Posted on 07/16/2008 4:43:37 AM PDT by marktwain
Shooter’s acquittal worries authorities
ST. ALBANS CITY –– Matthew Martel is polite and has soft, boy-band looks. He was home-schooled and lives with his genial parents, Bob and Deborah, in a rustic white house with a wraparound porch that overlooks Route 105.
Martel does not look like a member of the Franklin County Sportsman’s Club, but he is. He does not come off as someone who would buy a $450 handgun for target practice, but he did. Nor does he strike you as someone who pocketed a loaded handgun for protection four or five times during the last three years, but he has.
Carrying a loaded handgun is not against the law in Vermont, and St. Albans City ordinances only prohibit guns in parks.
“I think this city’s becoming a haven for criminals,” Martel said recently.
That, he said, is why he loaded his Smith & Wesson with 10 rounds of ammo before walking to a friend’s house to play video games and watch a movie last Aug. 13. It was 10:30 p.m. They went to another friend’s house. At 2:45 a.m. the next day, Martel – the designated driver with a buddy’s car – dropped a friend at his North Elm Street home and trekked toward his residence, his gun concealed.
This is Martel’s account of what happened next.
He cut through the Food City parking lot and saw Jonathan Bushee and Jonathan Wells – both from Berkshire, both about his age – standing on a set of railroad tracks, at Lake Street. Heidi Chauvin, 16, also of Berkshire, waited nearby, with Hans Gill, of Enosburg.
Martel didn’t know them. They didn’t know Martel.
Wells was urinating on the tracks.
“Quit looking at me pissing, you (expletive) queer,” Wells said.
“Yeah, faggot,” Bushee added.
Martel kept mum and walked. He knew they were drunk. They later admitted they were.
Near the former Giroux furniture building, Bushee tried to cross the street, toward Martel. Martel immediately brandished his gun and cocked it.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
Bushee didn’t cross or speak to Martel. No one did.
Martel thought about crossing over to Catherine Street and toward the police station, on Lower Welden. Instead, he headed north on Federal Street, thinking “home.” He heard Bushee and the others again, 15 feet behind him.
“I’ve had a gun pulled on me before!” Bushee yelled. “I’m not afraid!”
Bushee’s bravado scared Martel.
“You don’t want to do this,” Martel said.
“Yes, I do,” Bushee said, now 2 feet behind Martel. “Put the gun to my head and pull the (expletive) trigger.”
Martel walked backwards, gun in hand, as Bushee and Wells closed the gap.
“You really don’t want to do this,” Martel repeated.
“Yes, I do,” Bushee replied.
BANG!
Even with a near-fatal gunshot wound in his left thigh, Bushee, with Wells, chased Martel. Martel jumped on a northbound train. His gun discharged again, accidentally. He traveled about 50 yards, jumped off and returned to his friend’s North Elm Street home for the night. Martel’s brother urged him to surrender to police later that day.
“I didn’t do it sooner, because I panicked,” Martel said.
“I would have done the same thing,” his father added. “I would have been so afraid.”
The shooting hung over the Martels for almost a year. Matthew's conditions of release prohibited him from being alone, which strained Bob and Deborah’s marriage. Matthew shrunk from 165 to 130 pounds and is being treated for depression for the second time in three years. The case has made it difficult for him to find work, he said.
When the jury rendered its verdict, he nearly cried.
“I felt like I had 20,000 pounds lifted off my back,” his father said.
Dangerous implications
Given the straightforward language of Vermont’s self-defense law, Franklin County Deputy State’s Attorney John Lavoie felt confident about Martel’s trial, but he harbored concerns about how the jury would perceive Bushee. Bushee had told a TV reporter that he “always wondered how it felt to get shot.” Bushee had a criminal record. Martel didn’t; he still doesn’t.
According to Lavoie, Martel arrived at the 9 a.m. trial wearing a nicely tailored, dark suit with a royal blue shirt and gold tie. His hair was short and spiked.
Bushee took the stand with a whiskered chin. He wore a T-shirt and cargo pants, and his tattoos were visible.
On the witness stand, Bushee said he and his friends were at a Federal Street party and were returning there when they came up behind Martel. They weren’t intentionally following him, Bushee said.
