On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:45:59 -0600, Lookout
wrote:

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:57:18 -0500, Cliff
wrote:


http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/0...-self-defense/
"If You Don’t Shoot Your Attacker In Kansas Then Waive Bye-Bye To Claiming
Self-Defense"
[
Kansas is a whacky place, what with its impossibly flat land and endless fields
of wheat and sorghum (which is apparently a type of sustainable livestock feed
and ethanol fuel source), not to mention the perpetual parade of impervious
aliens and supernatural portals.

Well, the crazy Kansans of the Sunflower State can now add a new claim to fame
by being the only state that requires you to shoot your attacker with your gun
as a prerequisite to claiming self-defense, or else the defense will be waived
and you’ll be charged with aggravated assault.

Hmm… That new one doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily as “The Barbed
Wire Capital of the World.”

In a recent case before the Kansas Court of Appeals, a majority of the court
held that under Kansas law, citizens who attempt to claim self-defense when
confronted by either the threat of harm which they reasonably believe will occur
or are under actual physical attack, can only claim the defense if they use
actual physical force against their attacker.

Sounds like a technicality in Kansas law wherein a threat (brandishing
a deadly weapon) is regarded as aggressive (assault) while self
defense is only available if the actor inflicts actual harm.

I don't know anything about the culture in Kansas, but I can see how
this might seem sensible to some lawmakers. It preserves the notion
of self defense for those who act decisively because they believe
they're in immediate grave peril -- if later review by a jury of their
peers determines that such belief and action was reasonable under the
circumstances. It deprives the use of self defense as a pass to
brandish deadly weapons to win bar fights.

If he'd shot anyone then his claim of self defense would be against a
more serious charge, and if he did that merely because his fiancee
got decked because she continued the fight outside then I think he'd
be convicted.