The Law and Self Defense
Many citizens have a misconception about defending themselves and the legal consequences attached to the act of self defense. The misconception seems to focus on the belief that if a defender strikes the attacker they will also be charged with assault. This misconception, sad to say, leads to many citizens giving thugs the green light to either push them around or hurt them because the belief is:
- "There's nothing I can do about it without getting in trouble."
- "The bad guys will get away with it, so what's the use because I'll end up labelled the bad guy."
- "I can't hit the bad guy first because the tables will be turned and he'll claim he is the victim."
- "The law seems to protect the criminal more than the victims."
More confusion is added to this misconception when the police tell the public to comply with muggers and thugs rather than defend themselves or protect their property. It must be understood that the police give this advice for several reasons: to avoid turning citizens into vigilantes; to prevent the situation from contributing to the citizen being charged with assault or worse; and to prevent the citizen from becoming more seriously injured than otherwise expected. Isn't this like tethering the lamb for the slaughter?
Unfortunately, citizens believe what the police tell them and will behave in a docile manner when confronted by thugs thus contributing to the rise in crime because the criminals now have a free hand. Certainly, citizens shouldn't casually decide to resist a mugger unless they have made a careful assessment of the threat and are confident they can repel the thug or escape/run away from the situation. Only the defender can make the choice of what to do.
REMEMBER! You will likely get charged with assault if you go beyond using reasonable force to defend yourself. For example: if you are convinced a thug is about to harm you and you hit him/her once and they are stunned or momentarily dazed, allowing you to escape - that's okay. However, if, in this same scenario, you opt to hit the thug once or twice more instead of escaping the situation to safety you may be charged with assault, especially if you have injured the thug. The first instance was reasonable force, the second is excessive force.
Mitigating factors such as size, maturity and age differences, the attacker's mindset, etc will likely be considered in the amount of force used in self defence.