The gunshot wound to Bushee’s inner left thigh was inches from an artery that, with a direct hit, might have caused fatal bleeding, Lavoie said. Bushee was treated and released that night but returned to the hospital for a week with an infection that nearly caused amputation.
Martel testified that he carried the gun and used it because he didn’t feel safe leaving home without it, given St. Albans’ recent crime sprees. He shot Bushee because he felt threatened, he said in court.
“The gist of his testimony,” Lavoie recalled, “was that it was a habit to carry this gun, and that it was for self-protection.”
During Lavoie’s closing remarks, he reminded the jury that even though they would rather take Martel to dinner than Bushee, the case was about an unnecessary, illegal use of deadly force. Martel shot an unarmed man without first exercising any other means of self-defense, Lavoie explained. No one touched Martel. He never ran or cried for help before he fired.
After 2 ½ hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted Martel. Bushee’s family wept.
“I don’t believe this,” Lavoie thought.
The jury volunteered to undergo a post-trial survey from Lavoie. His first question: “What were you thinking?”
In retrospect, Lavoie wishes he had started more diplomatically, because the jury became defensive.
“For us,” a female juror said, “it came down to credibility.”
“About what?” Lavoie asked.
Another juror saw Bushee as the aggressor. That didn’t matter, Lavoie repeated. With no gun, he said, Martel would have been forced to find other means of protection. By even carrying the gun, Lavoie continued, Martel saw no other alternative but deadly force.
“The victim was drunk,” Lavoie said, “but is death the penalty for that?”
“I have no doubt in my mind that if the defendant had not shot the victim,” another juror argued, “the defendant would be dead.”
That night, Lavoie wondered whether state lawmakers would use Martel’s acquittal to tighten Vermont’s handgun laws – not to infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights, but to prevent a Bernie Goetz mentality (the infamous New Yorker shot alleged assailants on a subway) from overtaking the state.
The next day, the U.S. Supreme Court historically overturned a Washington, D.C., handgun ban. The 5-4 decision marked the first time in 70 years that the nation’s highest judges had dealt with the Second Amendment.
“I think it is an unfortunate decision,” Lavoie said. “It limits the government’s ability to control guns. Carrying a gun to go hunting is different than carrying a handgun on Federal Street at three o’clock in the morning.”
Lavoie said Martel’s acquittal has no legal implications, nor does it set any precedent.
“But in terms of the facts, and what a jury perceives as acceptable behavior,” he said, “it frightens me as a prosecutor.”
Gary Taylor, St. Albans City police chief, called the verdict “bad timing, and bad for St. Albans.”
“This is one case,” he said. “It’s about a victim and a decision that was made after hearing testimony. That shouldn’t be confused with a blanket message about this being appropriate conduct, if there is no legitimate reason.”
Running shoes
Taylor was visiting his daughter in Massachusetts last Aug. 14. City Police Lt. Judy Dunn called him early that morning and said officers were investigating a shooting, Taylor’s first since he became chief in July 2005. The suspect was on the loose.
“I felt like I needed to come back home,” Taylor recalled, “and I had some assurances that I didn’t need to.”
Still, he cut his trip short. When he returned to St. Albans, he learned Judge Ben Joseph had released Martel into the custody of his parents. No bail.
“I don’t think this was a random attack,” Joseph said at Martel’s arraignment. “It grew out of a confrontation, as it was.”
City police were already dealing with frightening crime trends when Martel shot Bushee. Weapons-related violence. Drugs. Gang-like activity. They were rampant – and still are. The Federal Street shooting weighed heavily in Taylor’s decision to hold a public safety forum last October. About 200 people attended. Following a similar session this year, the city council formed an ad hoc committee to address St. Albans’ crime problem.
At least four city policemen took the stand at Martel’s trial, each describing the investigation. Officers from three agencies scoured the city for Martel and cordoned off the Kingman-Lake Street block. The operation cost an estimated $6,000 in salaries alone, Taylor said.
Shortly after 6:30 p.m., on June 25, City Police Sgt. Ben Couture walked into Taylor’s office.
“The jury found him not guilty,” Couture said.
Taylor was silent. He e-mailed Mayor Marty Manahan and Dominic Cloud, city manager, warning them that the verdict “could be interpreted as a message to the bad guys that people were going to stand up for themselves, or that the bad guys would now believe they could do this sort of thing and get away with it.”
