Aftermath: Lessons In Self-Defense

The book, AFTERMATH: Lessons In Self-Defense – What to Expect When the Shooting Stops, will help you understand many aspects of a deadly force encounter. The author, Jim Fleming, is a “gun guy.” He owns them, shoots them, hunts with them, collects them, fixes them, reads about them, writes about them, assists others in selecting them for a variety of uses, and, with his wife, both as certified self-defense firearms trainers, he teaches students how to use them safely and effectively. Growing up in Nebraska his family had guns from great-grandfather on down. The author's father was a hunter, and later, a deadly accurate combat infantryman during WWII in Normandy. He and his brothers were taught as children to respect the firearm as a useful tool. Later, he carried one on his hip as a law officer, and has now spent over a decade teaching others how to use that tool in defense of their own lives, or the lives of others. an ex-cop, a criminal defense trial attorney, for the last thirty-two years, and a firearms self-defense and LEOSA trainer.
The author's broad mix of careers has provided both the background and experience to provide some useful guidance to you, an individual who may be called upon to use a weapon in self-defense, at some point in your life. Jim Fleming is a former police officer, a practicing attorney with thirty-two years of experience in handling criminal trials and civil tort litigation. He has served as an expert witness for other attorneys in more than a dozen homicide and firearm related cases and is one of the founders of the firearms training company, Mid-Minnesota Self--Defense, Inc. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network and on the Legal Panel for CCW Safe. He has provided continuing legal education to attorneys across the county on the issues that arise in handling self-defense cases.
No, this book does not answer “all of the questions”. When have you ever found a single book that did? The chapters of the book focus on basic, but important topics, that routinely come up in the self-defense cases. This reading will help to create awareness, and to stimulate your thought processes. It does not attemp to dispense “legal advice”. That is a job for your attorney, once you have established an attorney-client relationship with that professional. Cases differ and they are all fact dependent. Change the facts, you also change the application of the law, at least to some degree. This book will help guide you through the legal process that takes place once the self-defense shooting stops. There can be no doubt that I have not been able to cover every possible contingency that might arise in the aftermath of a deadly force, self-defense encounter. The subject is complex, and very fact-driven. Different cases will present different challenges. What I have tried very hard to accomplish is to provide the reader with a basic understanding of those elements of the situation that we can reasonably anticipate will occur, or at least are very likely to occur.
If you are going to carry a firearm for self-defense, or employ one within your home, you need to spend considerable time preparing not only for a self-defense encounter, but for the aftermath of that encounter as well. That “aftermath” preparation needs to involve frank discussions with your immediate family, and with the attorney you have chosen to provide you with the legal advice necessary to protect you in the second battle, if that battle should arise. Understanding the investigative and criminal charging process will also relieve a lot of stress if you understand what is happening, or what may happen.
No matter the situation, the use of deadly force in self-defense is a horribly traumatic event. It is something that those who are forced to do so will never forget. This book will be of help to you, to your families, and to the attorneys who will stand by your side in surviving the second battle. The Aftermath.