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"Castle doctrine" bill in AZ
The Arizona Senate unanimously passed SB 1145, which has two main effects: (1) "no retreat" if defending house or auto (although AZ doesn't have a retreat requirement anyway) and (2) use of deadly force is presumed to be justified if the other person forcefully and unlawfully entered a home or vehicle. The latter is a change in the law which, as I recall, requires a defendant to prove the defense of justification, and by a preponderance of the evidence. Word is that in the House there may be an attempt to remove the latter section. If you want to give the legislature your feelings, you can find your legislators here.
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I strongly agree. There should be a distinction made between brandishing and discreetly revealing a weapon under certain circumstances where someone is truly without any other options to prevent grave injury or death at the hands of a criminal.
I wish a law would be set forth that is called the "Flex Your Muscle" law where you can lawfully expose your firearm under clearly limited conditions i.e. not pointing it or waving it around but if you are cornered or inside a confined space (not that of a dwelling) being threatened or terrorized and you are unable to leave or avoid the situation and it is your only means to hopefully extinguish the one way instigation you can introduce your means of protection with intent to extinguish the threat.
The problem with current law is; a trouble causing thug could contact the police by retaliation and state his victim pulled a gun on them. The victim would be found with a gun and could be punished even though the victim was NOT the cause of the confrontation.
Example:
Road rage, armed robbery, and other threatening crimes have become a huge problem where I am a victim of it. Doing nothing to provoke this individual who was instigating a road rage incident, he swerved his car at my car, and then proceeded to follow me. I found myself boxed in at a light where the thug exited his vehicle and proceeded to punch and slap my car window (driver window) yelling obscenities. I was totally in fear of my life. I was convinced the thug’s intent was to harm me. I assessed the danger and decided if the window shatters I will have no other choice but to stop him. With that said, in complete fear and distress I prepared my only means of protection to intervene with NO intent to show. During that process the thug saw that I was preparing to deploy protection that would stop him. Once the instigator was aware of the “MUSCLE”, the entire situation was extinguished immediately. My point is, (Unfortunately) exposing a gun, even as a victim under distress is still “technically” illegal even though a victim was preparing his only means of protection.