“We were concerned that a self-defense claim would be a strong possibility,” Taylor said. “We believed they would make that argument.”
Martel believes it was his only argument. Today, he seeks work through a temp agency. He wants to save money and buy a car. He doesn’t want to walk anymore. He also won’t carry a gun anymore, he said.
What has he learned from all this?
“Wear running shoes.”
There are no comments yet at the end of this story, though the author asked for them.
Good.
It’s like Alice in Wonderland. There is a segment of society which is outraged that potential victims have the temerity to try to avoid becoming actual victims.
What frightens me is this idiot has any public office. Good God what are they thinking? They were worried that people might....stand up for themselves? Get these idiots out of public office.
If Martel hadn't stood up for himself, this idiot would have been prosecuting the "victim" for murder.
Paul
I am appalled at the wussified approach the prosecutor and police chief took toward this case. Martel was CLEARLY not acting aggressively and, in fact was CXLEARLY defending himself.
In Texas, there would have been no trial because charges would not have been filed against Martel. IMO, Martel should move out west and get away from the bed-wetters in the northeast. Carrying that pistol saved his life and prevented him from being injured by two drunken thugs, one of whom got what he deserved.
“...it frightens me as a prosecutor..””
Oooooooohhhh, poor baby.
Maybe you should be in adifferent line of work, you totalitarian bastard.
"“could be interpreted as a message to the bad guys that people were going to stand up for themselves, or that the bad guys would now believe they could do this sort of thing and get away with it.”"
Does he truly think that the first part of that sentence is a bad thing???
Martel was afraid...because he was wandering around at 2:30 in the morning? He shot someone because they were following him?
1. If he was such a timid and fearful boy, why was he wandering around at 2:30 in the morning in dangerous areas? The entire incident could have been avoided had his parents had a curfew for him. Or had they provided him with cab fare.
2. Shooting someone because you are ‘afraid’ does not sound like a justified shooting to me. Were the other two wrong for following him? I don't know. It certainly wasn't smart, especially if they were trying to intimidate him, and especially after he brandished his firearm. But I don't think that it deserves risking taking a life, and he did turn around and walk back towards them. That is a form of aggression, too. He thought about walking to a police station, which must have been within walking distance. That is what he should have done. And he shouldn't have shot one of them until the people following him actually attempted to physically harm him. This sounds to me more like legally backed bravado confronts thug bravado.
I hate bullies as much as the next good guy, but when you shoot someone, you are very seriously risking their life. Nick an artery, and they're dead. Being afraid is not enough. You need to feel your own life is in danger.
Lavoie is a typical, stupid jackass who doesn't understand the 2nd Amendment and who, like a typical governmental control freak, condescends to those who understand reality better than he does. But if there are many more occurrences like these, the juries will eventually rule against the defendant and the CCW laws will be repealed.
Lavoie said Martel’s acquittal has no legal implications, nor does it set any precedent
I was under the assumption that anytime a legal decision is made a precedent is set!!
Yesterday there was a story about a man who’s 12 year old daughter was fondled leaving after fireworks were over with up in Minnesota. He stood up to for his daughter to the punks who did it and he is now in the hospital with a broken skull and possible brain damage.
Situations like this can be deadly simply because of the gang mentality of a group against a single. This guy showed them he was armed and they still went after him? That right there shows me he was in danger for his life and justified in what he did. Anyone who would still be aggressive towards someone with a gun is too unstable IMHO to show any restraint at all when he is kicking your head in as his buddy holds you down.
The jury got this one right.
Here’s the comment I tried to post at the linked article.
“Martel shot an unarmed man without first exercising any other means of self-defense, Lavoie explained. No one touched Martel. He never ran or cried for help before he fired.”
So, before I defend my life from someone intending to kill me, who I don’t know if he is armed our not, I have to wait for him to produce the weapon, by which time it could be too late?
So, before I defend myself with a gun in Vermont I have to first use my fists, a blunt instrument or a knife? Does the prosecuter not realize this puts the person being attacked at unnecessary additional risk?
So, before I defend myself with a gun in Vermont I have to run as if I am a coward?
So, before I defend myself with a gun in Vermont I have to cry for help as if I can’t take care of myself?
The prosecuter’s position is the same as insisting citizens behave as lilly livered dependent cowardly sheep. I suppose that’s what civic leaders like him want?
