Originally Posted by
SomeOtherGuy
Key statements:
The court opinion sounds like they are following existing Michigan precedent and also following general U.S. common-law principles on this issue. I am a bit puzzled as I have always heard that threatening someone with a deadly weapon was deadly force, not non-deadly force as held here. As far as I can tell the ruling is legally correct, but this seems like a problematic rule. So, from this, if someone threatens you with a gun, that threat is only non-deadly force? Or it may be either deadly force or non-deadly force depending on either the threat's subjective intent or your assessment of their intentions? You would generally fear for your life if someone is pointing a gun at you, so that would seem to justify deadly force in response, unless you actually know that the person cannot or will not carry out the threat. I'm having trouble seeing how this works in the real world.