Enough people get killed by guns with making it legal.

a touch of sanity in standing up to the NRA

If anyone knows the real numbers,this guy does. No debate nada.

and if I don't I can be prosecuted and possibly face a civil lawsuit if I injure my attacker?

Assuming that I am in a place where I have every legal right to be and I am not involved in any illegal activity why should I have to run or retreat from my attacker? What if he is much younger and faster and he stabs me in the back with a knife or just gets lucky when he is shooting at me and injures or kills me?

Why should I have to use up all my savings to hire attorneys to defend myself against a civil lawsuit by the attacker's family when I did nothing to cause the incident but he ended up dead and I had failed to retreat from his assault.

I prefer to live in Florida which has a "stand your ground" law.

I also see no reason to confiscate legally owned firearms from honest citizens in an emergency which this law would have forbid. I have lived in Florida and have lived though hurricanes and strong tropical storms. Often you can't dial 911 after such events and even if you can, the police may not be able to respond. You are on your own. Fortunately I have never had to use a firearm for self defense in such a situation but I would be highly upset if during such an emergency my means of protection had been confiscated. The bill that was vetoed by Governor Dayton would have forbid firearm confiscation in an emergency.



Florida has a law that forbids confiscation in an emergency.

legislation forbidding the confiscation of firearms in the event of a SOE. We have never had a confiscation in the past, however after what happened in NO during Katrina, our legislature felt it was appropriate to insure it would not happen in the future.

We are an open carry state(rare to see on the east of the state) however in an SOE only those with a License to carry can do so. It is actually against the law to open carry during an SOE, unless you have that license.

One of our friendly neighbour states.

I doubt that this, from the article:

is actually a true portrayal of the bill -- anybody got a link handy?

I would suspect that it was in fact another dog's breakfast like in Florida etc., which specifically does NOT require that people believe any such thing before being permitted to use deadly force and in fact grants them complete criminal immunity if they do so in the circumstances in question despite having no such belief at all.

Given the confusion intentionally whipped up in the public's (and legislator's) minds on this point, it would hardly be surprising if this media outlet got it wrong; many have in the past.

But a lying sack of Republican crap took it even farther:


Worthy of Canada's own Stephen Harper, that one!

Love some of the comments:


Yes, progressive people everywhere support garbage laws like these.



This comment suggests that I was right in my suspicion:


That's the "presumption" that someone had the fear that justified the use of force -- and that is the fundamental flaw that so many judges, legal scholars and yes, the Florida legislature's own legal advisors ... and I ... have repeatedly said makes such legislation garbage, morally and legally.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/getbill.php?number=HF1467&session=ls87&version=list&session_number=0&session_year=2011

The bill was originally introduced in 2011 but not considered in the Senate until 2012.

prove it.


Well, it is duty to retreat and even if you are acquitted, the criminal's family can still sue you for wrongful death, so I disagree. I have yet to hear an explanation on how duty to retreat is more civilized, let alone a compelling one.

Not being a Canadian lawyer, but I found this interesting:
http://mackscriminallaw.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-notable-affirming-castle-doctrine.html

When I specifically say I SUSPECT, do not bother coming at me with demands that I PROVE IT. Just do not bother.

As it turns out, MY SUSPICION WAS CORRECT. Surely you have realized by now that I am always correct.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H1467.3.html&session=ls87

There is not, never has been and never will be any such PRESUMPTION in Canadian law, so your effort to muddy the waters in that direction has failed, again. On the question of "duty to retreat" in Canadian law, perhaps you read the case itself:
http://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2011/2011ONCA0592.htm

I would maintain that the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision was simply wrong, based as it is on largely non-Canadian sources of law and one old, pre-Charter Ontario decision, and a somewhat more recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that is hardly generalizable. (The accused in that case would have been perfectly at liberty to argue and show that "retreat" would not have been reasonable in his circumstances, by the way.)

The SCC has had virtually nothing to say on the issue apart from that one case:
http://scc.lexum.org/en/1984/1984scr2-232/1984scr2-232.html
(the special situation of a battered woman) and I'll wait for direction from that direction. And then not necessarily agree with it.

