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Is the court's interpretation of the Florida Stand Your Ground Law going too far?

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  • Is the court's interpretation of the Florida Stand Your Ground Law going too far?

    Is the court's interpretation of the Florida Stand Your Ground Law going too far?


    I see these cases of playground shootings and gang shoot outs being excused as self defense. This seems wrong to me. Can someone help me understand what is going on? (Note: I personally support the right to bear arms and use them in legitamete self defense situations, but not the right to use them to shoot unarmed people in public places, or to settle arguments like gang rivalries).

    Five years since Florida enacted "stand-your-ground" law, justifiable homicides are up - Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — Two men meet at a park one Sunday afternoon in September. One is playing basketball with his daughter. The other has a gun tucked in his pants.

    The two men argue about a kid who's skateboarding. The man with the gun tries to enforce the rules. The other man lunges.

    The unarmed man takes his last breath in front of his 8-year-old daughter. Two days later, authorities charge the gun owner with manslaughter.

    Case closed? Maybe not.

    If history serves, the gunman stands a very good chance in court. The case may not even make it to trial.

    That's because of Florida Statute 776.013(3), which took effect five years ago this month. The old law gave you the right to protect yourself with deadly force inside your home. The 2005 law gives you the right to protect yourself in a park, outside a Chili's, on a highway — just about anywhere.

    You need only to "reasonably believe" that pulling the trigger or plunging the knife or swinging the bat is necessary to stop the other person from hurting you.

    Reports of justifiable homicides tripled after the law went into effect, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Last year, twice a week, on average, someone's killing was considered warranted.

    The self-defense law — known as "stand your ground" — has been invoked in at least 93 cases with 65 deaths, a St. Petersburg Times review found.

    In the majority of the cases, the person's use of force was excused by prosecutors and the courts.

    Proponents say that means the law is working, allowing people to protect themselves without having to ponder legalities in the heat of an attack. You don't have to wait to see how much of a victim you're going to be. You don't have to wait for the first bone to break.

    But the law has also been used to excuse violence in deadly neighbor arguments, bar brawls, road rage — even a gang shoot-out — that just as easily might have ended with someone walking away.

    Has it cheapened human life?

    • • •

    Miami's police chief made a prediction shortly before the law took effect:

    "Whether it's trick-or-treaters or kids playing in the yard of someone who doesn't want them there or some drunk guy stumbling into the wrong house,'' Chief John Timoney told the New York Times, "you're encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn't be used.''

    Four years later, Billy Kuch got drunk, so drunk that at 5 a.m. one day he stumbled to the door of the wrong house in a look-alike neighborhood and tried to open it, twice.

    Before the "stand your ground" law, homeowner Gregory Stewart would have been expected to hunker down in his Land O'Lakes residence, dead-bolt secure, and call police.

    With the law in place, he could use deadly force anywhere he had a right to be, provided he felt threatened with death or great bodily harm. He had no duty to retreat from danger.

    Stewart left his wife inside with their baby and stepped outside, gun in hand.

    Kuch put his hands up and asked for a light.

    "Please don't make me shoot you," Stewart said.

    Kuch, then 23, says he might have stumbled. Stewart, then 32, told police the unarmed man took three steps forward.

    The bullet ripped into Kuch's chest, nicked his heart, shot through his liver, in and out of his stomach, through his spleen, then out his back. He felt like his body was on fire.

    Stewart, when questioned by deputies, began to cry. "I could have given him a light," he said.

    The days ticked by, Kuch in a coma as his parents waited for word of a trial. And waited. After two months, the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office decided the shooting was justified and dropped the aggravated battery charge.

    Kuch's parents couldn't believe it.

    "We're not against gun ownership," said Bill Kuch, 57 and retired from IBM. "But we're against this law that provides someone the right to kill you without prosecution."

    Billy Kuch spent more than a month in the hospital.

    "The guy is 6-1, 250. I'm 5-9, 165, and I have a 0.3 blood-alcohol level," he said. "Did he really think I was going to be able to take his gun away?"

    • • •

    Arthur Hayhoe read about Billy Kuch in the newspaper. The executive director of the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence added another file to his growing stack. This shooting wasn't far from his own home.

