But Your Honor! Part 2

 I'm not one to ignore the potential of other people's ideas.  Terry Pitman's list of the five elements needed to survive the self-defense legal challenges is interesting.

Imminent danger, agree?

They are:

1)     Innocent: not the initial aggressor,

2)     Imminence: the threats must be happening now or immediately about to happen,

3)      Proportionality: the force you use must not be greater than the force used against you,

4)      Avoidance: do you live in a stand your ground state or a duty to retreat state,

5)      Reasonable: your actions and decisions must be both subjectively and objectively reasonable.

Number 1, Innocence, was covered in a previous posting.  Let's talk about number 2, Imminence.

I find it interesting that imminence and avoidance are linked.  Avoidance is a great option and I'll have some ideas later.

Imminence has an "at this moment" feeling, but it can also imply in the very short order future.  For example, criminal actor (CA) produces a broken bottle after threatening you.  If they are within arm's reach of you, I and most people would consider that imminent.  You do not need to wait for them to thrust the broken edge at you.   Let's change the fact picture.  They are on the other side of a fifty-foot continuous chain link fence and is pulling a knife.  That’s not imminent.  It can't be a preemptive shooting because they told you to leave town or else and you're still here.

Having said that, I have to stumble into reactive distance.  The best known exploration of this is the Tueller Drill.  There are many excellent articles  You can go back to the original article in 1983 SWAT Magazine entitled "How Close is Too Close," by Dennis Tueller.  The concept to remember is it's a demonstration of distance as applied to reactive distance and how it should affect your behavior.  Do not fall into the trap that you can only shoot some one with a contact weapon if they are closer than 21 feet.  What would be the reactive distance, or safe distance from a person with a gun?

https://tactical-talk.blogspot.com/2023/07/tueller-drill-revisited.html

Imminence has an unavoidable component to it.  He's between you and the door.  You can't abandon your aging mother in the parking lot.  Your old football damaged knee makes it impossible to run. 

Imminence can change in a blink of an eye.  A third party walks out the door, the knife disappears and the CA turns away.  You produce a handgun and the CA leaves.  What was an imminent and unavoidable situation changes. 

Imminent Danger, Under the Cover of Darkness - oil by John Millais 

There is a scene in Will Trent, S4,E13,"Did I Screw This Up." that has an excellent 'video' of changing imminence.  A battered wife responds to a battering by producing a gun, when the abusive husband come at her with a knife, she shoots him and he collapses.  She stops shooting.  He gets up, regrasps the knife and takes a step toward her.  She shoots for the final time.  It's worth seeing for the example of how imminence changes.

I said earlier avoidance is a component to imminence.  This should be obvious.  If you can avoid the conflict, there is no imminent threat.  Sun Tzu in The Art of War states "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”  This is applicable to self-defense.  I might say "The greatest self-defence is when no defense is needed."

Imminence also addresses the defender and CA.  Fisticuffs break out and what looks like a 'fair' fight changes when you step into a pothole and fall to the ground with a badly sprained knee.  Disparity of force has changed.  You can no longer step back, robbing a punch or kick of force.  What was just a kick before now approaches deadly force.  Imminence becomes a greater factor.