What is deadly force?

Caveat: This post is mine and mine alone. I the author of this post assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and/or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this post. (Everything I think and write is true, within the limits of my knowledge and understanding.)

In a nutshell and in a terse form where one must seek out additional guidance deadly force is the use of any force that is likely to result in death. To keep a balanced perception we must then add in a terse form of what “non-deadly force” is as well, i.e., in a nutshell and in a terse form where one must seek out additional guidance non-deadly force is a use of force option, as defined in Section 4034.2, subsection (b) of California law, which is greater than verbal persuasion but less than force that is likely to result in death. 

This is the bare bones terse like versions and you won’t find anything, so far, in California that can be presented without some additional guidance from a legal professional who is well versed in self-defense law. 

If my understanding is fair to good on this, you have to remember that those forces for self-defense are not consistently the same across the board because use of force, deadly or non-deadly, differ between you as a civilian and those used by say, police who have a duty to act. 

Then you have to go into that whole “use of force options.” What are they and how do you know when, where and how to use those options in self-defense. There are choices and many try very hard to present them such as, “Verbal persuasion, restraint, physical strengths and holds, less lethal force, lethal force and so on” but are those lists really a good idea? Not from my perspective and when you begin your studies on this subject you will find no clear and concise answers because as one author in my references said, “It depends!”

What you should take away from this post is the fact that if you are training for self-defense you have to dig a lot deeper than simply finding the latest, greatest and most deadly self-defense course  and look to the entire spectrum of self-defense. A good start is the books I list as my primary self-defense sources below. 

This is what makes the concept and application of self-defense martial arts so difficult. You can be assured that if you're reading some advertisement that what someone is offering is the best and the most deadly self-defense course you can learn in only 9 weeks at a cost savings of some amount of your hard earned cash that you need to do some more research on the subject and seek out a more qualified self-defense course. It is my personal opinion that you will end up attending a group of different programs/courses by different professional experts in this discipline before you gain a modicum of understanding on the world or community of self-defense. 

What is deadly force is a good question but don’t expect a terse, quick and comprehensive answer because, there ain’t one - or two - or a dozen answers and there is no clear cut right or wrong - as someone else said, “It depends?” That “it depends” is the one that will get you either out of or in to “trouble.” 

Do NOT take my word for it because I am just starting to study this and just beginning to understand it let alone one with experience actually applying it in real life conflict and violence. 

Example: I went searching for some references to explain this question here in California, where I live, and found thousands of individual oriented answers such as the use of deadly force by police but could no find any one document that said, this is deadly force except the two short answers already answered above. Then, when you read those short answers above you will get an impression that even those answers will have a huge variety of translations and explanations and defining law references that will mean different things to different people be they you the martial artist, the police as first responders to your self-defense situation, the prosecutor that will inform the first responding police as to whether they should arrest or not and those twelve folks under the guidance of the presiding judge who will decide and present a judgement of whether you stayed within the acceptable limitations of the law when you defended yourself. 

Note: See, this is just one small post of one persons perceptions that will seem very complex, chaotic and confusing and it should inspire you to achieve the greatest self-defense ability, to avoid conflict and violence of that nature, just walk away, just stay away from those places where conflict and violence are present and just plain remain polite and nice in every thing you say or do. It just ain’t worth it, if it can be avoided. Yet, there will always be those who will let pride, ego, honor, and face (think the monkey brain here) dictate their beliefs, emotions and actions. 

Note II: Remember also, what you perceive and feel is either appropriate force or inappropriate force is not set in stone because there are many who will get involved that bring a complete different culture, belief and perception of what force is, what is appropriate and what defines (or a better word might be divine) deadly vs. non-deadly. When you apply force in self-defense you will have to deal with the flux and chaos of what defines what in self-defense. Something to think about, something to consider and something to train for in self-defense.