Don't think the problem is with the law but with the civil suit after the shooting. About a year or so ago I talked to a young lady who had just moved into our area and opened a gun shop with her husband. She may have been feeding me a line and this is third hand so take it for what it is worth. She said that her and her husband had managed a shooting range and gun store in another state before moving to Kentucky. As "experts" on firearms, and she laughed when she said that, they had been called on to testify in more than twenty firearms related lawsuits over several years. According to her if you are involved in a shooting and even if you are cleared by the police your problems are just starting. Even if your home was broken into and threats made against your family, more than likely you will have to defend yourself in a civil trial brought by the person you shot or his/her survivors. Once again, this is after you have been cleared by the law. According to this lady, the attorneys for the people filing the lawsuit against you will try to get a jury that knows absolutely nothing about firearms. Then they will bring up everything they can to paint you as somebody just out looking to shoot somebody for the thrill of it. Three things she said they bring up in every concealed carry class they teach. First, always use commercial ammo with defense or protection in the name. They wont even stock the Hornady Zombie Killer ammo in their shop though they have Critical Defense in large supply. Said that a lawyer will tell the grannies and hippies on the jury that you were out to kill somebody, just look at the ammo they had. Second is to never have your carry weapon modified or customized. And she said especially work on the trigger. The lawyers will tell the jury that you had the trigger modified so it would be easier to pull and kill somebody. They are competitive shooters and travel all over to compete using highly modified weapons but their carry arms, even what they have on in the store, are strictly factory stock. The third thing was more common sense, said people had lost a large part of their future lifetime earnings because somebody had heard them saying something like 'if anybody breaks in my house I will shoot first'. She said that they caution their classes over and over that anything that you say today at a family gathering can come back and bite you in the *** two years in the future in a court of law.
Take all this for what it is worth, third hand from somebody that I don't actually know if they were telling me the truth or not. Other things she told me turned out to be true. Such as Ruger bringing out the LCP II, she told me about it a year before it appeared. And other things that I thought were strange that I wont go into.
Don't flame me for this post. I'm repeating what was told me by a nice young lady who seemed to know more about pistols than anybody I have ever talked to before. She may have been blowing smoke but I really don't think so.
RSKY
