Education by Recognized Experts

New Network members receive over ten hours of video lectures in the new member package, as well as accessing most of the materials via streaming video in the member-only portion of our website. Through this training effort, the Network has created a well-prepared membership that understands the legalities of using force in self defense, what to expect in the aftermath of self defense and associated issues.

This lecture series is provided exclusively to Network members and is not sold commercially. New members receive nine video lectures and a book, which are in depth, academic lessons taught by leading instructors and legal experts. The video lectures are ready to be used as documentation of training in court, so are designed to withstand scrutiny, not to act as “info-tainment.” They are objective and reliable. The lectures are complemented by a full-length book written by Massad Ayoob.

Subjects taught include:

  • The legal parameters governing use of force in self defense.
  • Managing the immediate aftermath of using force in self defense.
  • Post self-defense legal concerns arising in the weeks and months after the incident.
  • Identifying and explaining pre-assault indicators and how they influence self-defense decision-making and justification in the aftermath.

These training materials have prepared Network members to face and counter threats. Since our first year, 2008, only 33 Network members have been involved in cases requiring assistance from the Legal Defense Fund. This low incidence of need indicates a careful, well-educated membership, and shows to value of training, and the importance of understanding the aftermath of use of force.

Join our family of well-trained, prepared armed citizens at https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/join and learn from this full-length use of force education set.

Use of Deadly Force in Self Defense

Presented by Marty Hayes, J.D.

The Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network, Inc. is the brainchild of the Network’s President, Marty Hayes, who, after founding and running a successful firearms training business (The Firearms Academy of Seattle, Inc.) for many years, began to pursue solutions to post-shooting legal issues his students and other armed citizens might face. In 2003, Hayes, who for many years had worked as an expert witness in firearms-related cases, earned a law degree. During this time, the idea of the Network was born. Upon graduation in 2007, he and two partners introduced the Network.

Hayes brings 20 years experience as a professional firearms instructor, 30 years in law enforcement and his knowledge of the legal profession both as an expert witness and his legal education to the leadership of the Network.

In this lesson he introduces:

  • Structure and foundations of use of force law
  • How to research statutory and case law of your own state
  • The Reasonable Man doctrine

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Handling the Immediate Aftermath of a Self-Defense Shooting

Lecture by Massad Ayoob

Massad F. Ayoob is an internationally-known firearms and self-defense instructor. Starting in 1974 as director of the Lethal Force Institute in Concord, NH, he has taught police and civilian self-defense techniques to both law enforcement officers and private citizens worldwide. He now heads the Massad Ayoob Group, through which he continues to teach.

In Handling the Immediate Aftermath of a Self-Defense Shooting, Ayoob addresses–

  • Interacting with responding officers
  • The duties of police and how that might conflict with your immediate concerns
  • How provide an accurate report  in spite of pressure
  • Understanding stress-induced altered perceptions.

Ayoob's 5 Point Post-Incident Check List addresses key danger areas, starting with his advice to establish the active dynamic, as he discusses in this excerpt.

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Defending a Self-Defense Shooting

This member education program features a discussion with attorneys James Fleming and Royce Ferguson, moderated by Network President Marty Hayes. This lesson covers a wide array of topics, including--

  • No such thing as a “good” shoot – and why you need to avoid using that term.

  • What to expect immediately after a shooting.
  • What do prosecutors look for when deciding whether to file charge.
  • Why you should worry if you are not arrested and why you still need to hire an attorney.
  • Why you must keep quiet about your incident and why you cannot talk about it even with friends and family.
  • Investigation, charging, pre-trial, pleas, trial, jury selection.

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Recognizing & Responding to Pre-Attack Indicators

An Interview with Marc MacYoung by Marty Hayes

Marc MacYoung is an author, lecturer and martial artist and is considered to be one of the pioneers of reality-based self defense. This is not theoretical for MacYoung who spent his youth in situational poverty and lived with crime and violence on the streets of Los Angeles, where he was first shot when he was fourteen. He later worked as the warden of a correctional institute, bodyguard, bouncer and security professional. Initially known best for his street-violence survival books, he has also published a considerable body of work on personal safety and self defense in both books and videos.

Your ability to recognize and describe what is going on around you is imperative if you are to successfully explain to the criminal justice system why you used force to avoid being killed or crippled.

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Additional Considerations When Using Deadly Force

The Network is supported by an Advisory Board comprised of leaders in the firearms and self-defense field. In this program, Network President Marty Hayes, J.D. moderates a series of short interviews with Advisory Board Members, including–

Dennis Tueller explains the history and intent of his studies in the proxemics that resulted in the Tueller Principle.

