Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 156
under Texas law. This legal presumption can be a very powerful
legal tool to stop legal second-guessing or “Monday morning
quarterbacking” of the timing or the degree of force used. A jury
will be told that if a given set of circumstances exists (e.g., a person
is the victim of a sexual assault), the law will presume reasonable a
person’s belief in the immediate necessity of using force or deadly
force, and that use of force or deadly force would, therefore, be
legally justified. See Tex. Penal Code §§ 9.31, 9.32.
EXAMPLE:
Sam is asleep in his house when he hears a noise in his kitchen.
Sam enters his kitchen with his 1911 drawn and confronts an
armed burglar. Sam fires his weapon; the intruder has invaded
his last home!
In this situation, was Sam’s use of deadly force in firing his gun
immediately necessary, or more precisely, was Sam’s belief that
deadly force was immediately necessary reasonable? Did Sam
legally have to take additional actions before firing in order to have
acted reasonably? In Sam’s current situation, the law will give
him a powerful legal presumption that his belief that the use of
deadly force was immediately necessary was reasonable. In this
example, Section 9.32 of the Texas Penal Code will provide Sam
with this presumption of reasonableness (as a victim of a home
invasion in his occupied habitation). In Texas statutes, these
legal presumptions read: “the actor’s belief that deadly force was
immediately necessary is presumed to be reasonable if… ˮ(fill in
the appropriate circumstances: e.g., it was used to prevent murder,
sexual assault, etc.). This presumption will prevent any secondguessing by prosecutors that deadly force was not immediately
necessary. This has a practical effect of preventing arguments
When Can I Legally Use My Gun: Part I | 145
