They’re hee-eere.
A national group* opposed to what it calls “shoot first” gun laws today sent a letter to all members of the General Assembly [here, in NC], and to legislators in 25 other states, calling on them to repeal or reform their laws.
Shoot-first laws take away the obligation to retreat from a confrontation, other than in your home, in order to avoid the use of deadly force.
The new code word is “shoot-first.” Evidently, “stand your ground” wasn’t scary enough.
It’s still misleading propaganda.
Also, “other than in your home” is clumsy to the point of being contrary (s/b “outside the home”).
“Trayvon Martin’s killing in Florida has focused public attention on the consequences of these reckless laws,” Ginny Simmons, director of Second Chance on Shoot First*, said in a news release. “
That’s the toljaso part.
Zimmerman/Martin was never really about race. It was always about guns and self-defense.
Race was a tactic, a cynical tool to rally the zombie left. When it became clear that race had nothing to do with the case, the case lost little of its holy aura to the enemies of personal freedom. Indeed, they redoubled their effort to make this a show trial, and the defendant was our freedom to be armed and to defend ourselves.
[E]xperience has now shown that these laws encourage vigilantism, sow confusion among police, and stymie prosecutors.”
BS! Self-defense is not “vigilantism” (i.e. scawwy and racist).
(What? Well, yeah, unless you’re a pea-brained, reality-averse Prog.)
I have seen nothing to justify the other two assertions, either.
(What? Well, yeah, okay, there’s the whining by anti-gun law-enforcement brass.)
Hunh … nothin’ in there about saving the lives, limbs, and virtue of honest men, women, and children.
Nope, just BS.
North Carolina has had a “castle doctrine” law on the books for some time, allowing deadly force against someone intruding in a home.
Wellll, that was an old concept of “castle doctrine” more properly termed “defense of habitation.” You could defend your home without a “duty to retreat,” if you could show that the intruder posed a deadly threat [simplified]. The current concept of “castle doctrine” is based on real-world experience and includes a number of other provisions which essentially (1) expand defense of habitation to workplace and vehicle, (2) recognize a right to defend yourself without a duty to retreat, if you’re where you’re legally authorized to be (aka “stand your ground”), (3) protect against civil suits while using deadly force legally, and (4) assume that a threat exists during a home intrusion. States differ.
Last year, the General Assembly expanded it to justify use of force in a motor vehicle or workplace.
Not true. That has always been a provision of the law. Using force and deadly force to defend oneself is a basic tenet of common law, and that is a basic foundation of all US and State law. The significant change is whether “perfect self-defense” (no crime is committed, in the eyes of the law) includes a “duty to retreat” in workplace or vehicle as well as home. [insert tome on what that means]
The law says a person “does not have a duty to retreat from an intruder.” That defense isn’t available to someone who provokes a confrontation, except under limited circumstances.
Well, sorta. The new law says that there is no duty to retreat (i.e. the legal case can’t rest on whether one considered the opportunity to retreat before using deadly force, a downright problematical condition, to say the least) if you are anywhere you are legally authorized to be. (If you initiated or were a willing participant in a dust-up, you DO have a duty to retreat, even if you did what the law requires to re-establish your right to self defense.) The new law specifies your residence, workplace, and vehicle as places where the law will not question your legitimate fear for your life.
Second Chance on Shoot First* describes itself as a coalition of civil rights leaders, politicians, law enforcement and others. [more]
* Who is Second Chance on Shoot First ? Yeah, you guessed it.
The Soda Jerk and his herd of braying jackasses.
Replacing “shoot first laws” with, what, “shoot second laws?”
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26 Comments!
I like the part assuming that prosecutors should be able to prosecute anybody they want, and are “stymied” by the law.
Wrong-headed is putting it politely.
It’s only vigilanteism if the police are doing their jobs.
^ what mojo said, and in more matters than only personal defense.
Skipping over the main body of this post and its merits, I’m going for just a small part of it:
I’ve seen cop training (and know someone who trains cops) regarding confrontations with people who are *not* armed with guns. The (demonstrated) speed with which an apparently ordinary person can cover 20′ – 30′ is astonishing. It is pretty much literally “blink of the eye.”
The person closing the distance can previously appear either nonchalant or confrontational; it makes no difference to the speed. If that person is armed with a sharp object (say, a knife), he can have the other party down and dying in much, much less time than it takes to talk about it.
