Shoot first law: What could possibly go wrong?

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simon_says
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11 Mar 2012, 4:37 pm

CoMF wrote:
simon_says wrote:
The letter clearly says that it would increase the danger to them in performance of their duty. And there is a press conference where a Miinn. police chief specifically talks about the increased risks during the serving of a warrant. They don't like it for several reasons.


I'd like to bring to your attention that under currently existing Minnesota law there is no "duty to retreat" before using lethal force in one's home, and deadly force is authorized "when necessary in resisting or preventing an offense which the actor reasonably believes exposes the actor or another to great bodily harm or death, or preventing the commission of a felony in the actor's place of abode." I would also be willing to hazard a guess that there is a provision in that law stating that such belief would not be an affirmative defense when a law enforcement officer is performing his duties (i.e. serving a warrant).

The only way this law might have lead to an increase in police officer deaths is that it would have made it far more difficult for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute the suspicious use of deadly force. As I have already stated, this would have created a public policy nightmare and Gov. Dayton was justified in vetoing the bill on such grounds. In other words, it's not the "stand your ground" doctrine that placed police officers in danger, but the dangerous loophole which existed in the bill.

simon_says wrote:
You shouldnt take everything so personally.


I reserve the right to speak out against anyone who resorts to the use of inflammatory words like "amateurs" to prove their point in lieu of civility.


Uh huh.



Tadzio
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11 Mar 2012, 6:00 pm

simon_says wrote:
The Minnesota bill, the subject of the OP, was vetoed a few days ago.

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news ... mar-5-2012

Cops opposed it and that was enough for the Governor. The cops don't want to get shot by amateurs either.


Hi Simon_Says,

It is good that the bill was vetoed.

The numbers of homicide & attempted homicide by firearms are horrendous.

In the past decade, over 300,000 homicides by criminals using firearms took place in the U.S.A.

Over the same decade, less than a mere 3,000 incidents of these gun deaths were technically found as involving justifiable homicide occurring in the U.S.A.

More than 2,000,000 non-lethal injuries from the criminal usage of firearms were experienced in the U.S.A., while less than 20,000 of these gun injuries were technically found as involving non-criminal injuries occurrences.

More than 25,000,000 criminal assaults with firearms were anonymously reported to government agents, while by criteria of technicalities for legal justifiable assault usages were found allowable for less than a couple hundred thousand.

Most of these criminals tried to justify their criminal actions under the guise of defense, but, still, even when their victim's rights achieved full legal considerations in the courtroom, about 1% of the gun abusing defendants got off with legal trickery & slick lawyers side-stepping true Justice, with preserved "rights" for the perpetrator to attempt self-righteous killings again.

Passing more laws encouraging ease of such criminal conduct, and allowing more self-righteous murderers to escape full legal Justice on contorted liberal legal technicalities, is certainly not in the best interest of maintaining any reasonable Social Order with the protection of self-evident truths of Civil Rights not subjected to dangers from criminal first-hand and second-hand lead projectiles whizzing by millions of times a year from poorly regulated gun toters.

Tadzio



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11 Mar 2012, 10:13 pm

300k? The only way you can get even close to that number is if you redefine suicides as homicides.


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11 Mar 2012, 11:57 pm

Tadzio wrote:



Hi Raptar, Dox47, AceOfSpades,

"In the U.S. for 2006, there were 30,896 deaths from firearms, distributed as follows by mode of death:

Suicide 16,883;
Homicide 12,791;
Accident 642;
Legal Intervention 360;
Undetermined 220.

This makes firearms injuries one of the top ten causes of death in the U.S."

"The number of non-fatal injuries is considerable--over 200,000 per year in the U.S."

The justifiable homicide by weapon weilding private citizens against felons in 2006 was 238, of which 192 "defended" themselves with firearms.

The "16,100%-against-ONE" odds make expanding the notions of any increased defense of availability, through firearms, of "justifiable homicide by firearm weilding private citizen" being promoted as something completely sound, and the better use of logic, seem like nonsense propagated through the blatherings of individuals who are very inept, and dangerous to themselves and the public in general, with their faulty logic decisions, to take any action involving weighted judgments in actually utilizing firearms.