    Hayhoe says the law turns Florida into the Wild West.

    "What in the hell is our state government doing passing a law encouraging our citizens to solve disputes with guns?" he said. "This is the right-to-commit-murder law."

    Florida was the first of more than 20 states to allow people to defend themselves with deadly force anywhere they had a right to be.

    Credit the National Rifle Association. Backed by the influential organization, the "stand your ground" legislation won broad support from lawmakers and praise from then-Gov. Jeb Bush as "a good, common-sense, anticrime issue."

    Marion Hammer, the NRA's Florida lobbyist, said the measure was needed to prevent authorities from harassing law-abiding people with unwarranted arrests.

    "The law was written very carefully and it means what it says: You have a right to protect yourself," she said.

    Drowned out in the debate were the critical voices of law enforcement officials and prosecutors. They worried people would become less sensitive to gun violence and death. They envisioned vigilantism.

    After the law took effect on Oct. 1, 2005, a national gun control group launched an ominous advertising campaign warning visitors about "Florida's Shoot First Law."

    Hayhoe passed out fliers at Miami International Airport telling tourists to "please take sensible precautions," such as: "Do not argue with local people."

    He wrote letters to the editor and started keeping tabs on cases where the new law was applied.

    It didn't take long. On Nov. 6, 2005, a Valrico man found himself serving as an unwitting test case.

    David Heckman, 65, said he was scared when he grabbed his .38-caliber handgun and wounded his fiancee's ex-husband.

    The man had come to Heckman's home, vandalized his car and threatened to break his jaw, Heckman said. He remembers the man taking off "like a skinned rabbit" after getting hit in the thigh.

    A jury cleared Heckman of wrongdoing. His defense cost $110,000.

    His is one of 35 Florida cases logged by Hayhoe.

    "They say this law hasn't made Florida the Wild West," Hayhoe said. "But how many bodies does it take?"

    No other group keeps tabs — not the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, not the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. That's problematic, because even academic studies of the effects of the law rely on anecdotes.

    And Hayhoe's count is incomplete.

    • • •

    The Times searched major Florida newspapers and found at least 93 cases in the past five years in which the new law was a factor. Those are just the confrontations that made the papers.

    In 57 of them, those who used force were either not charged with a crime or the charges were dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by a judge before trial. Seven other defendants were acquitted.

    Some people fought off intruders in their homes or businesses, which would have been allowed even before the "stand your ground" law.

    The use of force resulted in 65 deaths.

    Did the law empower the users of force to shoot? Could the tables have been turned on the shooters? If not for the law, would any of those 65 people still be alive?

    How can anyone know?

    What is known: Reports of justifiable homicides in Florida have spiked.

    For the first half of this decade, the state counted an average of 34 justifiable homicides a year, as few as 31 and as many as 43.

    That continued in 2006, the law's first full year.

    But the next three years brought these numbers:

    2007: 102.

    2008: 93.

    2009: 105.

    The first six months of 2010: 44.

    "I have always predicted that they would increase as more and more gun owners learn what they can do with this law," Hayhoe said.

    • • •

    One of those numbers: Michael Frazzini, 35, Cape Coral, father of two, decorated Army helicopter pilot who served five tours of duty. Now dead.

    Frazzini's elderly mother thought a 22-year-old neighbor was disturbing her property. One night in 2006, Frazzini stopped by to check things out.

    The neighbor later told authorities that he encountered Frazzini wearing a camouflage mask and wielding what looked like a pipe. The neighbor pulled a knife.

    The neighbor's father came out next and, thinking the masked man might attack his son, fired one shot from his .357 revolver into Frazzini's chest.

    Frazzini died in his mother's back yard. The pipe turned out to be a 14-inch baseball bat.

    The shooter walked away uncharged. A prosecutor said nobody involved in the decision felt good about it. Neither did one of the law's co-sponsors.

    "The intent is that you can only use the same amount of force as you believe will be used against you," Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, then a state representative, said at the time. "It certainly wasn't that you can shoot and kill somebody wielding a souvenir baseball bat."

