Concealed Weapon Bans And Necessity For Self Defense

I’ve talked about the necessity defense before as a way around laws that prohibit carrying weapons for reasonable self-defense. Necessity is a rarely used legal defense employed when people accused of crimes claim to have been forced to break a law for simple survival.

Examples of this would be a person who is in danger of starving, dehydration or threatened by weather conditions breaking into a building to get whatever is needed for survival.

The same principal would apply someone who is threatened by crime and poor or slow police response to calls for help where he must live or work.

Recently that was found to be the case in a Maryland prison where a judge allowed the defense where a convict armed himself with a prison made knife and killed another inmate. Self-defense is the law of the land even in prisons. The Circuit Court Judge, Pamela North instructed a jury that a person may arm himself "in reasonable anticipation of an attack." Yes, even a prison convict has a right to self-defense and the necessity defense.

The meaning of this is that Americans have the right to carry a gun or other weapon despite gun bans in places that don’t freely or reasonably allow for the issuance concealed weapons permits such as California, Illinois, Wisconsin and New York.

Of course there are many Americans that are pacifists and believe that running from attack is the only way people should be allowed to survive. Thankfully they are the minority and have not yet been able impose their will on all of us.