The jury acted wisely in this case and the prosecuter needs to be voted out of office.
He wasn’t wandering around, he was walking home, is that against the law? If we lived in a civil society, it should be safe to walk anytime.
His town was dangerous because of the thugs.
Maybe he didn’t have a curfew because he was over 18, the article doesn’t say, but I would assume that you would have to be over 18 to be a member of a gun club, which he was for 3 years.
They purposely followed and harassed him, they even went back at him a second time.
2 on 1 is not a fair fight, should he have waited to see if they were going to jump him first?
If I warned someone who was harassing me that I was armed and they then were stupid enough to disregard the warning I would assume they were out to harm me.
He did the right thing, the drunken thug got what he deserved and besides, he missed the artery. Almost doesn’t count.
Nice.
Bushee’s bravado scared Martel.
“You don’t want to do this,” Martel said.
“Yes, I do,” Bushee said, now 2 feet behind Martel. “Put the gun to my head and pull the (expletive) trigger.”
Martel walked backwards, gun in hand, as Bushee and Wells closed the gap.
“You really don’t want to do this,” Martel repeated.
“Yes, I do,” Bushee replied.
BANG! "
They know he had the gun and they still were acting aggressive towards him, the kid turned around to face them armed while walking backwards away from them.
That right there shows me they were a serious threat to him, anyone who is stupid enough to still be aggressive towards a guy who is holding a gun and asking you to back off is too unstable to trust not to attack you.
All I can say is that the guy who got shot in the leg ought to be thanking his lucky stars it was there and not through the chest.
Sad, but everyone is focusing on Martel and what he learned this life changing experience of protecting himself rather than the poor perp Bushee and what he learned. Bushee brought it all on himself.
Martel did the right thing. He has as much right to be where he was and to be left alone as anyone else does. He has a right to carry a firearm for protection and to use it when necessary. The public officials should be going after the criminal element instead of those victimized when those officials don't do their jobs.
Gosh, the way you say that, it really DOES sound just like Philip Marlowe!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go confront a Freeper named 'Ghost of Thomas Jefferson' on another thread who is calling for a national tax to pay off the United States' debt at the UN.
“You really don’t want to do this,” Martel repeated.
“Yes, I do,” Bushee replied.
BANG!
I don't see the problem here. This is how it is supposed to work.
>Being afraid is not enough. You need to feel your own life is in danger.<
The moment you become afraid, do you discern what your fright level is? How much more do you need to raise that fear from afraid I was in for butt whooping to afraid for my life? How fast does ones fright level rise? What provokes it?
The Gun is Civilization
by Marko Kloos of the
Munchkin Wrangler blog
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat—it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
>Anyone who would still be aggressive towards someone with a gun is too unstable IMHO to show any restraint at all when he is kicking your head in as his buddy holds you down.<
I fully agree. The attacker is liable to kill you to show his friends how bad he is. He wants the reputation as being a bad dude and that’s why he starts the fight in the first place.
Surrender for what? He should have reported the incident to the police *before* the scrota did, but other than that why would he want to turn himself in for defending himself?
Prosecutor should be fired, or if elected, impeached or otherwise removed from office.
***“I think it is an unfortunate decision,” Lavoie said. “It limits the government’s ability to control guns. Carrying a gun to go hunting is different than carrying a handgun on Federal Street at three o’clock in the morning.”***
This J.O. thinks gun control is a good idea.
I don’t think a citizen, especially a young one, walking into a police station with a loaded firearm is a good thing.
and Mossberg and Browning and Remington and Winchester and Barett and Garand and Singer and H&R and S&W and High Standard and Beretta and ...........
With rights come responsibilities. Unfortunately, the Left in this country has reduced the right to carry a firearm to a privilege that can be given or taken away by either legislators or judges. Doing stupid things like walking through a dangerous neighborhood and thinking it's ok because you have protection is just plain stupid. There is no other way to word it. All of the people involved in this event are stupid. Stupid people cause all of us to lose our rights.
Most people who talk flippantly about taking another's life have never looked a lethal situation in the eyes. It is best to be avoided at all costs.
And part of our jurisprudence concerning self defense is based upon “reasonable force.” If someone threatens your life, you have a right to use lethal force (depending on the state). If someone takes a swing at you, you have a right to swing back, but you seldom have the right to stomp his brains out. If someone uses words and threatening gestures, you have a right to defend yourself...usually if there is no way out. Obviously, this court thought the defendant was right. I just think he was stupid to put himself in the situation where he had to pull a gun to defend himself.
