Did Bobby Violate Assault Statute

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Bobby is angry with his supervisor and takes a gun to work to which he wants to scare his supervisor so he waves his gun around and starts yelling at his supervisor. Obviously Bobby should not have brought his gun to work to scare his supervisor, so the Police are called and when Officer Goodman arrives, he calmly asks Bobby to put down or give the gun to Officer Goodman. At this point, the gun accidently goes off hitting Officer Goodman in the hand. The question is if this violates the assault statute? On page 557 of Introduction to law by Joanne B. Hames and Yvonne Ekern, the definition of assault is the placing of another in apprehension or fear of an imminent battery; it is both a crime and a tort. Also on page 557 of Introduction to Law by Joanne B. Hames and Yvonne Ekern, the definition of battery is a reckless or intentional, harmful or offensive touching of another; it is both a crime and a tort. I believe, yes, Bobby did in fact violate the assault statute? “One goal of criminal law is to prevent socially undesirable behavior. All jurisdictions have criminal statutes. Not everyone agrees on the purpose of criminal law; the most common theories are deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and retribution. Most crimes consist of two primary elements: mens rea and actus reus. There are many types of crimes; for example, crimes against people, crimes against property, and crimes against society. Criminal statutes are very carefully drafted because the potential penalties are so severe.” (Hames, J. B., & Ekern, Y. 2010, p. 368). When Bobby walked into a public work facility with a gun with the intent to harm another person (his supervisor), then he did violate the assault statute because it is considered a crime against a person such as stated above. The supervisor did not do harm to Bobby, it sounded as if the supervisor was in fear and had his

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