October 28, 2007
“Stand Your Ground” Law in Oklahoma, Upheld
By The Associated Press
10/27/2007 1:34 PM
LAWTON — A state prosecutor cited Oklahoma’s “Stand Your Ground” law in announcing that no charges would be filed against a man who shot and killed a teen who appeared to be a burglar.
Comanche County District Attorney Robert Schulte said he plans to take no action against Jeffrey David Dorrell, 40, who shot and killed Frederick Stuever, 17.
Dorrell arrived at his father’s home Tuesday afternoon to find Stuever leaving the home with the family’s property. The back door had been kicked in, and officials believe the teen was attempting to take things from the home.
Items belonging to the homeowner were later found in Stuever’s vehicle, police said.
Dorrell, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, held Stuever at gunpoint while he called the police.
While on the phone with dispatchers, Dorrell ordered Stuever to lay on the ground until the police could come. When Stuever would not comply, Dorrell fired five shots in his direction, but did not hit Stuever.
Dorrell told police that he shot Stuever when the teen charged at him. Stuever died at the scene.
Schulte said under the “Stand Your Ground” law that went into effect on Nov. 1, 2006, Dorrell was within his rights under the law.
The law broadened self-defense rights by removing the requirement that a person who is attacked has a “duty to retreat” before turning to deadly force.
It specifies that people can use deadly force if they believe they are in danger in any place they have a legal right to be. It provides immunity from criminal charges and civil liability.
Three other people, unrelated to Stuever or Dorrell, witnessed the shooting and backed up Dorrell’s account, Schulte said.
Jury Acquits – Self Defense
[Editors Note]: Read the portion of this story that I placed in bold. The prosecution used the “failure to retreat” rule to try and hang the defendant. Moral of the story, run or walk away when you can. Shoot when you are absolutely sure your life is in danger. Most of us have the right to carry concealed. Just remember, if you use it and there is a question about how the weapon was used, you will probably be, at the very least, financially devastated. But…… financially devastated beats dead every time.
Story:
Daniel Kelly, whose attorneys said he was in a fight for his life before he shot and killed another man on State Street in May, was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide Friday night.
Kelly ‘s family was jubilant as Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser read the verdict of the six men and six women on the jury, reached after 9 hours of deliberation. On the other side of the courtroom, the family of Austin Bodahl, 23, who came to Madison about two weeks before he was shot to death on May 22, appeared shocked and in tears.
Bodahl ‘s father, former Minnesota legislator Larry Bodahl, sat with his head down and in his hands and seemed dazed outside the courtroom after the verdict.
Kelly ‘s father, Steve Kelly, fought back tears as he said it was a difficult ordeal for both families involved in the case.
“The Bodahls are nice people, ” Steve Kelly said, “and both of our boys were painted in unflattering ways, and not necessarily accurate ways, either one of them. Both of them have had challenges in life, as do very many people. I would hope that society would treat young men who are a little different with a little more respect for them. ”
Kelly ‘s attorney, Dennis Burke, said he was “tremendously relieved ” by the verdict.
“It was a horrible ordeal for both families, of the victim and of the defendant ‘s, ” Burke said. “It ‘s so good that it ‘s over. Just good that it ‘s over. ”
Steve Kelly said his son ‘s immediate plans include a visit to his grandmother in North Carolina.
Burke and co-counsel Tracey Lencioni, both assistant state public defenders, never denied that the kilt-clad Kelly shot Bodahl. Instead, they argued that Kelly shot Bodahl in self defense after firing two warning shots from a very small .22-caliber handgun that did not stop Bodahl from fighting with Kelly.
During closing arguments Friday morning, Assistant District Attorney Lana Mades told jurors that Kelly, 31, a former National Guardsman who served in Kosovo, did not take reasonable steps to avoid the fight with Bodahl. It was not self-defense, she said, when he shot Bodahl with the gun he carried in a homemade holster under his kilt.
“The defendant wants you to put a stamp of approval on his decision that 23-year-old Austin Bodahl deserved a death sentence for simply being drunk and disorderly, ” Mades said.
Burke said that was not the case.
“I ‘m not asking you to put a stamp of approval on one person shooting another person. I ‘m not asking you to render a verdict that turns State Street in Madison, Wisconsin, into the OK Corral, ” Burke said. “That ‘s not what this case is about. This case is about an attack and the response to that attack, and whether that response was lawful. ”
The jury should decide from Kelly ‘s point of view whether the shooting was justified, he said.
But the jury could not know that, Mades said.
“What is going on in the defendant ‘s head? We don ‘t know, ” Mades said. “We have no idea. We have to totally speculate. ”
Mades could not mention that Kelly did not testify in his own defense during the trial because defendants have an absolute right not to testify that juries cannot hold against them.
She also said it ‘s hard to consider Kelly ‘s fears as being rational and reasonable.
“Just because the defendant has unreasonable fears does not mean it ‘s legitimate self-defense, ” Mades said. “It ‘s not the defendant ‘s beliefs himself, but an ordinary, intelligent person ‘s beliefs. ”
Both lawyers urged jurors to look at injuries on both men. Mades pointed at them because of their superficiality and Burke because of what might have happened to Kelly had the fight continued.
“There ‘s no instruction that says you have to have your guts hanging out or your skull fractured before you have the right to self-defense, ” Burke said. “It ‘s what he thought might happen to him. I think it ‘s fair to say that he was scared to death. He would be, I would be. ”
Carl Provin, with whom Bodahl had been drinking, testified that he started picking on Kelly because another companion, Travis Verastegui, said he had problems with Kelly at an earlier time.
