Professor Jacobson has asked me to address whether such an act would be lawful as a justified act of self-defense. I’m on a flight now using airplane WiFi, so I’ll make this quick. (Before I go on, however, I should point out that Professor Reynolds has added some important context to his pithy tweet, and these later comments can be found at the link above.)
In short, one would apply the usual five elements of a self-defense justification to evaluate such a use of force against others, just as in any other instance of self-defense. Those elements are, of course: innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonableness.
Source: Analysis: Is it lawful self-defense to “run down” rioters surrounding your vehicle?
Don’t screw around and go read this post by Andrew Branca now.
Therein lies a key point: “rioters” vs. “protesters.” Some might say running down rioters is disproportional, but balancing the fact that it’s a mob against one’s tool at hand, I’d say it’s not disproportional.
Where did “proportionality” come from?
I know that in some extremely liberal states in the past they’ve done stupid stuff about “proportional responses”, but in the rest of the normal country I’ve never heard of it being an element.
If the line has been crossed to where you need to take immediate action in order to stop an imminent threat to your life I’ve always been taught that your response to it should be as disproportional as possible. No violence at all when your life is not in imminent danger, as much absolute violence of action as possible when it is.