Tadzio

http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUT ... NSTAT.html

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offens ... le_15.html










Lies, DAMNED lies, and even more Statistics...... :roll:



John_Browning
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12 Mar 2012, 2:24 am

Tadzio wrote:
In the past decade, over 300,000 homicides by criminals using firearms took place in the U.S.A.

Over the same decade, less than a mere 3,000 incidents of these gun deaths were technically found as involving justifiable homicide occurring in the U.S.A.

More than 2,000,000 non-lethal injuries from the criminal usage of firearms were experienced in the U.S.A., while less than 20,000 of these gun injuries were technically found as involving non-criminal injuries occurrences.

More than 25,000,000 criminal assaults with firearms were anonymously reported to government agents, while by criteria of technicalities for legal justifiable assault usages were found allowable for less than a couple hundred thousand.

Most of these criminals tried to justify their criminal actions under the guise of defense, but, still, even when their victim's rights achieved full legal considerations in the courtroom, about 1% of the gun abusing defendants got off with legal trickery & slick lawyers side-stepping true Justice, with preserved "rights" for the perpetrator to attempt self-righteous killings again.

1) The only way you could come up with 300,000 homicides is using doctored data from the crack epidemic and adding suicides on top of that.

2) The 3,000 justifiable homicides would be a hard argument to beat...except for the fact that law abiding citizens are not out to match the criminals' body count, and they are not even out for blood. The idea for lawful gun owners is to drive someone off or hold them for the police. The threat of deadly force provides an incentive for compliance and acts as it's own backup plan if the gun owner runs into life threatening resistance.

3) To get 2,000,000 injuries, you would have to include range/hunting accidents and self-inflicted negligent discharges. But for argument's sake, let's say there were 2,000,000. That still isn't a problem since in the same amount of time since there were at least 6,000,000 people that saved their skin by having a gun accessible. Those figures would be conservative since they were obtained when the crack epidemic wasn't quite over and far fewer people had guns readily accessible for defense.

4) Repeat criminals know to try and claim they were scared since they were taught that by a public defender. Criminals will say anything to try to beat the rap. That has nothing to do with genuine self defense. 1% of defendants getting off is not trickery. The cops don't always arrest the right people and the DA's don't always make good judgment calls on who to prosecute. If everyone arrested got convicted, there is something wrong with a justice system like that. It is fairly common to hear of someone getting tried for their self defense, and juries usually find there was no malice or negligence involved, so not guilty.

Edit: I forgot to add that 25,000,000 assaults with a firearm reported anonymously is a weak claim given there is no way to verify the accuracy of the figures and the credibility of the reports collected.


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simon_says
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12 Mar 2012, 12:42 pm

This is an interesting "shoot first" case in Florida from this January. The law is not about just firearms, it's about lethal force. So you can kill someone with a knife, a pipe, an axe or whatever if you feel they are a threat to you anywhere. The use of force does not have to be proportionate.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/jan ... er=popular

A kid wanted to fight another kid on a school bus and the kids on the bus were hyping up the coming fight. One of the two got off the bus early to avoid the fight and the other kid followed him and punched him in the back of the head as he got off. At some point the punched kid pulled a knife and stabbed the other kid 14 times, twice in the heart, killing him. Perfectly legal under the new law.

I'm not sure that encouraging school kids to murder each other is really the best path forward for civilization.



John_Browning
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12 Mar 2012, 2:38 pm

The kid that got off the bus tried to retreat and got ambushed. It's not safe for the defender to stop and think about what is proportional force while they are under attack. Overall, the doctrine is working. Crime is way down compared to before Florida started adopting self defense laws that liberate the defender. Criminals are not a protected species in most states. If they don't want to get killed, then they shouldn't victimize anyone.