Meanwhile:


YOU prove THAT, if you will.

which is as it should be. The burden of proof should always be on the State/Crown. But in Florida there is always an investigation, and you are presumed to have acted in lawful self defense unless the evidence shows otherwise. If the DA has a case, he or she will prosecute. The claim that the police can not investigate if you claim self defense is absurd and full of shit.
It operates the same way with any other legal issue. In duty to retreat, you are presumed guilty of at least murder and you have to prove other wise (or at least show reasonable doubt.) Even if you win, you are open to civil wrongful death no matter how much your life was in danger. That is the absurdity, immorality, and injustice of duty to retreat. That is how how it works in the US. I fail how any intelligent and thoughtful person could seriously call it "civilized."

In the US, burglars "just wanting stuff" do not hit occupied houses. That is a fact of US culture.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/29/2667644/court-upholds-conviction-in-fla.html

you are always correct in your own mind. I on the other hand, am always right.

As for the Ontario case, I did not mean to muddy the water. It is the same concept as the US castle doctrine.

Prove MN is duty to retreat? The fact that someone introduced a bill for the castle doctrine makes it rather obvious. It is rather binary, there is no in between, and the two are mutually exclusive.

and I am just sick to death of this FALSE claim being made in this forum over and over, year after year.

NO. That statement is FALSE. The PRESUMPTION stands against ANY evidence, as long as the person meets the conditions in the legislation.


NO. That statement is FALSE. Prosecutors are PRECLUDED from prosecuting anyone who meets the conditions in the legislation.


The claim that the ONLY police investigation that is of any relevance is as to whether you meet the conditions in the legislation is 100% ACCURATE.

Now how about YOU prove all these incorrect claims of yours?


NO, it absolutely fucking IS NOT.

"Castle doctrine" in the US is the term applied to legislation that DOES NOT REQUIRE an individual to even CLAIM that they had a reasonable fear of death or serious injury when they used deadly force against someone unlawfully in their residence (I am briefly paraphrasing that unlawfully-in-residence requirement, which can be read in any of those statutes).

As you can see from reading the case YOU cited, Canadian law ALWAYS requires that such a claim be made and that evidence be offered to support it. And Canadian law does NOT permit the use of force in self-defence with the INTENT to kill.


You plainly and unfortunately do not know what you are talking about, despite the multiple dozen times this "castle doctrine" crap has been discussed in this forum and explained to within an inch of its life, including in my post right in this subthread containing the actual TEXT of the bill, which you have chosen not to acknowledge.. Please inform yourself before posting claims that could mislead someone reading them.

For your further edification, to be read with what I posted earlier:


How much bleeding plainer could this be?

it is a statement of fact. In the course of the investigation, it shows that those conditions are not met, you will be prosecuted. That is true, that is what I said. There is an investigation to see if those conditions were met. It operates like anything else, innocent until proven guilty. Why do you have a problem with that?

Do you KNOW WHAT THE CONDITIONS ARE?

How could you not know, when I posted them right in this thread?

IT IS NOT a condition that the person have had a reasonable belief that there was an imminent threat of bodily harm or death.

NO evidence may be led to show that the person had no such belief. NO charge may be laid where the person is determined to have been in their home and the other person was unlawfully entering it or had unlawfully entered it. NO charge, NO evidence.

You say: I was in my home and I knew that Person X was entering it unlawfully, and I shot Person X dead. And that is ALL you need to show.

As we have discussed over and over and over and fucking over, Person X could be a 10-year-old child climbing in a window to steal cookies, and you could shoot that child dead with complete impunity, because no prosecutor could charge you with anything, even though you WERE NOT acting in self-defence.

PROVE OTHERWISE.

Pass the Jello, please.

Do you know the meaning of the two-letter word "OR"?

You passed some Jello, all right. I think there are over-the-counter remedies for that.

Seems your interpretation of the statute as written vs. how it applies in real life are two very different things....

A June 11, 2006 Orlando Sentinel article stated that it was too early to see the impact of Florida's new law, which took effect October 1, 2005, and there were no statewide statistics on the number of self-defense claims before or after that date. The newspaper found 13 people who used self-defense in central Florida over five months (resulting in six deaths and four people wounded). In the investigation of the 13 people who used self-defense, three were charged with a crime, five cleared, and the others were still under review. The newspaper stated that police and prosecutors handled investigations of these cases in a range of ways. A copy of this article is attached (“Cases Involving the New Deadly Force Law are Handled in a Broad Range of Ways,” Orlando Sentinel, June 11, 2006).