Firearms, are, of course pretty quick too. I do not envy cops their jobs, and even an ordinary citizen defending their lives, will have very little time to make a judgement call and react accordingly. It is *not* like it is in most movies.
What these fools do not care about is that if the situation is going bad, there is almost no time, and “shooting first” (God forbid any of us should actually find ourselves in this situation) is pretty much the only alternative to dying.
I saw a big news hoopla some years back where a cop was getting tried in the media because he shot a crazed man with a machete who went for him from about 20′ away. My thought at the time was that these prissy media types, activists and politicians ought to have to undergo the kind of real world training that might inform their BS about “20 whole feet away and only armed with a machete.”
Of course he “shot first.” What should he have done — waited less than three seconds until this guy had hacked his arm off and was working on his head?
…because *I* know how much I’d be able to have to hose some creep offa my porch and then go on like nothing ever happened…….
But but but… All they want here is to stop the California-style bloodbaths!
Yep, someone posted a bit of century-old California law a couple of weeks ago, that if you are in fear for your or someone else’s life you do not have an obligation to retreat. Anywhere, not just at home. Which explains why that State has such a lot of murderers walking around, shooting anyone who dares look at them.
^ But don’t they have tight gun laws, dismemberments, and cannibals in Canada?
(okay, there’s cannibals in Florida too)
The “shoot first” law??
As opposed to the “Run Away Screaming Like A Little Girl While Getting Shot In The Back So The Goblins Can Loot Your Bleeding Body At Their Leisure” alternative they propose?
Yep — let’s all retreat from the “spaces” we occupy in our everyday lives and give the ground over to the thugs, gangsters and goblins. There’s a swell idea.
Hey — maybe the Nanny Gov’t will set up a Safe Space where we can all retreat to. Where there will be appropriately-sized sodas, “healthy” treats, room to exercise and maybe some re-educational opportunities to take advantage of, as well.
So, Doug: Since you’ve done some homework on this I’ve got a question: what constitutes a “home/work” under that law? Inside my house? In my yard? How big a yard? Inside a workplace? Front steps of a workplace? Parking lot?
What if I work outside? In a large place where my home also is?
‘Course none of that likely matters here in CAca Land…
But I have a shovel — for my garden, yanno. Maybe I’ll just dig me a little hidey hole next to the ‘mater bushes while I’m about it…
Ironic (3)
The law generally recognizes 7yd/21′ as imminent danger.
That’s ’cause, as you pointed out, it takes about 1-1/2 sec for a guy to reach you from there from a dead stop. It’s also the time it takes to draw & fire. Basically, you’re truly at risk of death or injury from that distance.
Claire (8)
Okay, short & sweet (your State may vary):
• Your domicile is any place you reside — your house and appurtenances (outhouse, barn, shed, porch, deck, lawn, garden, garage, etc.) where you have reasonable expectation of personal safety. This means any place you live in or normally occupy, even a tent while away from home. A field or extended yard area would probably not qualify, but routine self-defense still applies.
• Your place of work includes any roofed work area (office, store, shop, etc.). Not sure how agriculture and construction apply. That’ll probably be a product of case law, which is the main method for determining the details of NC law.
Note: this does not override the owner/manager’s right to forbid firearms.
• Your vehicle is any form of personal transport (car, motorcycle, RV, boat, etc.) where you have reasonable expectation of personal safety. Again, I don’t really know what that means, yet.
Forgive me for shortening your “Run Away Screaming Like A Little Girl While Getting Shot In The Back So The Goblins Can Loot Your Bleeding Body At Their Leisure” idea and using it as an update.
(What? Well, I was gonna add “and Eating Your Face;” but that would’a been unwieldly.)
Doug (various): I expect you know a good deal more about this than I do, and certainly about the legal aspects. Mostly, I just find the sight of a soap box irresistible.
What I have observed in actual practice (more than once), is that the *average* cop cannot draw from a open carry service holster and deploy an effective shot in that 1-1/2 seconds, at least in practice situations. My friend starts them at 30′, where almost none can succeed either. If the gun is *already* in the hand, there is a moderate chance of success, but barely. Part of this is reaction time. Another part is the time it takes a decent person to decide they really have to do this — even in drills, interestingly enough.
Does anything else need to be said?
