders are from circumstances OTHER THAN armed robberies of businesses, I suspect the real number is about 1 %. There's a 99% chance that if nobody resists an armed robber, he won't shoot anybody in the store.
A 1994 crime report by Jeffrey A. Roth published by the US Dep. of Justice, based on 1980s crime statistics, said that the odds of an armed robbery involving a gun as the robber's weapon resulting in a killing are only 4 out of 1000, or less than half of a 1% chance.
So even though an armed robbery is ALWAYS enough of an imminent threat that an armed citizen can use deadly force without breaking the laws against murder, aggravated assault, etc., maybe the risks associated with an armed robbery are NOT SO LIKELY that you can always immediately draw down on the robbers and start slinging lead without regard to the possible consequences of having a gunfight in a public place?
The issue is NEGLIGENCE. The violation of some unwritten duty of care owed to the people around you, and putting too much risk on them in a way that a court could say was unreasonable later.
Consider that Georgia has a form of criminal homicide that includes causing the death of another by doing "a lawful act in an unlawful manner," and that "unlawful manner" means in a "manner likely to cause death or great bodily harm." O.C.G.A. 16-5-3(b).
Even if this could not be prosecuted as a stand-alone criminal charge, due to Georgia's immunity laws about self-defense cases, could this be the violation of a "duty of care" owed to bystanders in a business that you see is being robbed?
Right. Let's all assume that's true, without question. Armed robbers who are spotted by armed citizens in the process of robbing a store at gunpoint are fair game. It's open season on them, for the purpose of any of the "use of deadly force" justifications in Code sections 16-3-21 through 16-3-24.
Suppose you witness an armed robbery in a store where you're shopping, and you immediately draw your gun and start shooting. That's legal, right? Right. There can be no liability on your part for what happens next, right? Well...
Ummm....
Let's see here......
NOW, what if one of your bullets misses a bad guy, or overpenetrates through him (maybe you only struck his bicep, not the middle of his chest) and hits an innocent bystander?
What if you miss the bad guy with your first 2 shots, and while your bullets embed themselves harmlessly in the insulated wall of the Kroger meat locker, the bad guy fires back at you, and HE nails some innocent shopper down the aisle a few feet from you?
Can you be held liable in a civil action later, for the gunshot wounds suffered by innocent victims, based on the idea that you were negligent in choosing to open fire on the bad guys, and thus provoking them to shoot back in your direction?
You MIGHT SAY "no way, because the armed robbers were endangering the lives of everybody ANYWAY, so even if my actions were dangerous, nobody can say that the innocent victims would have survived the encounter without being shot anyway. Some robbers just shoot people at random, on a whim, even when nobody fights back or refuses their demands."
But consider this: Only a very small percentage of armed robberies of businesses at gunpoint involve a murder. Per statista.com's website on statistics and data, in 2015 there were 123,300 incidents of armed robbery in the USA that year.
In contrast, there were only 6,400 murders with handguns for any reason, under all circumstances (not just involving robberies).
Even if EVERY SINGLE HANDGUN MURDER in the USA had been an "armed robbery gone wrong" scenario, that leaves about 117,000 armed robberies where nobody got killed. That's 95% of the time.
But since we know that many handgun murders are from circumstances OTHER THAN armed robberies of businesses, I suspect the real number is about 1 %. There's a 99% chance that if nobody resists an armed robber, he won't shoot anybody in the store.
A 1994 crime report by Jeffrey A. Roth published by the US Dep. of Justice, based on 1980s crime statistics, said that the odds of an armed robbery involving a gun as the robber's weapon resulting in a killing are only 4 out of 1000, or less than half of a 1% chance.
So even though an armed robbery is ALWAYS enough of an imminent threat that an armed citizen can use deadly force without breaking the laws against murder, aggravated assault, etc., maybe the risks associated with an armed robbery are NOT SO LIKELY that you can always immediately draw down on the robbers and start slinging lead without regard to the possible consequences of having a gunfight in a public place?
The issue is NEGLIGENCE. The violation of some unwritten duty of care owed to the people around you, and putting too much risk on them in a way that a court could say was unreasonable later.
Consider that Georgia has a form of criminal homicide that includes causing the death of another by doing "a lawful act in an unlawful manner," and that "unlawful manner" means in a "manner likely to cause death or great bodily harm." O.C.G.A. 16-5-3(b).
Even if this could not be prosecuted as a stand-alone criminal charge, due to Georgia's immunity laws about self-defense cases, could this be the violation of a "duty of care" owed to bystanders in a business that you see is being robbed?