You say: I was in my home and I knew that Person X was entering it unlawfully, and I shot Person X dead. And that is ALL you need to show.

you might like to try to make it.

Gosh, you could start by providing a source for your quoted material.

I see nothing in it that refutes what I said.

You should try reading it, again. Carefully.

I think I've already helped you enough by providing a link to your source and identifying that source, and quoting what it said that was actually relevant, but what the hell.

I didn't think you needed this much help ...

Not all self-defence claims have anything to do with the "castle doctrine" aspect of Florida legislation.

Self-defence can be asserted against a charge relating to an assault that took place on a beach or in a bar. Nothing here tells us the number of incidents to which the legislation we are discussing here applied.


See above.


I hope things are clearer to you now.

Not all self-defence claims have anything to do with the "castle doctrine" aspect of Florida legislation.

That's true but your interpretation of castle doctrine is far from the reality of how it is actually applied. I know people personally who are still going through the investigative process for their cases. No charges filed, still under investigation. Your whole assertion that castle doctrine gives someone the option to shoot an intruder within their own home with impunity is bullshit. That is all.

I haven't "interpreted" anything. I have cited and quoted the legislation.

You, on the other hand, have made some bald, totally unsubstantiated statements.

I don't think we're even.

..we aren't even. Your opinions are not "facts" no matter how much you spin them. You haven't a clue about castle doctrine and seem to be perfectly happy with that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x125237

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x127275

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=476524&mesg_id=476578

You can start there.

My opinion of these laws is that they are garbage. My opinion is shared by the then-student author of a paper in a Harvard journal, a judge in Kentucky, the leading criminal law expert in Kentucky ... and here (quoted at the first link above) is what the Florida Senate committee said about its legislation:



It is unfortunate for all of us, but most especially you, of course, if you aren't able to understand these things. But that's the way the cookie crumbles.

...and I can't care less what sources you cite that makes you think your opinion has any weight here. It's unfortunate for you that you can't seem to accept that. Sweep up your cookie crumbs if you please...

whether genuine or feigned, isn't worth a cookie crumb.

I have no trouble at all "accepting" that there are people in this world to whom it is very important not to publicly admit facts!

...and assuming if it makes you feel better. Pseudo-intellectual babble is all you have AFAIC...

Last edited Tue Mar 13, 2012, 08:36 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/rpt/2007-r-0052.htm

January 17, 2007
2007-R-0052
CASTLE DOCTRINE AND SELF-DEFENSE
By: Christopher Reinhart, Senior Attorney

-- apparently a legal opinion written for someone in the Connecticut government; it states:


Like I've been saying these many years now ...


edit - of course, I very much doubt that you just randomly ran across this obscure bit of Connecticut legal lore ... googling any sentence from the passage you quoted finds it at a number of places I would think you are much more likely to be mining than ct.gov ...

Like I care at all what you think or how you guess at how I came across that source. You don't like people guessing things about you so take your own advice.

Surely guessing in my heart is not the same as making claims on the internet, Jimmy Carter notwithstanding.

Most of what you post in this group is nothing.

how is duty to retreat "civilized", just, or just makes sense?
Why should 5A rights (seizure without compensation) go out the window during a SOE progressive?
Why should a criminal or family of a violent felon be able to sue the victim even when the criminal court proves it is self defense?

Sorry, bad job.

Take that GOP/NRA douchebags

yup

Dayton said he appreciated the efforts to craft the bill to ease worries by law enforcement but said their concerns "must be honored."



YUP, screw constituents, law enforcement FTMFW! ( )

And not even one of those right-wing Democrats, it seems.

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

To be more specific, his party is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic%E2%80%93Farmer%E2%80%93Labor_Party



I'm shocked and appalled, imagine, a Democrat daring to go against majority opinion in the Guns forum of Democratic Underground ...

with some of the pro defensive use gun people is that when he ran for office, he was a strong proponent for guns for self defense. He told a group while campaigning at Game Fair about how he had two loaded .357s in his home for protection.

pro defensive use gun people

I need to embroider that on something, I think, so I can contemplate it every morning and try to figure out what the hell it means.




It strikes me that the governor knew exactly what the legislation in question did -- and what vetoing it did NOT do was eliminate anyone's right to actually defend themselves against anything or anybody, any way they might do that.