What Are the Legal Issues of Becoming A Superhero?

We've talked about how people have increasingly tried their hands at becoming real life superheroes, but have you ever wondered whether or not that's actually legal? While the rules will vary based on where you live, San Diego criminal lawyer Peter M. Liss says it's actually totally legal to do in California, as long as you only use the minimal amount of force neccessary to make a citizen's arrest:

If you behaved like most superheroes from the Golden Age of comics and merely subdued the criminals enough to bring them to the police station, you’d be acting within the law. This doesn’t mean you couldn’t use weapons, even a gun, it just means that you could only use them when appropriate -for example, if the criminal started shooting at you. At that point, even if you were arrested for your actions, your San Diego criminal defense lawyer would be able to explain that you were attempting to perform a citizen’s arrest and then had to use a weapon in self defense.

Of course, you have to use weapons legal in the state and you can't torture wrong-doers like many of the more violent heroes in seen modern comics.

Link Image Via Brett Jordan [Flickr]