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12 Mar 2012, 3:48 pm

simon_says wrote:
This is an interesting "shoot first" case in Florida from this January. The law is not about just firearms, it's about lethal force. So you can kill someone with a knife, a pipe, an axe or whatever if you feel they are a threat to you anywhere. The use of force does not have to be proportionate.


It doesn't necessarily have to be proportionate. We know for certain that Dylan Nuno was older than Jorge Saavedra. What the article doesn't tell us is whether or not Nuno was physically larger and stronger than Saavedra. If such was the case, expecting Saavedra to defend himself with fists when he was at a physical disadvantage is unreasonable.

simon_says wrote:
A kid wanted to fight another kid on a school bus and the kids on the bus were hyping up the coming fight.


You're omitting the fact that Nuno's bullying was an ongoing problem. I'd like to bring to your attention the following excerpt from the article:

Quote:
During that hearing, students recounted for the judge previous altercations between the two teens, including one instance on the bus when something was lobbed from the back, where Dylan Nuno sat, to the front, where Saavedra was.

The judge also highlighted that Saavedra would skip school or find other ways home to avoid the bus. [Emphasis Mine]


The events that lead up to the incident were not a coincidence, and this was not some random jock trying to pick a fight with a "nerdy" kid who just happened to be sitting on the same bus. I won't go so far as to say that you're explicitly implying this, but I find your oversimplification puzzling in light of the mitigating circumstances.

simon_says wrote:
One of the two got off the bus early to avoid the fight and the other kid followed him and punched him in the back of the head as he got off. At some point the punched kid pulled a knife and stabbed the other kid 14 times, twice in the heart, killing him. Perfectly legal under the new law.


You fail to mention that Saavedra tried to escape after Nuno threw a sucker punch. Taken from the same article:

Quote:
Accompanied by several students, Dylan Nuno, a junior, followed Saavedra, a freshman, off the bus. He then punched him in the back of the head, according to court documents and testimony.

Saavedra attempted to get away once, witnesses said. He then stabbed Dylan Nuno 12 times in the chest and abdomen. Two of the blows caused fatal wounds, including one that nicked his heart. [Emphasis Mine]


Interestingly enough, the judge wasn't convinced that Saavedra was a cold blooded killer in light of the circumstances:

Quote:
In a nine-page document released Tuesday by the State Attorney’s Office, Brodie stated that by getting off the bus several stops before the location where the fight was to happen, Saavedra “demonstrated that, with or without a knife, (he) had no desire to fight with Dylan Nuno.” [Emphasis Mine]


And:

Quote:
“The defendant was in a place where he had a right to be and was not acting unlawfully. He had more than enough reason to believe he was in danger of death or great bodily harm ... (He) was under attack from the first punch to the back of his head until he stabbed Dylan Nuno.”


Apparently, Judge Brodie found it difficult to sympathize with the actions of a bully who had repeatedly harassed the defendant on multiple occasions, and who was quite possibly larger and physically stronger than him.

simon_says wrote:
I'm not sure that encouraging school kids to murder each other is really the best path forward for civilization.


While I find the events just as troubling as you do, I also believe there are other issues at the core of this. For example, why did Nuno's parents fail to teach their son to show proper respect to others, why haven't the bus driver and school officials intervened on previous occasions, and why was Saavedra in possession of a pocketknife in the first place? However, these are topics for another discussion.

Incidentally, not everyone who plays the "Stand Your Ground" card gets a free pass:

Judge denies 'Stand Your Ground' claim, notes blood spatter, 75-plus stab wounds

Seems Florida's justice system isn't out to promote anarchy after all. :wink:



visagrunt
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12 Mar 2012, 4:00 pm

Dox47 wrote:
300k? The only way you can get even close to that number is if you redefine suicides as homicides.


Well, technically, they are. In american usage, the word homicide has come to have a more restrictive definition than it does in the rest of the english speaking world. In Canada, for example, all killing of human beings is homicide. It is only a subset of those homicides that are culpable homicides (suicides and accidents being obvious exceptions), and it is only a subset of those culpable homicides that are murder, manslaughter and infanticide.