Tom Givens sketches out common factors in the 52 shootings in which his students have been involved and draws many lessons.

John Farnam advises members on lifestyle and habits to avoid attracting the attention of human predators.

Massad Ayoob defines and teaches how to identify and explain furtive movements an assailant may make just before presenting a weapon to do you harm. Click read more for video clips and further details.

Proxemics: The Tueller Principle

Dennis Tueller tells the history of what has come to be known as the Tueller Drill and why he prefers the term “Tueller Principle.” Today, this demonstration helps the trier of fact understand how quickly an aggressor can lunge from a stationary position and harm you with a contact weapon.

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Understanding and Explaining Altered Perceptions of Participants and Witnesses of Violent Encounters

Taught by Massad Ayoob, who for 19 years was chairman of the Firearms Committee and Deadly Force Committee for the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, served for two years as co-vice chair for the Forensic Evidence Committee for the National Association of Trial Defense Lawyers, has worked in law enforcement as a sworn officer for 36 years, and has provided expert witness testimony at trial in countless use of force cases.

In this program, Ayoob explains how altered perceptions may occur, influence the armed citizen or police officer’s performance, and literally affect their survival of the encounter itself. Post incident legal survival is endangered when the survivor is ill-prepared to explain how physiological changes to the body in a near-death incident influence–

  • Hearing
  • Visual perception
  • Distance and perspective
  • Distortions in time
  • Details like the number of shots fired.

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Emotional and Psychological Aftermath of a Self-Defense Shooting

This lecture is presented by Massad Ayoob, who is one of the pre-eminent fighting handgun trainers in the world. His methods of reflexive, high speed yet accurate shooting has been adopted by the U.S. Army as part of its standard pistol-training course. Former director of Lethal Force Institute, and owner/operator of the Massad Ayoob Group, he is directly responsible for training thousands in justifiable use of deadly force, safe gun use and effective defense techniques. In this lecture, he offers a frank discussion of how a lethal force incident changes the survivor.

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Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self Defense

Our ninth member education item, a 230-page book by Massad Ayoob, is the most expensive to procure of the many educational items the Network sends members, but the investment in member knowledge is well worth it, creating members who are less likely to make errors of judgment or to give misleading details while handling the legal aftermath.

Educated about both the law and society’s negative reaction to using force–even in undeniable self defense–Network members reading this  book will be even quicker to avoid situations that might lead to a fight.

DeadlyForce CoverHowever, if preclusion fails and a Network member is forced to choose between using a gun for defense or death or crippling injury, the member must understand the legal aftermath that will follow. “Know the standards to which you will be held,” Ayoob urges early in Deadly Force, but the reader may wonder in a time where layers upon layers of law and precedence have been imposed upon the basic human right to self defense, how can a layperson obey that advice?

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Use of Knives in Self Defense

Defense with a knife entails many legal pitfalls owing partly to the general misperception of knives as thugs’ weapons coupled with the appearance that excessive force was used due to the many wounds that may be made before a determined attacker loses the will to fight if you depended on blood loss to incapacitate the attacker. In this member-education video Michael Janich outlines self defense knife use and associated legal concerns that his Martial Blade Concepts system resolves.

Most knives carried daily are comparatively short-bladed. That makes it important to understand the anatomy of muscles, tendons and nerves that provide mobility and that allow an attacker to use a weapon. Janich discusses scaling target selection observing that not only is this kind of targeting the most  effective in stopping the fight quickly, it also is the most ethical and responsible and can be explained in court. He illustrates flowing through a series of cuts to finish the fight, even if one or several of the cuts don’t completely sever tendons or disable a hand or leg.

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Disparity of Force

Massad Ayoob and Marty Hayes analyzed incidents in which armed citizens shot ostensibly unarmed assailants. While it seems that prosecutors are quick to paint shootings like these as murder or manslaughter, testimony by the defendant and expert witnesses can show why shooting was a reasonable response to an attack by someone who did not possess a firearm.

Next, Ayoob identifies three key elements and why all three must be present to justify use of deadly force in self defense. They are ability, opportunity and jeopardy. Jeopardy, he states, is the assailant’s intent “manifest ... by words and or actions ... to kill or to cripple an innocent party.” Opportunity, which is nearly self explanatory, often speaks to proximity. Is the attacker close enough to inflict the deadly harm his words and actions promise? Ability is generally attributed to having a gun or knife – a weapon per se.  Ayoob expands that definition, describing how an attacker who has no weapon at hand can use “his physical advantage over you” so effectively that “if this attack is allowed to continue you’re likely to be killed or crippled.”

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