

Florida mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots (2012) - salimmadjd
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57433184/fla-mom-gets-20-years-for-firing-warning-shots/

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rjbwork
The sentence is excessive, but some sort of penalty definitely should be
assessed. The stand your ground/castle laws provide for someone to defend
themselves and others in their house with deadly force with a firearm when
they are in imminent danger.

If you are firing warning shots and not shooting the center of mass to disable
and/or kill, then you don't need to be discharging your weapon at all. Guns
are not toys and they aren't meant to dissuade someone from a course of
action. They are meant to end the life of someone.

In short, if you're not threatened enough to kill, you're not threatened
enough to fire your weapon.

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lukifer
> In short, if you're not threatened enough to kill, you're not threatened
> enough to fire your weapon.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Obviously, the discharging of a firearm
should never be taken lightly. But the sound of a gunshot is an extremely
effective deterrent, and I don't see why that doesn't make it a legitimate
form of self-defense.

> Guns... aren't meant to dissuade someone from a course of action

Isn't that exactly what they're for? Police don't (usually) draw their weapons
for the express purpose of killing. They do so to force a violent attacker to
stand down, ideally without having to fire a shot.

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rdouble
Warning shots are illegal everywhere. It's considered use of deadly force when
it is not required. Any firearms training course will tell you this. It just
so happens Florida has very harsh mandatory minimum sentencing for this
offense. In Vermont they'll just give you a fine.

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Tomte
That's wrong (you may mean "in the US", though, I don't know about that). And
incredibly stupid.

Of course it is desirable to give the attacker a chance to retreat by firing a
warning shot. If he continues and you're in imminent physical danger, you
shoot at the legs.

And only if that did not help you go for the torso.

(If there is enough time, if the killing shot is the only one you're ever
going to get to fire, then that it is)

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hga
Sorry, but echoing Casseres, you've demonstrated you know little to nothing
about the legal use of lethal force in the US or practical self-defense with a
gun. If you own a gun, please get a book like this classic
[http://www.amazon.com/In-Gravest-Extreme-Personal-
Protection...](http://www.amazon.com/In-Gravest-Extreme-Personal-
Protection/dp/0936279001/) before you end up being convicted of a serious
crime.

Extending his remarks, if you hit the femoral artery in someone's upper leg,
they're going to quickly bleed out unless they get serious first aid.

~~~
Tomte
Well, but I know about what German courts require in cases of self-defense
with a gun.

I'm sorry to hear that the US have not developed some sensible framework of
self-defense.

~~~
hga
Ah; the US has 50+ frameworks of self-defense, given our federalism.

What do you not find sensible about Florida's? If you accept Zimmerman's
account of the incident, which we presume the jury did, he only resorted to
lethal force after he was in legitimate fear for his life, and he never had an
opportunity to retreat (states vary greatly on duty to retreat vs. stand your
ground).

What do German courts require?

~~~
Tomte
I find the Florida system eminently sensible, even not going far enough. Maybe
just because I'm kind of used to it.

German self-defense law is even stronger than all those Stand Your Ground laws
in the US.

I guess only here law professors can write about the "ignominious/dishonorable
flight" when discussing options against an attacker.

"Justice does not have to yield to injustice" is a very common saying.

But even if the law allows you to strike back, it's usually still a good idea
to retreat. :-)

~~~
hga
" _But even if the law allows you to strike back, it 's usually still a good
idea to retreat. :-)_"

Indeed; the good thing about Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws is that they presume
the citizen without fault will make a good decision on that and don't allow
the state to second guess him along with everything else it will be
questioning (i.e. SYG doesn't touch on biggest question of "is this use of
lethal force justified?", which should be the real focus).

I've seen some horrible abuses of duty to retreat _from your own home_ in
Massachusetts when the courts were negating as much of every legislative
reform as they could; you should never have to decide between abandoning your
children to the tender mercies of a thug and going to jail (real case,
followed contemporaneously in the _Boston Globe_ in the early '80s).

~~~
Tomte
A saying from an aquaintance who works as a public prosecutor in capital
cases:

"Generally it's preferable to discuss the limitations of self-defense with the
prosecutor, than having the family discuss with the undertaker."

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noonespecial
The behavior this little cul-de-sac of law incentivises is clear. Say you
missed.

~~~
hga
Since she was convicted of attempted murder, that would have only sped up the
verdict.

~~~
noonespecial
Had she simply stated "I was in fear for my life so I tried to shoot him. I
guess I missed", this would have gone down quite differently.

She probably said something like "I was afraid of getting beaten again so I
fired some warning shots to scare him." So jail then.

There's no part of this thats right.

~~~
rdouble
There's a lot missing from this article's account of what happened. The woman
left the house, went to her car, got her gun, came back inside and then fired
the gun, multiple times. Other articles go into more detail. It certainly
doesn't seem like she was in any immediate danger after reading the other
accounts.

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vishaldpatel
Any gun-owning Floridians here wanna comment on this?

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AlexPandian
There should be a law governing all verdicts requiring them to abide by a rule
of common sense law.

~~~
Tomte
That is equivalent to abolishing rule of law.

And leads to an immediate race to the bottom of human sentiments and emotions.

Feel free to google for "Gesundes Volksempfinden" (~"healthy people's
perception"). The central pillar that allowed German jurists in the Third
Reich to distort the existing law at will.

The German civil code has been changed often, but fundamentally it's the same
now as it was in 1900. Pretty fascinating how it's now seeing the fourth
totally different political system.

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notdrunkatall
That is so fucking wrong.