    Maybe so. But there is no provision specifically barring someone with a permit from bringing a gun to a knife fight, let alone to a brawl that starts with fists.

    That's just one of the problems with the law, according to an analysis in the January 2009 University of Miami Law Review.

    Here's another: In many instances where deadly force is used, there are two witnesses and one of them is dead. That leaves one version of events, from a person motivated by self-interest.

    The Times' analysis indicates that the law has provided legal cover not just to those fending off attacks by strangers, but also to those who pull a gun in a storm of machismo and adrenaline.

    Fights at house parties and a pool hall. Neighbor disputes. Disagreements at a park.

    One of the law's biggest critics is Willie Meggs, the state attorney for six counties in the Panhandle. He says he's a strong believer in gun rights but thinks the law is just another valuable tool for killers. The old law was working just fine, he says. He petitioned the Legislature to address the law last year. Nothing.

    "Gangsters are using this law to have gunfights," he said. "That's exactly what this law breeds."

    In 2008, two gangs in Tallahassee got into a shoot-out. A 15-year-old boy was killed. A judge dismissed charges against the shooters, citing "stand your ground."

    "Before this law, we would have had a duty to avoid that," Meggs said. "I should not meet you in the street for a gunfight."

    He says it devalues human life.

    Is that measurable?

    Asks Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign: "How many killers getting off scot-free is enough to change the course of society?"

    • • •

    Without a "stand your ground" instruction manual, it has been up to police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges to put the law into practice.

    That has left a lot of room for conflicting interpretations about when and how immunity should be applied.

    Take the case of Jimmy Hair.

    In 2007, he shot a man who attacked him outside a Tallahassee nightclub. Meggs' office accused him of murder. Hair spent two years in jail awaiting trial before an appeals court dismissed the charge.

    The NRA's Hammer said he never should have been prosecuted.

    "There is nothing wrong with the law," she said. "Some of the state attorneys and law enforcement officers are complaining because they can't just go arrest everybody and sort it out later."

    The Florida Supreme Court is being asked to clear up some of the confusion.

    This month, justices heard their first "stand your ground" case. An Okeechobee County man says he injured a woman with a broken beer bottle after she first smashed it on his head.

    Only issues of legal procedure are before the court. Justices have not yet weighed in on the wisdom of the law, which asks prosecutors to examine something as nebulous as a man's state of mind.

    For Heckman, the Valrico man who shot his fiancee's ex in the thigh, its merits are already apparent.

    "If I didn't have that gun," he said, "I would have been hurt very badly or I would have been killed."

    • • •

    What, then, was Trevor Dooley's state of mind when he went to a park in Valrico last month with a gun to confront a skateboarder?

    Dooley, 69, had a permit for the gun, and no law bars him from taking it to a park.

    Authorities say he shot David James dead.

    What was James, 41, thinking when he lunged toward Dooley? What was Dooley thinking James was thinking?

    Did Dooley "reasonably believe" that the younger, bigger, stronger man would take his gun and harm him?

    Only he knows.

    And whether he is punished for gunning down a father in front of his daughter in a park on a sunny Sunday afternoon will more than likely come down to what he says he was thinking in those few seconds before a man died.

    Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at [email protected] or (727) 893-8650. Colleen Jenkins can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3337.



    FAST FACTS

    Florida Statute 776.013 (3)

    "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

    Justifiable homicide

    Reports of justifiable homicides in Florida

    200032

    200133

    200235

    200332

    200431

    200543

    200633

    2007102

    200893

    2009105

    2010 (through June)44

    Source: Florida Department of Law Enforcement
    sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
    If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

  • #2
    No the law has not gone too far. The critics are just making strawman arguments and laying the blame on the law itself when the blame should placed on the police for shoddy investigative practices. I have read about the Travyor Marvin shooting and found probable cause to lock the security guard up. The law only provides protection when you stand your ground, not chasing somebody else.

    In the 911 call, it was abundantly clear that he intended to chase that person down and intended to make a scene. He was advised by the police not to do so and let the police handle it. There was no clear and present danger at that time. There was no reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime was taking place. The teen was well within his rights to walk on that street of the neighborhood.

