The ABA report on SYG laws

Post Reply New Topic

Apparently 20 years worth and it only took the Jury 12 minutes to render that verdict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Alexander_case

That's not exactly a warning shot. She also pointed the gun at his kids. Even in Minnesota, the justifiable homicide defense dosn't apply if you've engaged in provocation beforehand.

There was only one shot fired which leads me to believe it was a carelessly (and dangerously) delivered warning shot. I would think if she intended to kill him or whoever else she would have kept firing until the goal was achieved or the pistol was empty. Like anything else, it's a matter of evidence and testimony.
I do see potential here for her to be charged with a thing or two to include reckless endangerment.

As far as SYG, I believe the law reads that the defendant must be in a place they have a right to be. This was in his house after she had moved and a restraining order had been issued barring each of them from each others residences or something like that. After a post-restraining order altercation at his residence, she went to her car (she should have just left right then) and got her pistol and came back after him in the kitchen where the shot was fired.
From what I've read (which is only two articles so far):
1. She was in violation of a restraining order
2. She did successfully retreat to her car BUT came back in with the pistol

If he had come to her residence or this alteration had happened in public it would have been an entirely different matter from the start.

It's looking like she f****d up BUT definitely not 20 years worth. I think it's mandatory sentencing and prosecutors over-charging that we should be questioning here, not SYG.

She definetly shouldn't have shot with kids around,or went back in the house for that matter.
It does seem to be a rather harsh sentence if it was a first time offense.Maybe she had prior convictions.

there was another case where a bunch of guys were swaming and hitting this lady's daughter so she fired her gun into some dirt to get them to stop(which it did) but she got in trouble for it.

the police who taught my carry class, and other officers who I have talked to, all told me that never fire a warning shot, if you pull the gun and am , and shot, then you better have a valid reason. warning shot shows you had time to fire it and that the gun wasn't needed perhaps. or as some said shoot to kill.

I personally don't want to kill so i will do as my instructer said and shoot till the threat stops. but I can see how a dead attacker is less of a legal threat then a living one. I don't have much money though so they can get in line behind the other debt collectors lol.
I'd rather be alive .

as for syg. I won't run and turn my back to them so i can be stabed or shot , f**k that. I will tell them to stop coming at me or i'll shoot. as tying to back away safely(last thing I want is to fall down) if they fail to accept my warning then i'll fire into them, while tring to avoid possible bystanders.

Oregon doesn't have syg but something similar but not as good. we don't have to run away for a certian distance like in other states.

reality is most people are faster then me. if I'm being attacked or mugedthe person likely is in better shape, since doing illegal stuff repeatably requires it. I can't outrun them, I can't out fight them. if it turns into a hand to hand fight, I'm going lose and die.
let the jury fall where it falls I suppose. my problem is I am big and look like I can fight. But I have AS, am non violent, and weak. quite a few women are stronger then me. I can only hope that the system will come thru for me.

I agree with this. I just think that there are loopholes in SYG laws in some states that allow them to be used improperly by a corrupt legal system and by corrupt but intelligent and legal savvy criminals.



SYG laws really haven't been invoked all that often. As a percentage of shootings it is very small. Which is why I think that states should take measures to minimize the possibility for repeat cases to receive further scrutiny.



I agree that the racial aspect needs further analysis, but I do think the race of the victim has a lot to do with the way they are handled in the court system (which I also agree is a big part of the problem with the way some SYG laws are written).

The term victim is used to describe one party in an investigation, regardless. What would you call them? Invoking Martin/Zimmerman seems to be an attempt to bring something in that has nothing to do with the current discussion, considering it was not a SYG case. And since Zimmerman was found not guilty, there really isn't much to discuss.



Worthless statement, as the number of SYG cases is fairly insignificant as compared to the overall caseload in any SYG states.



^Oh yes, I am such a crazy seizure advocate since I want to revise or eliminate many pointless and inefficient laws. But since there are certain laws that I would be in favor of I must be anti-you.



No. Some states need no changes, IMO. Pennsylvania, for example, ended up with reasonable and well written SYG law that effectively eliminated many issues that came about in Texas and Florida when they ram-rodded their laws through without taking the time to actually think about them.



My idea for registration is geared more towards accountability and traceability of the weapons, primarily as an incentive for distributors to be even more careful about selling weapons to someone who may end up funneling them to those who would use them illegally. I also feel like a registry would aid law enforcement in investigations. It seems there are too many cases where politicians and high dollar business folks get busted putting large numbers of weapons in the hands of drug cartels and other groups that will be using them illegally, but since they are more often going out of the country in these cases, they don't really get much media play. The massive amounts of violence in Central America right now isn't filled with Russian made weapons; they are mostly made right here in the good ol' US of A.

Yes, my preference for training would be for those using the items the training would cover, and not every human being within the borders of the US. Seems fairly reasonable to me, not to mention significantly less intrusive. Considering that it is not a financial burden to get training, I don't understand why you are so adamantly opposed. And I think that it should be aimed more towards people who want to carry in public places where the public would be at more at risk. Should someone who is buying a CO2 rifle need to provide proof of safety training before buying? No, but under your proposal they would, as would people who will never even touch a firearm in their entire lives.

