Yes, if their behavior poses a possible threat.
I'll throw the "when" question back to you, in the case of rape:
Chick gets the creeps from a guy on the other side of a parking lot at night, say 50' away. He starts walking towards her. She tells him to stay away from him but he keeps getting closer. She says shes armed.
So is it ok for her to shoot:
-as soon as she finishes saying she's armed
-when he's 10' away
-when he's within arm's reach
-when he grabs her arm
-when she's on the ground
-when he starts pulling clothes off
-when he whips it out
-when he penetrates
I say the 10', but I'm sure there's at least one leftist DA out there that would say that since he never actually hit her and wasn't armed, you couldn't know his true intentions until the actual moment of penetration. He may have just wanted to rub his thingy on her.
21 feet. See the Tueller drill for details.
This case didn’t happen in a lonely, dark parking lot at night. These were two idiots in a shopping mall. They should’ve been arrested and charged for harassing people. I don’t feel sorry for the prankster. But, I’ve had far more threatening encounters with strange people, so I think the delivery man overreacted. Apparently, the rest of you disagree with me, so we’ll have to leave it at that.