    If I was on the jury, and the guard tries to hide behind the law, I said tough shit the law does not apply to you because your actions have foregone the sphere of protected activities that the law was designed to shield from criminal liabilities.

    In any case, if he survives the criminal action, he certainly won't survive the civil action and he will definitely face punitive damages. I hope he gets slapped the same way that OJ got slapped in his civil case. He will be forever hounded by lawyers trying to collect the award and fees and making his life miserable.

    Comment


    • #3
      looks like Florida cops don't want to bothered with such nuisance as murder investigation, after all they aren't there to serve and protect anyone, they are there to enforce the law.
      "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

      Comment


      • #4
        I see it as Darwinism in action. There are way too many bullies, criminals and idiots on the streets. Couple that with the idea that people should be able to and in fact have a right go out in public and NOT be assaulted, attacked, raped, robbed etc and its not too hard to understand why the numbers are going up. There simply are too many people out there that wrongly believe they can do whatever they want to whomever they want and there are no consequences. In time they will get a clue but in the mean time the streets will run red with their blood. I find it offensive that there are places where people are specifically forbidden to defend themselves. That only emboldens the criminals.

        As with any law. If the police and authorities do not do their job and enforce when needed the whole sense of justice and society as a whole falls apart. It is their duty to properly and thoroughly investigate such incidences. As a back door enforcement we also have civil cases so if individuals who go around offing others without just cause and get a pass from the DA will still have to face the victims survivors and prove his case...or pay big. The authorities should also have to publicly answer as to why they chose to not do their job and bear the weight of their actions/inactions as well.
        Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

        Comment


        • #5
          the way i see it whole sense of justice is already apart. The authorities don't answer to anyone but higher authorities.
          world doesn't work as we think it should.
          "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

          Comment


          • #6
            Threads like this remind me why I am SO glad Australia has tight firearms laws & no gun culture. I NEVER, repeat NEVER want to live in a society where self-appointed vigilanties feel empowered to murder innocent civillians simply because they look a bit threatening or don't fit into the neighbourhood. I NEVER want to live in a society tha thas reached the point where an armed truce among citizens is both expected & encouraged as a means to keep the peace. Pro-gun Americans keep telling me how scared I should be that I can't arm myself against 'criminals'. I see more of those in an average week than most people where who aren't LEOs. They don't scare me half as much as the idea of living in a society where guns are as prevalant as they are in America. Situations like this and the specific laws that have encouraged it are the logical outcome of generations of insane firearms policies.

            Now, I'm off to safely walk a darkened street among drug dealers & petty criminals. I have never felt the need to own or carry a gun here. I never expect to.
            sigpic

            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
              No the law has not gone too far. The critics are just making strawman arguments and laying the blame on the law itself when the blame should placed on the police for shoddy investigative practices. I have read about the Travyor Marvin shooting and found probable cause to lock the security guard up. The law only provides protection when you stand your ground, not chasing somebody else.

              In the 911 call, it was abundantly clear that he intended to chase that person down and intended to make a scene. He was advised by the police not to do so and let the police handle it. There was no clear and present danger at that time. There was no reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime was taking place. The teen was well within his rights to walk on that street of the neighborhood.

              If I was on the jury, and the guard tries to hide behind the law, I said tough shit the law does not apply to you because your actions have foregone the sphere of protected activities that the law was designed to shield from criminal liabilities.

