Sorry to ask for help vice looking myself but I am supporting an exercise and do not have access (for most of the day) to a computer. A fellow participant just completed his VA CHP course, given at superior gun in Virginia Beach by "two state certified instructors". They stressed that your CHP only allows you to use your gun in defense of yourself or a family member. I told him there is nothing in the CHP regulations about "using" your firearm only on how/where it may be carried. The instructors contend that defending anyone other than your family could result in you being prosecuted (it is all up to the prosecutor). They gave an example of a LAC inadvertently interfering with an undercover take down. While I agree that could happen, I believe there is a legal avenue to defend an innocent and was looking for a cite to that statue. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Hogwash. Idiots. Email (not PM) to me and I'll send you (or anyone else who cares to do so) a PDF containing my summary of the law of personal defense in Virginia as well as cites to authority. Not revised for a while, but believed to be current in effect. It started out as a response to a request for a bill that could be used to codify existing law, but when the legislators saw it, they balked because they figured it would never get through the legistature as it is. And there's some reason to think that, politics being what it is, there are judges won't enforce the law as it is, and no appellate court will correct their "errors". So it pays to be careful and conservative. Keep in mind my cardinal rule, the law of defense is the law of necessity; if you don't NEED to kill someone, don't draw the gun, don't look at it, don't think about it, don't talk about it, don't show it off, and don't gesture towards it. But if you NEED to kill someone, find cover (or at least concealment), pull the gun out and shoot to kill. There is, legally, no middle ground in Virginia. Keep in mind that your purpose is always not to "get the bad guy" but to save your life, the lives of your family members or innocent others, to stop serious felonies in progress, and to defend your home against invasion.
Did you pay money for that course? I keep hearing what, to me, are horror stories about CHP courses, as if the only reason to take the course is to acquire the credentials needed to get the permit, as opposed to learning what you need to know to keep yourself safe and out of jail.
Btw, CHP trainers should keep in mind that you don't have to be an attorney to be sued for legal malpractice; if you give out legal advice and someone acts on it to his detriment, then he's got a case against you for legal malpractice. That's why the clerks of court will generally refuse to help you with what you need to know to file stuff. You'd think cops would know better, but, oh, well. Btw, this is also why cops shouldn't be giving the "part three" lecture part of the NRA PPIH and PPOH courses, and people who get cops to do that part for them as instructors will be liable as well "respondeat superior" (you hired 'em, you're responsible for them). Being a law enforcement officer is really, seriously, no qualification for talking about the law of personal defense. The only way a cop would know a demurrer from a plea in bar is if he'd gone through a bad divorce (oh, wait a minute, most of them have, haven't they? - bad joke, I guess, forget I said it).