Apparently, some Indianapolis public officials have forgotten how their own self-defense laws work and why they exist in the first place.
In an interview that’s equal parts amusing and alarming, Indiana’s Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears recently lamented an increase in self-defense shootings in Indianapolis.
Mears complained to reporters that shootings involving self-defense claims are challenging to prosecute. This “mean[s] that someone lost their life” and “that case might ultimately be cleared” without the shooter being charged, he said.
Mears also implied that defensive gun users who can’t be prosecuted are just as bad as the criminals they shot, simply by virtue of the fact that both parties were armed.
With all due respect to Mears, the county prosecutor seems to miss the point.
As in virtually every other state, Indiana law justifies the use of deadly force only when a person has a reasonable belief that such force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury, commission of a forcible felony, or unlawful entry into a home or vehicle.
Moreover, a person generally can’t rely on the protection of self-defense laws if he or she was committing a crime or fleeing after committing one, provoked the threat, or engaged in “mutual combat.”
In other words, to the extent that self-defense shootings are difficult to prosecute, it’s because there’s pretty good evidence that the shooter was morally and legally justified in doing what he did.
You would think that someone like Mears would comprehend this, given his position as a prosecutor.
The importance of armed self-defense can’t be overstated. Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.