              In any case, if he survives the criminal action, he certainly won't survive the civil action and he will definitely face punitive damages. I hope he gets slapped the same way that OJ got slapped in his civil case. He will be forever hounded by lawyers trying to collect the award and fees and making his life miserable.
              I am not saying the law itself it the problem - it looks to me like the judges and LEO's are not enforcing it properly. As I understand it, self defense is a last resort - if you can leave without being physically hurt, then it isn't self defense. Feeling uncomfortable in a public place is a reason to leave - not to shoot the person who made you uncomfortable or insulted you. It isn't fair that there are bullies - but people shooting each other for no good reason is worse than that problem - IMO. Some cases are pretty vague - like a guy in a ski mask with a baseball bat trying to checkout his mother's back yard - why the mask? He was looking for trouble... It seems like the guy in his mother's back yard was too - but he might have been looking for a lost pet or something innocent like that- the victim doing something scary and menacing, somebody got shot, this isn't the case that disturbs me. They guy going out in the hall and shooting his neighbor (he could have stayed inside and called the police), the guy shooting the father at the playground - in front of his daughter (the father might have been a jerk, but that isn't a capital crime, the shooter could have left). If we are going to allow people to defend themselves, fine, but they shouldn't be able to get away with using this law as a shield to murder people from behind. As I understand it, this law was to prevent prosecution of truely justifiable self defense cases. Like stopping someone with a gun who is trying to kill you, or to defend your family from someone trying to seriously hurt them.
              sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
              If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

              Comment


              • #8
                Wisconsin,

                In this case, it was a case of creating a situation where danger to well being would be foreseeable or likely happen. The guard chased down the teen who had a perfect right to be on the premises and intended to rough him up or interrogate him roughly. The teen, well within his right, told the guard to back him off or use physical force to get the guard off his back (we don't know the full details). Using that as justification, the guard pulled out his gun and claimed that out of concern for his well being, shot him directly in the chest or in the back (can't remember which). To me, the Stand your Ground law does not apply. The police chief is just being a lazy ass chit and asshole. The city was well within its right to give no confidence to the police chief.

                I have no doubt that the grand jury will find probable cause to press charges on this scumbag.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
                  Wisconsin,

                  In this case, it was a case of creating a situation where danger to well being would be foreseeable or likely happen. The guard chased down the teen who had a perfect right to be on the premises and intended to rough him up or interrogate him roughly. The teen, well within his right, told the guard to back him off or use physical force to get the guard off his back (we don't know the full details). Using that as justification, the guard pulled out his gun and claimed that out of concern for his well being, shot him directly in the chest or in the back (can't remember which). To me, the Stand your Ground law does not apply. The police chief is just being a lazy ass chit and asshole. The city was well within its right to give no confidence to the police chief.

                  I have no doubt that the grand jury will find probable cause to press charges on this scumbag.
                  Blademaster,

                  I appreciate your taking time to converse - but feel guilty about keeping you from your deadline. I was trying to find the case you are referring to and didnt see it in that article. If you have time, could you give a link? If no time, I understand, we share this situation - on the WAB when we have too much to do....

                  editt - found it
                  http://video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc-tv/46809994/#46805798
                  Last edited by USSWisconsin; 22 Mar 12,, 17:46.
                  sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
                  If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
                    Wisconsin,

                    In this case, it was a case of creating a situation where danger to well being would be foreseeable or likely happen. The guard chased down the teen who had a perfect right to be on the premises and intended to rough him up or interrogate him roughly. The teen, well within his right, told the guard to back him off or use physical force to get the guard off his back (we don't know the full details). Using that as justification, the guard pulled out his gun and claimed that out of concern for his well being, shot him directly in the chest or in the back (can't remember which). To me, the Stand your Ground law does not apply. The police chief is just being a lazy ass chit and asshole. The city was well within its right to give no confidence to the police chief.

                    I have no doubt that the grand jury will find probable cause to press charges on this scumbag.
                    Thats kind of the whole issue here. You cant reasonably blame the law because as in this case someone presumably broke this law and others. The Florida law does not give permission to actively hunt down and shoot others. You can only defend yourself and others who are in immediate danger. Corruption in southern law enforcement agencies. I am shocked...utterly shocked.
                    Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                      Threads like this remind me why I am SO glad Australia has tight firearms laws & no gun culture. I NEVER, repeat NEVER want to live in a society where self-appointed vigilanties feel empowered to murder innocent civillians simply because they look a bit threatening or don't fit into the neighbourhood. I NEVER want to live in a society tha thas reached the point where an armed truce among citizens is both expected & encouraged as a means to keep the peace. Pro-gun Americans keep telling me how scared I should be that I can't arm myself against 'criminals'. I see more of those in an average week than most people where who aren't LEOs. They don't scare me half as much as the idea of living in a society where guns are as prevalant as they are in America. Situations like this and the specific laws that have encouraged it are the logical outcome of generations of insane firearms policies.

