Presented for your consideration, again: there is no such thing as a ‘clean shoot’.
I’ve been pretty clear over the years about my belief in the myth of the ‘clean shoot’. It’s a phrase that comes up with amazing regularity in various forums and in gunshops all across the country: as long as your shoot is ‘clean’, nothing else matters.
As I’ve pointed out, the people who decide if your self defense act was ‘clean’ sit on a jury. Whether you think it was a ‘good’ shoot, whether I do, whether your instructor does, or whether the anonymous guy hiding behind a pseudonym on your favorite gun forum does, is completely irrelevant. The people who decide if you were in the right, if what you did and how you did it was reasonable, are the men and women on your jury.
The problem is that it can take a lot of time, money, and anguish to get to the point where they decide you’re clean, time/money/anguish that could have been saved had you paid some attention to your situation ahead of time.
Yet another cautionary tale in how things can go from bad to much, much worse comes from the life of one Gerald Ung. It’s obvious that he did some stupid things, but according to internet experts all over those things shouldn’t have mattered if his shoot was ‘clean’. They did matter, and it took some time and money and stomach lining to get a jury to exonerate him.
Don’t be ‘that guy’.
(Another illustration of why I never take medical or legal advice from someone who won’t use their real name.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
- Posted by Grant Cunningham
- On February 16, 2011