Category: Guns

Especially in the comments over at Above the Law, many of whom are obviously lawyers. Massad Ayoob has some worthwhile things to say about defense against unarmed opponents. I don’t think it’s a situation you ever want to be in, and is one reason I’ve been convinced of the utility of carrying a defensive spray.

Multiple attackers is a tough situation, however. And it wouldn’t do much good to spray one guy only to get rushed by others. The advantage of spray is you can employ it much much earlier in the confrontation than you can deadly force. It is a step above verbal commands on the force scale. A good strategy would be, early on in the encounter, before it escalates, to spray the most aggressive member of the group and run like hell, while drawing your firearm. If you’re pursued by the remaining meatheads and end up trapped, your use of deadly force is going to look a lot more reasonable to police, prosecutors, and if it goes that far, to a jury.

Ung’s situation is far from good, however. DiDinato’s group was five strong. Ung had two other people with him, including one female. We don’t know yet whether Ung or any of the people in his group were intoxicated. Even if Ung wasn’t, it could complicate his retreat options if the others are. It could complicate his options if any of the members of his party were running their mouths off.

But generally speaking, if you shoot someone who’s unarmed, you can probably expect a trial, unless it was so clear cut (like a group of men surrounding a sixty year old man) that no prosecutor would risk it. Whether or not Ung acted reasonably, or not, will be up to the jury to decide. Once you’re in that situation, in a lot of ways your life is already ruined.

From Above the Law, with plenty of links. We now have more information from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Police Officer Mario DeLuca, who also testified Tuesday, said he and his partner were on “nightclub detail,” parked at Third and Market, when they heard four or five shots.

Within five seconds, DeLuca testified, they arrived on the scene and witnesses were pointing to Ung as the shooter. He pushed Ung against a wall and needed two other officers to help handcuff Ung.

DeLuca said he removed the .38-caliber pistol from Ung’s pocket.

“He was struggling,” DeLuca testified. “He kept saying, ‘I have a permit to carry.’ “

Two other officers in plain clothes or in uniform? It would also seem Ung may not have realized it’s a permit to carry, not a permit to shoot people. If police show up on a scene, and you’re standing over a dead guy with a gun, you can pretty much expect to be cuffed, at the least. We also learned, from other sources, Ung’s gun was a Kel-Tec in .380 caliber. Probably a P-3AT.

You might remember the shooting that was caught on a Fox News studio surveillance camera a year or so ago. Quite a number of people thought this looked like a legitimate case of self-defense. Gerald Ung’s trial for attempted murder is now underway.

Assistant District Attorney Jan McDermott told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial that the evidence will show that Ung, a native of Fairfax, Va., became infuriated when DiDonato and his three friends appeared to be flirting with Ung’s female companion.

“Don’t . . . me off,” McDermott said, quoting Ung. “What he was saying was, ‘I got a gun, I’m a man and I’ll show you.’ “

Gun people need to watch this trial carefully, because this is going to be instructive about what you can expect to go through if you shoot someone who doesn’t have a weapon.

Already we have a key mistake on the part of Ung. Verbal command should be telling them to back off, not “Don’t piss me off.” If they don’t respond to verbal commands, you should have some kind of less-than-lethal option to go to. If they produce a weapon or start to attack you, go to the gun. In Ung’s case, from what can be seen in the video, he did not produce a firearm until he was being attacked, and it appeared to me he was in the process of retreating.

Force disparity should be easy here. Multiple attackers on one person doesn’t leave you with a lot of choices if you don’t want to end up in a hospital. The key question will be whether Gerald Ung created the circumstances that lead to him having to use deadly force. I would imagine the testimony of Ung’s girlfriend is going to be key in this, because it’s hard to imagine a jury is going to convict someone of attempted murder if he was trying to protect his girlfriend from unwanted harassment by a group of drunken men.

UPDATE: Much more information here. I still don’t see anything yet that defeats the self-defense claim.

UPDATE: Prior link has been updated with more testimony:

“The defendant resisted handcuffs and wouldn’t give the gun to the police. They had to pull their guns to get his gun. Use every day common sense and watch and listen.”

Bad move. This will greatly complicate Ung’s defense.