Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Aaron Vargas

Yahoo News reports on the sentencing of man who killed his abuser.

A man who said he had been sexually abused by a family friend since he was a child was sentenced to nine years in prison Tuesday for shooting the victim with a Civil War-style pistol and watching him die.

Aaron Vargas, 32, showed little emotion as his punishment was announced in the vigilante killing.

His sister Mindy Galliani noticed his lips were trembling — a sure sign he was about to cry.

"It's not over. We're going to appeal," Galliani said after her brother shuffled away, hands and feet shackled. "It's clear that the justice system still doesn't have an understanding of childhood abuse."

Initially charged with murder, Vargas, of Fort Bragg, Calif., pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the death of 63-year-old Darrell McNeill and could have faced up to 10 years in prison.

It turns out the abuser was supposed to have had many victims, to have been quite the predator. Aaron, they say, just snapped after a lifetime of suffering.

The judge wanted to send a strong message that it is not permitted to take the law into one's own hands.

Interestingly, the crime was committed with a "Civil War-style pistol." Do you think that makes this one of the extremely rare black-powder killings? We certainly don't see many of those. I'd say they're even rarer than true DGUs.

What's your opinion. Please leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. "Interestingly, the crime was committed with a "Civil War-style pistol." Do you think that makes this one of the extremely rare black-powder killings? We certainly don't see many of those."

    Yeah there was this one and a fictional one on NCIS once. That's about it for the last 10 years or more.

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  2. MikeB: “Do you think that makes this one of the extremely rare black-powder killings? We certainly don't see many of those."

    You would if everything else was banned.

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  3. Yes, TS. If everything else were banned, we'd see more black-powder shootings, but do you suppose they'd equal what we have today? The knifings and bludgeonings would go up too, but in your estimations, would the totals be the same?

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  4. The knifings and bludgeonings would go up too, but in your estimations, would the totals be the same?

    The violent crime rate has not gone down in the UK. Why would we expect any different here?

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  5. MikeB: “Yes, TS. If everything else were banned, we'd see more black-powder shootings, but do you suppose they'd equal what we have today?”

    Lets be consistent here. Was the “Wild Wild West” really wild, or we people not able to kill each other so much because of inferior firepower?

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