Re:Gaspard, the anti-assault accessory: never be alone again
by hga on Friday October 03, 2014 @11:22AM
(#8405902)
The general principle is that the first person to escalate to force, and the first to escalate to lethal force, is in the wrong, which can cause the situation to shift.
Although some states don't recognize the latter, but pretty much everyone recognizes the principle of proportionality.
There is plenty of case law about people intervening in situations where they don't know what happened before that point, and it's frequently not pretty. I would expect it to be worse if they responded to such a call.
IANAL, and everything I'm about to say varies with location - I'm in the US and it even varies by state. People using this need to understand self-defense laws very well because the way you defend yourself may give the attacker the legal right to press charges against you. If you are licensed to carry a concealed firearm, you may need to take a course where they teach you stuff like this, but you can buy knives and batons that have the same legal implications and no one warns you. If someone attacks you, and the attacker can prove that you escalated the situation, or put them in danger, you may be the one facing criminal charges. This device opens up a dimension I'm not familiar with and I doubt has much case law behind it. If someone shows up and injures the attacker and the attacker makes the case that it was all just a misunderstanding or that it was an overreaction, where does that leave you and your rescuer? I'm not saying it's a bad idea or trying to start FUD, but the fact is self-defense is a very complex issue and you need to understand the implications of your actions very well before you're in a position to have to take them.