                      Now, I'm off to safely walk a darkened street among drug dealers & petty criminals. I have never felt the need to own or carry a gun here. I never expect to.
                      Once again, your taking some absurd twist and running with it to further your anti gun agenda. The law does not allow "self-appointed vigilanties feel empowered to murder innocent civillians simply because they look a bit threatening or don't fit into the neighborhood". If this turns out to be the case the person in question will stand trial for murder. Nor are guns the focus. He could have killed using any other weapon of choice. I guess it would have made you feel better if a knife or baseball bat was used. In short all this law does is give the victim the choice to stand his ground instead of having to turn and run from criminals. You call that insanity, we call it common sense.
                      Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                        Threads like this remind me why I am SO glad Australia has tight firearms laws & no gun culture. I NEVER, repeat NEVER want to live in a society where self-appointed vigilanties feel empowered to murder innocent civillians simply because they look a bit threatening or don't fit into the neighbourhood. I NEVER want to live in a society tha thas reached the point where an armed truce among citizens is both expected & encouraged as a means to keep the peace. Pro-gun Americans keep telling me how scared I should be that I can't arm myself against 'criminals'. I see more of those in an average week than most people where who aren't LEOs. They don't scare me half as much as the idea of living in a society where guns are as prevalant as they are in America. Situations like this and the specific laws that have encouraged it are the logical outcome of generations of insane firearms policies.

                        Now, I'm off to safely walk a darkened street among drug dealers & petty criminals. I have never felt the need to own or carry a gun here. I never expect to.
                        We call that attitude(yours) over here as "grease up and bend over" so forgive us if we decline to bend over to the criminals when we have the chance and ability to defend ourselves against criminals. Hippie pot smoking liberals are just make strawman arguments over this perfectly valid law in order to undermine it and despicably using the "Stand your ground" law as the reason. That is not the issue here. The issue here is what reasonable grounds did the guard have to fear for his life. By all accounts, he got none and the cops are just too fucking lazy to investigate it further or interrogate the guard further. Now the state attorney is taking over the investigation and impaneling the grand jury. I have every confidence that the grand jury will find enough probable cause to find there was a homicide and it was not justifiable.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                          Threads like this remind me why I am SO glad Australia has tight firearms laws & no gun culture.
                          It is not the gun culture I have a problem with.

                          The thing I really hate is the fear culture mixed mith the macho bullshit culture.

                          The fear culture turns every 2 bit pathethic criminal is into a socialist al queda terrorist from satan. The macho culture make anyone not wanting to kill someone over something as trivial as a flat screen TV a wuss.

                          And that's just 1 aspect of all the BS caused by the fear/macho culture sensible have to endure.
                          Last edited by FJV; 22 Mar 12,, 21:01. Reason: more grammar errors

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                            Blademaster,

                            I appreciate your taking time to converse - but feel guilty about keeping you from your deadline. I was trying to find the case you are referring to and didnt see it in that article. If you have time, could you give a link? If no time, I understand, we share this situation - on the WAB when we have too much to do....

                            editt - found it
                            Calls for Florida police chief to be fired - Video on msnbc.com
                            Here are the transcripts of the 911 calls. 911 calls paint picture of chaos after Florida teen is shot – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by FJV View Post
                              It is not the gun culture I have a problem with.

                              The thing I really hate is the fear culture mixed mith the macho bullshit culture.

                              The fear culture turns every 2 bit pathethic criminal is into a socialist al queda terrorist from satan. The macho culture make anyone not wanting to kill someone over something as trivial as a flat screen TV a wuss.

                              And that's just 1 aspect of all the BS caused by the fear/macho culture sensible have to endure.
                              Why is it that when an individual carries a first aid kit in his car he is "prepared" even though he may never use it, but when the same person carries something to protect himself the words "fear" and/or "macho" are thrown around? Is the concept of a person just wanting to live their life without having to be someones bitch for awhile really that difficult to understand.
                              Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

                              Comment

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