Second Chance Coalition Parters:
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg
NAACP
National Urban League
National Action Network
Color of Change
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Vote Vets
Claire you got a way with words.
I’m just gonna say one word: Reavers!
I’d like to add….can you really trust your life with an organization that can’t spell “partner”?
What the left really wants to do, now, just as always, is to disarm the law abiding public and identify more places with large numbers of unarmed victims.
This week will be Sharpton/Jackson week on all the communist news media outlets, again trying the Zimmerman case in the media.
The big lie continues. And the truth remains dangerous.
Ironic (10)
Yeah, the 1-1/2 sec time is for ready-to-bang in training, knowing it’s coming. It’s kind of a physical norm for basic self-defense shooting.
If you consider the whole fighter-pilot’s OODA-loop (observe, orient, decide, act), you know … reality, then the real response time can be fatal.
If danger is less that 2-sec away, be ready to draw.
If it’s closer, you’re gonna get hurt.
Ironic (12)
Oooh, right! ‘Em guys’re worse’n zombies!
Holger (13)
Whadda you got agin’ the Texas Rangers, pardner?
Bloomberg is crying because the number of justifiable homicide shootings in self defense states is going up.
Someone needs to explain to the NY retard that this is a feature, not a bug.
“and Eating Your Face” :: “ unwieldly” perhaps, but correct nonetheless.
I followed the links and ended up reading at “vote vets”. Went thru the site and was pretty digusted. I guess if you can get time on MSNBC it pretty much sum’s it all up.
This was just another play on gun control just as “fast and furious” was.
The left hates it when they get caught in a lie.
Way off topic and out of left field: Someone needs to be fired and tried for retardation over this headline: “Car Crash Leaves 3 Teens Dead, 1 Set to Graduate”.
And people wonder why no-one on the left will even consider taking fox news seriously for a second.
Bloomberg’s pretty hypocritical about “duty to retreat” for a guy living behind a 24/7 security detail.
Remember: We do not have a “duty to retreat” when we see the Constitution under attack. Let’s just hope we get to draw our vote in November before the goblins close the distance.
Doug (15):
a) Whadda you got agin’ the Texas Rangers, pardner? Haw!
b) If danger is actually less than 2 seconds away, my sights will be on his chest, and my finger will be on the trigger. I ain’t as quick as I was, and frankly I don’t think anyone should assume they are as quick as they think they are. The truth is, if there’s a two second gap, and he hasn’t responded appropriately to my warning (repeated, if feasible), then I’m likely going to be drilling him. I’ve shot in “run up” drills, and I know what happens even when life isn’t in danger.
Caged (19): Seriously? That was the headline? OMG.
Fat Baxter (21): You bettcha pardner!
1) The Controllers have always been on the side of the criminals. Always.
2) I would just call them the “Duty to Allow Yourself to be Murdered” crowd. Screw them with a rusty post-hole digger.
3) Everybody has a burr somewhere uncomfortable about California. *Yes* our politicians are dicktards, no question, and *yes* that includes big-city DAs.
But while weapons laws are quite retarded, self-defense *LAW* is not that bad, and in most cases the police/courts outside of Commie Enclaves respect that. It is a modified Castle Doctrine state and you don’t have a duty to lie down and get murdered like the control freaks want. Self-Defense is in the State Constitution as well.
The Controllers have tried and failed to get rid of all that, so I guess there’s some idiocies the people won’t vote for.
That being said, I am just loving the left trying to make gun control an issue in an election year *again*, it’s just too bad people need these constant reminders to vote against the jacktards. Nice that they give the reminders, though.
Also, picking the name “shoot first” laws for their campaign is effing retarded, it’s like they set up a whiffle-ball stand, sat on it and handed us a bat.
Seriously, they want to give the impression they want criminals to be able to shoot first? That’s the hill they want to pound their head against? Really?
Thanks, Merovign. Not that I would worry about Teh Law until afterward — if I was so lucky to get my OODA-loop to cycle in under an hour-an-a-half…
[yeah -- I stay out of goblin zones.]
Merovign: It isn’t that they side with criminals …
The elite simply consider outlaws to be a normal road hazard, that the elite can deal with using personal guards.
Peasants with weapons, however, are an abomination, and should not be tolerated. They might actually revolt, and put the elites’ lives in actual danger.