But where he is wrong is taking 300,000 firearms deaths during a decade (an eminently believable figure) and then claiming that all of them were caused by, "criminals using firearms." They may have been homicides, but only about 40% of them were potentially criminal acts.


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simon_says
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12 Mar 2012, 4:04 pm

I included the link so you implying some motive behind my three sentence synopsis is silly. There are other details, such as the fact that he was showing the knife around to other kids before using it. What were his private intentions? It doesnt appear that difficult to orchestrate a legal murder under these rules.

Fortunately these laws are confined to a dozen or so southern and rural states for now. With luck, and the support of police and prosectutors, they can be contained there. The NRA is pushing them hard.



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12 Mar 2012, 4:38 pm

simon_says wrote:
I included the link so you implying some motive behind my three sentence synopsis is silly. There are other details, such as the fact that he was showing the knife around to other kids before using it. What were his private intentions? It doesnt appear that difficult to orchestrate a legal murder under these rules.


Oh, make no mistake. I agree that having the pocketknife in the first place was suspicious, but the issue before the court was whether or not he had committed murder. First and Second Degree Murder typically don't involve the defendant avoiding and/or fleeing from hostile situations multiple times. The most you could ever hope to get him for on appeal is voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, depending on whether he had the intent to kill or not. Of course, we're also faced with the question once again of whether or not the law in its current form prevents the justice system from successfully prosecuting the suspicious use of deadly force, but the answer to this is a resounding "no" in light of that other article I quoted from the same news source.

Besides, Saavedra is probably in the process of being expelled and facing seperate charges for bringing a knife to school if that hasn't happened already.

simon_says wrote:
Fortunately these laws are confined to a dozen or so southern and rural states for now. With luck, and the support of police and prosectutors, they can be contained there. The NRA is pushing them hard.


Let me ask you something. Suppose that, despite your best attempts to avoid dangerous situations, you're accosted by one person or multiple persons intent on causing you harm even if you hand over whatever they want. Despite your best attempts at conflict de-escalation, they demonstrate that they have no compassion or a capacity for reason. They're physically larger and stronger than you or using weapon(s), thus placing you at an immediate disadvantage. Fleeing is not an option because you have nowhere else to run or are physically incapable of doing so. No one else is around or willing to help you, and the police will take several minutes to reach you. Do you:

a) Let them do whatever they want to you and hope that you survive the attack.

b) Defend yourself from them by any means necessary, so long as it doesn't jeopardize innocent parties.

c) Another option which I haven't taken into account. (Please elaborate.)



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12 Mar 2012, 4:38 pm

simon_says wrote:
I included the link so you implying some motive behind my three sentence synopsis is silly. There are other details, such as the fact that he was showing the knife around to other kids before using it. What were his private intentions? It doesnt appear that difficult to orchestrate a legal murder under these rules.

Being scared and having a incompetent school administration is a common reason why kids bring weapons to school. He had a knife, but he tried to avoid using it. People trying to be the alpha male don't withdraw from a situation to avoid conflict. A duty to retreat would not have made things any better.


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simon_says
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12 Mar 2012, 4:54 pm

Here are some interesting bits. http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/dec ... hreatened/

--- Kids on the bus were pushing the fight. Both were heard saying they didnt want to fight. Sounds like the crowd, or his buddies, pushed the fight.

--- Both were of similar size and weight.

--- Both dated the same girl at one point.

--- Showed the knife to two boys on the bus, not the first time he carried one.

---The kid stabbed him 12x after taking a single hit, without punching back. He pushed back once and was stepping back (not fleeing exactly), then stabbed him 12x.

Up until the killing, it sounds like the kind of routine kid fight that happens anywhere in the world. There is no reason to tell kids they can legally start butchering each other. Crazy.



