Quote:
Originally posted by Zathras
Well I'd hit him over the head with the baseball bat. Easier to grab and swing round than the shotgun and less likely to kill him for definite. It really depends how close he is. I guess I could grab the shotgun and scream for him to stop dead still and I'd shoot if he didn't, but again if he were close enough to actually stab my gf when doing this I'd go baseball bat. My primary concern would be one of flight rather than fight to be honest, to get safe rather than get even. I'm also pretty confident that if I only take the action required to stop this guy, even if it were lethal, and I reported what happened immediately and didn't take revenge I'd be completely exonerated with the law the way it is. Someone standing over my girlfriend with a knife is pretty evident of an intent to cause harm. However if it were someone rifling through my drawers and I shot them dead or beat seven bells out of them then I wouldn't expect an easy let-off.
I think one crucial fact that we are ignoring in all this is the actions of martin after the event. We are dicussing what you would do to disable an assailant. That's fine. We can debate what "reasonable force is" and that's fine.