Acts like this eventually give the anti-gunners enough momentum to do what DC tried to do. Yeah, we won that round. But we're fighting for our lives to defend the 2nd Amendment. Stupid people get all of our rights taken away.
My point was that even if there is a CCW, we all have a right not to do stupid things, just because we're armed. Not only does it risk lives unnecessarily, it makes it hard for all of us to defend the 2nd Amendment. With rights comes responsibility, especially not to do stupid things like unnecessarily walk through a dangerous area at 2:30 just for a stupid party. Take a cab.
If Philadelphia or NY passed a CCW law, do you think I'd suddenly start walking through the dangerous areas at 2:30? It's just stupid. And if enough people did that and it led to more self-defense shootings, eventually the violence itself would raise a call for greater regulations. Would it be well founded? No. But when has the Left ever used facts and honesty to push their agenda?
I've got a better idea for how to survive a melee. Don't walk through dangerous areas at 2:30. Avoid the confrontation altogether.
So, good idea. Load a weapon, walk through a dangerous area rather than take a cab, watch some thugs urinating, when they follow you, just blast away. That sure sounds like intelligent living to me.
It was pretty pathetic. I stated out front that I'm a staunch defender of the 2nd Amendment and the right to carry.
TJ would agree with me that with rights come responsibilities and that if the people act stupidly, the government will take their freedoms away, kid.
If you walk through a dangerous area at 2:30 in the morning, you're being stupid, and someone is going to take away your right to CCW, and the right of everyone else to CCW. Then only the thugs will have firearms. The next time some stupid kid walks through a dangerous area at 2:30, he won't have the legal means to defend himself against the thug, who will probably be smart and arm himself next time, and won't waste time or words but will just come out with guns blazin.
We've made progress in defending the 2nd Amendment and CCW. Being stupid is a pretty sure way of undoing all the gains we've made.
The answer to your question is actually an answer to question you didn't ask but which should be addressed by everyone who plans on carrying. The first is, are you trained? Part of that training is using your firearm in controlled situations and then in varying degrees of duress. The second is being aware of what the escalation of force means. If someone sneers and calls you ugly, you don't have the right to blow them away. Similarly, if your assailants are not armed with a lethal weapon, you're going to have a tough time proving you feared for your life. Obviously the jury in this case sided with the defendant. I'm glad about that.
My point is that the defendant should never have been in a dangerous area at 2:30 in the morning armed or not. It creates a situation that can only turn out bad. And, for you and me, it gives the Left their ammunition to to suggest things like the DC gun ban. We've made a lot of gains defending the 2nd Amendment. But if people do stupid things like walk through dangerous areas of a city late at night and put themselves in a situation where they have to shoot someone, people like the prosecutors are going to push to have CCW taken away.
The bad guys won't respect the gun if they don't respect the man holding it.
They probably thought he wouldn't pull the trigger, and they could grab him and beat him up. Bad judgement
It is the passionate person who defends his rights to the utmost that sets the limits of what the rights are. The left are not impressed with reason and logic and self restraint.
Bowing and scrapping and self limiting our rights will do more to get them curtailed than carrying in dangerous areas. We need to take back this country, and we are not going to do it by smiling and backing away.
The people who are moving the country back toward more freedom are those brave individuals who turn their backs on “social norms” set by the liberal media, and who assert their rights to open carry, IMHO. Certainly we should be smart, and we should avoid trouble. But at *all* costs? No. Some things are worth fighting for.
If he walked through that dangerous area in the day, you would consider him stupid too? I've been mugged twice, both times in the late afternoon
Are women walking around in short skirts being stupid? It might tempt somebody to rape them (as many Muslim imams would agree)
A free man has the right to walk whichever public street he pleases, at whatever time he pleases, and those who would attempt to commit a crime against him do so at their peril
The Left in this country has made us all think that it is better to be a victim. That is the wrong message.
Criminals should fear us not the other way around.
Yeah, avoid dangerous areas in the day time, too. You may have a right to be there, but it's just common sense.
Please don't equivocate the suggestion to avoid a dangerous area at 2:30 in the morning, armed, with the BS the Taliban are doing. Seriously.