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12 Mar 2012, 5:07 pm

[quote]over 300,000 homicides[quote]

Yeah, might be close to 300k if you include game animals legally taken with firearms to include varmints.
I guess at this pathetic point anything goes....
:roll:



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12 Mar 2012, 6:04 pm

simon_says wrote:
Here are some interesting bits. http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/dec ... hreatened/

--- Kids on the bus were pushing the fight. Both were heard saying they didnt want to fight. Sounds like the crowd, or his buddies, pushed the fight.


If that's truly the case, then why did Nuno pursue and then proceed to punch Saaveda in the back of the head? Why didn't he have the self control to remain on the back of the bus when Saaveda got off the bus several stops before where the fight was to take place?

simon_says wrote:
--- Both were of similar size and weight.


More importantly, was Nuno physically stronger than Saavedra? The article is silent on this. It's also silent on just how much the other kids who sat with Nuno participated in the fight, yet from what we can discern they made "threatening comments" which would give any person reason for concern. They demonstrated the intent to follow through on those threats by getting up and pursing Saavedra despite his attempts to avoid a hostile situation altogether by getting off the bus several stops before his own . Being pursued by someone who has harassed you on multiple occasions along with two or three others that made unambiguous threats like "today's the day we're going to get you" is enough to make any reasonable person fear for their safety.

Additionally, even if we were to assume that Nuno and Saavedra were equal in terms of physical strength, there was still a disparity of force in that Saavedra faced not one but three or four possible attackers, and a “fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm" would not be at all unreasonable given the circumstances. What would you have had him do? Curl up in a fetal position while Nuno and his buddies took turns punching and kicking him?

simon_says wrote:
--- Both dated the same girl at one point.


She first dated Nuno, and then briefly dated Saavedra. Usually, it's the other way around when citing the "jealous lover" theory as a motive.

simon_says wrote:
--- Showed the knife to two boys on the bus, not the first time he carried one.


When did he obtain the knife? What were his reasons for doing so? When did he start carrying one on a regular basis? The article tells us nothing about this. Furthermore, bringing a knife or any other weapon to school is a felony under existing law, and Saavadra is more than likely facing charges for that in addition to expulsion from school, so it's not like he's getting away scot-free.

simon_says wrote:
---The kid stabbed him 12x after taking a single hit, without punching back. He pushed back once and was stepping back (not fleeing exactly), then stabbed him 12x.


Except that facing three or four potential attackers who had already demonstrated the intent to follow through with their threats is not exactly a "fair fight." Furthermore, the possibility exists that Nuno struck Saavedra from behind with enough force to cause a mild concussion, as he "started getting lightheaded" afterward. Saavedra's fear for his own life was not idiosyncratic in light of the circumstances.

simon_says wrote:
Up until the killing, it sounds like the kind of routine kid fight that happens anywhere in the world. There is no reason to tell kids they can legally start butchering each other. Crazy.


So why did Nuno's parents fail to prevent this? Why did the bus driver and school officials not intervene before things escalated to that point? Why should we lay the blame for this at the doorstep of Florida's judicial system?



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12 Mar 2012, 6:08 pm

--- Kids on the bus were pushing the fight. Both were heard saying they didnt want to fight. Sounds like the crowd, or his buddies, pushed the fight.

He may have said he didn't want to fight but he did follow someone off the bus to start crap.

--- Both were of similar size and weight.

I'm fairly close to the height and weight of Randy Coture but I'd be afraid to fight him.

--- Both dated the same girl at one point.

What does that have to do with a physical threat?

--- Showed the knife to two boys on the bus, not the first time he carried one.

He played show and tell, he didn't brandish it. Haven't you ever showed something off?

---The kid stabbed him 12x after taking a single hit, without punching back. He pushed back once and was stepping back (not fleeing exactly), then stabbed him 12x.

I've pushed people back before and they didn't go away. When they didn't go away I have won with a single decisive hit without getting hit back. I'm too slow to run away.

Up until the killing, it sounds like the kind of routine kid fight that happens anywhere in the world. There is no reason to tell kids they can legally start butchering each other. Crazy.[/quote]

What's crazy is the court of public opinion. There are a lot of factors that could have made the self defense legit, and neither of us have enough evidence to convict or acquit.


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