Provin, Verastegui and Bodahl were drunk and scary men to Kelly, Burke said. They were looking for trouble, he said.
“They are predators, and he was the prey, ” Burke said, pointing at Kelly. “He was their toy, and they were going to mess with him. ”
This story was written by:
Jury acquits Kelly in fatal shooting
Exhaustive Study on Gun Control, Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD
- Gun Violence and Street Crime
- Malevolent Scholarship
- Mass Shootings — Differential Media Coverage
- Firearms and Constitutional Issues
- Children and Guns
- Moral Declivity
More Research:
Faria, MA, Jr. Doctors to Spy on Patients’ Gun Ownership. March 26, 2001, NewsMax.com.
Burns, Jim. Doctors Group Accused of Playing Politics with Patients, Gun Control. April 2, 2001, CNSNews.com.
Vernon, Wes. Medical Evidence: Gun Control Won’t Solve Crime. April 7, 2001, NewsMax.com.
Milloy, Steven. Gun Control Science Misfires. April 12, 2001, FoxNews.com.
October 27, 2007
Center-left wants to end Swiss gun tradition
Preface: I am including the following two stories about tightening gun control in Europe. The trend is frightening on several levels: Europe is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. I have spent much time in Europe and have lived in both Switzerland and Belgium. Europe is moving towards the “one world, one government” concept. Their churches are empty and have become museumesque curiosities. Multiculturalism and political correctness is quickly moving to delete core values and national identity over vast swaths of the UK and Europe. Folks, this will happen in America if you do not involve yourselves in the American political process. Democracy is not a spectators event.
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Story: March 23, 2007 – 9:42 PM
The Swiss can keep their army guns at home – for the time being. Related stories
- Women’s magazine hands in gun ban petitionPacifists and centre-left parties want voters to have the final say on breaking with a long-standing Swiss tradition of storing personal army rifles and pistols at home.
They said they would launch a people’s initiative to ban such weapons in households. The announcement came a day after parliament refused to take action over the issue. Supporters of the ban are expected to launch a bid to collect the necessary signatures for the vote within the next few months. The House of Representatives on Thursday threw out a proposal by the Social Democrats and the Greens to tighten the gun law, including having a central arms register.
“Firearms are the biggest security risk in the country,” said Green parliamentarian Jo Lang, while the Social Democrat, Boris Banga, argued that current regulations on standard issue firearms were outdated.
His party colleague Chantal Galladé added a personal aspect to the debate. “I was 11 when my father committed suicide with an army gun.”
Other speakers pointed out the latest case of murder committed with such weapons – a man shot his girlfriend in southeastern Switzerland earlier this week. Under Swiss law all-able bodied men are issued with a rifle and 50 rounds of ammunition which they can keep after completing their military service. An estimated 1.6 million firearms are in circulation in Switzerland and a study found that 300 people are killed every year by standard issue weapons. There are also more than 150,000 active members of rifle clubs, many of whom own more than one gun.
(This is how social democrats justify eviscerating a nation identity because……) “I was 11 when my father committed suicide with an army gun. Chantal Galladé, Social Democrats” (I guess had he killed him self in a car, this ignoramus would be looking to ban cars. Editors Comment.)
Mistrust
However, Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, a member of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, downplayed the importance of guns in crimes, adding the issue of keeping weapons at home should be part of a wider discussion on the army. Ulrich Schlüer, also from the Swiss People’s Party, dismissed allegations that members of Switzerland’s militia army and civilian shooting clubs acted irresponsibly.
“It’s a sign of honour for the citizen to take the weapon home. They feel treated with disrespect if they are denied this right,” he said. Parliament will continue the debate on the gun law and on proposals to ban the storage of gun and rifle ammunition in households at a later date
Recent polls show support for keeping army firearms at home is waning among the public. Last year a women’s magazine handed in a petition to parliament in a bid to rid Swiss households of weapons.
Criminologist Martin Killias of Lausanne University has said that guns play a central role in suicides and in the country’s grim history of family killings. Many newspaper commentators echoed the changing attitude among the public. Zurich’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper says the ballot box challenge mounted by pacifists and the centre-left is a way out of an obvious impasse in a parliament.
- Militia army Arms fetishists “Arms fetishists dominate parliament. Their decision had to be expected in a country which celebrates its readiness to fight off an outside threat by letting citizens keep their automatic rifles and pistols at home,” the paper said. Der Bund from Bern says understanding for Switzerland’s gun tradition is dwindling in society, particularly among women.
“Whether a ban would make Switzerland necessarily any safer is another question, but better protection from gunmen running amok is reason enough to collect individual army firearms.”
In a similar vein, the Basler Zeitung says parliament missed an opportunity to reduce the number of weapons in circulation. Le Temps from Geneva sees no point in sticking to the gun tradition for the sake of those who put tradition above everything else. “It seems absurd and outdated to refer to the need for security in the face of terrorist threats.”
It says rational arguments, such as the prevention of murder cases, should be more important than emotional aspects and the natural instinct to oppose any state interference in citizens’ rights and freedoms.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND GUN CONFISCATION
By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen (Adobe Acrobat PDF, requires acrobat reader)
This Article addresses a human rights problem which has been generally ignored by the advocates of firearms confiscation: the human rights abuses stemming from the enforcement of confiscation or similar laws.
http://tinyurl.com/3y8ogdHumans Rights and Weapon Confiscation
Concealed 