Utah law allows a person to threaten or use force against someone in self-defense, that is, to protect himself or another person from the imminent use of illegal force. Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, wants to make it legal for the person under immediate threat of illegal force to show a gun or tell his assailant that he has a gun.

Why not? Showing a weapon might deter violence. Or, it might escalate the violence. It depends. But that's a chance someone who reasonably feels threatened with serious bodily injury or death and who has a gun should be allowed to take.

What we would not want to see is a change in the law that might give the tens of thousands of Utahns with concealed-carry permits, or anyone else, the idea that they can show a weapon with impunity in situations other than genuine self-defense. A person who threatens to do bodily injury to someone else, accompanied by a show of immediate force or violence, is guilty of assault. We assume that would apply to a person who threatens someone else with a gun, except in self-defense. Rep. Sandstrom's bill, HB78 as substituted and amended, would not change that.

The law that his bill would amend also provides that, except in cases of self-defense, a person who displays a dangerous weapon in an angry and threatening manner or unlawfully uses it in a fight or quarrel is guilty of a misdemeanor.

It is important to stress that a weapon cannot be employed, even in self-defense, cavalierly. Utah's self-defense law includes the following: "A person is justified in using force intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily injury only if he or she reasonably believes that force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself or a third person as a result of the other's imminent use of unlawful force, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

What's more, the law makes clear that a person is not justified in using force if he initially provokes a fight to create an excuse to inflict bodily harm on his assailant.

Under Utah law, the standard for threatening to use a gun is high, and it should remain so. We believe that Rep. Sandstrom's bill will not jeopardize that so long as people are made aware of the self-defense law. That's one purpose of the training that is supposed to precede the issuance of a concealed-carry permit, and why that training is so important.