I agree.
But are you willing to start hunting them down in there disgusting areas? I say just avoid those areas. Avoid being a victim at all. If they come into your area and you need to defend you and yours, that’s a different story.
That was a clean shoot by anyone’s standards. Except yours, sadly.
My intent was not to offend you or hurt your feelings, it was to point out that my reasoning is in-line with TJ’s, my single most revered of the Founding Fathers and of whom I have studied at length.
Should the government protect people who are that stupid when drunk?
The more protection the government offers to people who get that stupid when drunk, the more people will get that stupid when drunk. I think it would be better to make it abundantly clear that certain behaviors are dangerous bordering on suicidal, and that anyone who wants to live must avoid such behaviors.
“The jury got this one right.”
Exactly so.
I know someone who was a juror on a similar case. Two guys heckling, one guy tried to evade and escape. They caught him and picked a fight. One punch, and the guy who tried to escape went down. Hard. He fractured his skull on the pavement and died immediately.
There seem to be some on this thread who feel Martel shouldn’t have been where he was. BS. Where he was at whatever hour and what he was doing, if legal, was his own business and no one else’s.
There seem to be some on this thread who feel he used an inapprpriate level of force. BS. Any threatened force is a threat of deadly force. It’s only on TV where thugs “duke it out” and then get up, shake it off, and go home.
In the trial mentioned above, the two thugs who picked the fight were convicted of murder. With their fists. It was a use of deadly force. Too bad the victim had no firearm, he might be alive today.
I’m attacking your conception of America where only scumbags go out after the sun goes down and the rest of us should hide in our houses until the dawn breaks.
Every case is unique. With CCW it is incumbent upon the armed citizen not to do stupid things like put themselves in a dangerous situation. Everyone in this story was stupid, including the father of the defendant. It is beyond stupid. I can't believe I'm having to convince intelligent freepers that even though we have a right to walk anywhere at any time, common sense should dictate that it is just stupid to go though dangerous areas, armed or not.
The guy who got shot probably had enough of a criminal record to justify him still being in jail. But the reality is that they are not. Stay out of their rathole areas. This sort of situation just gives the left ammo to argue for gun bans, illogical as it is. Don't arm the left.
What on earth does this mean? That he got a good deal? that $450 is too much to pay for a decent handgun? That he shouldn't be punching paper with a self-defense firearm? What?
I'd have voted for acquittal as well. Drunk, obnoxious, aggressive, and abusive is and ought to be a ticket to a bullet. I'm perfectly serious. Forcing a physical confrontation on an armed man or woman is stupidity fully worthy of a capital penalty and no sympathy whatever. IMHO.
Amen.
While that’s good advice for the timid and unarmed, it behooves everyone just where that kind of thinking can end.
I visited a country that carries that attitude to the extreme, Ecuador.
There, all the good people live behind the bars, in large cages really. The criminals don’t need too. The good folks realize that while they have a right to walk anywhere at any time, common sense dictates that it is just stupid to go outside their cages.
The only way to prevent the breakdown of society is to stand up and fight. Liberals would surrender the streets to criminals 24/7 if they could. I explain why in a post from another thread:
A lot of liberals are opposed to the notion of criminals getting shot. The opposition stems from a thought process that conservatives may have difficulty understanding, but I'll try to explain it. Fundamentally, liberals have an innate desire to support the underdog. They think it's noble to support someone when nobody else will. This gets generalized to suggest that it's best to support those people whom society at large would judge unworthy of support. The more unworthy society would deem a person, the greater the nobility in supporting him. Curiously, if society clearly should support someone but fails to do so, liberals will still not see that person as worthy of support. The fact that society fails to support the person will be seen as a black mark on society, but the liberal will not hold himself accountable for his own failure to offer support. After all, since it's society's fault for failing the person, he (the liberal) is blameless. Liberals think it's tragic when anyone gets shot, but it's especially tragic when it happens to some poor guy who came from a broken home and who, looking at his rap sheet, must obviously have suffered something terrible when he was growing up. They are not bothered by the fact that such people prey on innocents.Perhaps the attackers in this case were just drunk and stupid. Oh well. The only reason the streets are not safe for innocent people at 2:45am is that some people, whether well-intentioned or not, work to ensure that the streets are safe for bad people.
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