Ring my doorbell and I’ll shoot

Sigh. Another instance yesterday of a gun owner shooting at other human beings with little to no provocation. I realize you all are probably getting tired of me bringing these reports to your attention, but geez. I’m tired of the fact that so many gun owners seem to have so little self-control.

Gabe [May] reportedly told police that after knocking on a Main Street door and running toward Conewago Street, he and his friend hid near a culvert for about 15 minutes. They walked down Hale Avenue before a white male stepped into the alley and said, “Are you boys lost?” according to the affidavit.

Gabe said he and his friend turned around and started running, when he heard a gunshot and felt pain in his foot, the affidavit states. After running and hiding, Gabe said he took off his shoe and sock, discovering he was shot.

Kids have been knocking on doors and running away from them since there have been doors. It’s a juvenile prank that usually results in, at most, an angry glare from the neighbor. But not in this case.

Naturally, the specter of “stand your ground” raises its head again. In Pennsylvania, where this shooting occurred, it’s referred to as the “castle doctrine.” Experts don’t think it applies in this case because, you know, the kids were running away when they got shot. Not only that, the shooter apparently hunted them down over a 15-minute period. For ringing his doorbell. He only wanted to scare them, but apparently his aim was so poor that when he attempted to miss them, he hit them. You never know with this stand-your-ground business. Perhaps the whole idea of having your doorbell rung late at night is enough to feel threatened to such an extent that you’re justified in resorting to lethal measures.

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He threw popcorn at me, so I stood my ground

Well, you just knew this was coming, didn’t you? After all, we’re talking about Florida here.

Yesterday I wrote about the movie theater shooting in Wesley Chapel, Florida. The shooter, Curtis Reeves, was unhappy that the man sitting in front of him, Chad Oulson, was texting before the movie started. An argument ensued and Reeves shot Oulson dead.

Now we hear that Reeves is considering a “stand your ground” defense. Who wouldn’t in the state of Florida? After all, it’s the statewide get-out-of-jail-free card.

According to the sheriffs office:

Reeves wanted Oulson to stop texting. He walked out of the theater and complained to management. When Reeves returned to the 1:20 p.m. showing, “words were exchanged” and Oulson threw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, an arrest affidavit states.

Witnesses say the pair did not throw punches. Reeves pulled a gun and shot Oulson, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

You see? Having a bag of popcorn thrown at you is life-threatening. The reasonable response is to not only hold your ground, but to also pull out your gun–which the theater prohibits, right along with texting during the movie–and shoot the popcorn thrower at pointblank range. I mean, it’s what any reasonable American would do, right?

According to the Tampa Bay Times:

Several lawyers told the Tampa Bay Times there are too many unknowns right now to determine whether stand your ground could be used successfully in court. Many factors could be relevant, said Stetson Law professor Charles Rose.

For one, when Oulson threw popcorn, that was legally an assault. But was it reasonable to respond with deadly force simply because of the popcorn? No, Rose believes.

However, it becomes more complicated if Reeves considered it to be one step in an escalating response from Oulson. If he feared Oulson would next come over the seats and physically attack him — and if Reeves felt he wouldn’t be able to handle an attack from a younger man — jurors might consider deadly force reasonable, the lawyer said.

“Here’s the problem: We’re trying to look into the mind of the defendant and posit what he thought was happening,” Rose said. “That’s often why these cases go trial — because you just can’t tell.”

Age, physical stature and each man’s strength could come into play, Rose said.

The article has a lot of interesting tidbits, including this from attorney Ron Tulin, who has built stand-your-ground defenses for clients:

Whatever the evidence shows, Tulin said he believes anyone who carries a concealed weapon and fires it needs to be prepared to deal with the judicial system.

“They need to be ready to accept the consequences,” he said, “and to leave their lives in a judge’s hands.”

Good to know we haven’t “progressed” to the point that those who kill with their concealed weapons can’t skip the justice system entirely.

 

Stop Texting Or I’ll Shoot

According to the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff’s office, Chad Oulson and his wife were in a movie theater today, where he was texting his three-year old daughter on his cell phone before the movie started. The guy sitting behind him, Curtis Reeves, a former police captain, didn’t like it. Not one bit. He asked Oulson to cut it out, and a verbal argument ensued until Reeves had had enough. He pulled out his gun–everyone goes to the movie theater armed, right?–and shot Oulson in the chest, killing him. Oulson’s wife was hit in the hand “when she put her hand up in front of her husband.” The sheriff said an off-duty deputy in the theater got ahold of the gun and detained Reeves until deputies arrived.

Sheriff Chris Nocco said his detectives considered if this could be a “stand your ground” case but decided the criteria did not apply. “It’s absolutely crazy it would rise to this level over somebody just texting in a movie theater,” he offered.

No kidding. It’s kind of mind-boggling that they even considered releasing Reeves based on “stand your ground,” but you know, he could have felt threatened by the glow of Oulson’s cell phone in the darkened theater.

No doubt we’ll once again hear that guns don’t kill people, people do. But don’t you think that if Reeves wasn’t packing today, Chad Oulson would still be alive?