You are the one with a fixation on assault weapons, not I. I used them once as an example of one possible point where certain legislation might kick in (i.e. a tracking registry), and then you bring it in every time "gun" is mentioned anywhere on this site, so I tend to respond in kind. I think ALL firearms should be subject to laws, but the lower down on the dangerous scale, the less regulation they should be subject to. Perhaps the best version of that scale may be based on caliber, rate of fire, and projectile velocity.



Plenty, but you ignore anything that doesn't fall into that category. I think magazine capacity limitations are pointless. I think background checks at gun shows are a good idea (considering they can easily be done online in a matter of seconds to minutes), although the way they are currently proposed are fairly broken, thanks to the fact that the only people writing this legislation don't know the difference between a .22 and a bologna sandwich. I favor quite a few laws that protect owners (which is why I get confused about blanket "all regulation is wrong" arguments). I think there should be regulations in place regarding law enforcement and their possession and use of firearms, with higher population areas being subject to higher standards and more scrutiny with smaller populations being more restricted in the equipment they possess and utilize. I think that illegal gun use and possession should have stricter penalties while many of the BS paperwork error penalties should be restricted to fines (at most). I think firearm bans are somewhat counter-productive. I do believe that if hobby guns are more difficult to get, then they will almost exclusively go into the hands of hobbyists (which is part of my reasoning for increased controls based on weapon, which would allow some pretty hefty hardware into the hands of an enthusiast willing to jump through some more hoops). I am 100% against removing the rights of non-violent offenders. I would like to see a complete review of every firearm regulation in the country, ideally with the input of knowledgeable so a whole heap of idiocy can be removed, revised. I think there should be a national standard for firearm regulation which puts both minimums and maximums on what states are allowed to pass in their regs, but with a very wide berth (i.e. no elimination of the right to possess, required background checks).

If I wanted to spend more time thinking about it I could probably fill pages and pages in this thread. But to you, it is either "guns good" or "guns bad" with no in between, so it unlikely you ever see me as anything other then your enemy, a mentality which is a big part of the reason that firearm regulations will eventually be passed that are ridiculously over the top by the standards of anyone who has ever pulled a trigger. But you go ahead and keep thinking your way is going to help you in the end.



If you read at the end, they have a summary of every person involved in the report. You can also track most of their opinions down with simple Google searches. The task force did have more supporters of control than opposers, but it was a slim majority.



Read it with an open mind and not just to pick out the bits you don't like. They give a fairly equal amount of coverage from both opponents and supporters.



In my initial post (which you may want to re-read), I presented the link without comment either way. You are the one who made assumptions without reading anything and jumped into this thread with gun blazing (pun intended).

Here is a little something you may want to consider: the NRA does not have nearly as much clout as it pretends to. In 2012, of the 16 Senate races the NRA participated in, 13 of its candidates lost, some of whom ran in deeply red states. Gun ownership in the US has dropped from 1/2 of households to 1/3. There has been a recent rise of hunting groups who are very outspoken against the NRA. The NRA has given F ratings to candidates who went on to win races in deeply conservative districts, and with a rapidly increasing frequency.

The NRA's paranoia peddling may be strengthening its core base, but it drives away more and more enthusiasts, especially among hunters (such as myself). Their increasingly extremist BS is the reason I stopped giving them my money more than a decade ago (even though they still mail me their garbage and likely count me in their self proclaimed number of supporters), and it's the reason they will continue to decline in relevancy. They need to wake the f*ck up and realize that if they don't actually participate in the discussion, then they will cease to be a DC player altogether.

/\ TLDNR

The problem is that if you impose a "duty to retreat" (DTR) standard, then it's a slippery slope of whether a "victim" did enough under DTR before using force. This make the aggressor the victim and the victim the aggressor.

Ever live someplace with a liberal criminal justice system where criminals pretty much walk unless you catch them standing over the victim drenched in their blood? This is where it leads. Harder and harder to stop criminals because they system is too lenient on them.

SYG should impose a RESPONSIBILITY on a victim to ensure they act prudently. Don't "shoot first and ask questions later." However, expecting a victim to constantly seek retreat before employing SYG is insanity. A criminal who knows his target can defend itself often seeks another victim that's easier. DTR only makes it easier to victimize people. SYG makes it so criminals have to think twice about who they go after...if it is worth the risk.

***

Oh, and I don't put a lot of stock in the ABA on anything anymore. They are political sellouts with their own agenda.

If the situation dictates that my gun has to come out of the holster it's time to get down to serious business which doesn't include warning shots.

I agree better universal SYG rules and training along the lines of the PA effort as listed in the OP's link, should be reviewed.

However the rule saying you must see the attacker visibly display a weapon??????

Getting into my 70's now and a strong person wouldn't need a weapon to seriously injure or kill me. It's the (real) imminent threat of great bodily harm or death to oneself or another that's the activating factor.

Additionally my wife and I often travel together; I'd certainly not allow a greater risk or let a threat escalate past the point of no return, period.

I would also wonder about an accidental discharge. If she was careless enough to wave the gun around and point it at kids, then perhaps she had her finger on the trigger.



That's what stood out to me also.

Angela Corey was the same prosecutor in the George Zimmerman case who was also overcharged IMO, she is a "tough-on-crime" Republican that likes to lock people away for 20+ years. People like her are what is wrong with our legal system, I wonder how many innocent people she has sent to prison by overcharging them to the point that if they didn't plea guilty they could spend decades in prison?

She might f**k with the wrong person someday and be found out in the boonies facedown in a ditch with her throat slit.