Friday, April 13, 2012

Armed while Old, Fat, White and Crabby?

Reposted from Penigma.

ALEC represents corporate and other special interests. It DOES NOT reflect the problems of a state, much less desirable solutions. It does not represent the citizens of that state and their wishes. It co-opts and corrupts the function of representative government, it erodes and overturns the fundamental concept of government of the people, by the people, for the people by replacing it with legislation by and for outside special interests, and corporate profits over people.

I found this hypothetical situation in the title particularly apt; I grew up with a swimming pool. We would occasionally find unauthorized people doing precisely this - taking a dip, and not always late night either. Our response tended to be to politely tell the intruders to please leave, and to call the local police if they did not comply (that happened precisely twice). And while waiting for the police to arrive, we turned the family dog loose in the pool enclosure -- to BARK, not bite -- which was quite sufficient to persuade the unwelcome swimmers to leave when a polite request was not. In each case, the trespassers were young and male, the age of Trayvon Martin or younger. The notion of involving a gun in those interactions is preposterous -- but it is what happens under Shoot First laws.

I was particularly struck by the last lines of the piece below, because the exclusively conservative legislators who introduced the legislation appear to have used the same ALEC model bill template that shows up in every other state with these laws, and are all alleged to have ALEC ties:

But some legislators said they wondered who those constituents were, other than the N.R.A. The Castle Doctrine legislation, they said, was one of a series of bills that seemed to appear out of nowhere as part of some national agenda, rather than arising from concerns of Wisconsin residents. Janet Bewley, a Democrat in northern Wisconsin who voted for the concealed carry bill but against the self-defense law, said, “I never heard anyone in this state crying out, ‘We must have the Castle Doctrine.’ ”


Because of the allegations that ALEC is inherently corrupt -- using public office for private gain -- and because of the attempts at secrecy, I do not believe that the legislators who introduced the Shoot First law in Wisconsin are being fully candid and honest. I'd love to see the press FOIA those legislators who proposed this bill, and who voted for it, requiring them to produce all information relating to ALEC.
If it is so innocent, put it out in the open for your constituents to SEE, for themselves.

I'd like to see the same thing happen in Minnesota.

From the New York Times by way of MSN:
NRA gathers amid growing storm over gun laws

'If someone takes a late-night dip in your swimming pool, does that mean you should shoot them?' Wis. state senator says

By
updated 4/13/2012 6:13:34 AM ET2012-04-13T10:13:34
No one had yet heard of a Florida teenager named Trayvon Martin when a group of Wisconsin Republicans got together last year to discuss expanding a self-defense bill before the State Legislature.
The bill, known as the Castle Doctrine, made it harder to prosecute or sue people who used deadly force against intruders inside their houses.
New York Times caption: Jeff Nass is the president
of WI-Force,
a gun rights group in Wisconsin
that works with the National Rifle Association.
My observation - these groups are always
formed by fat old crabby white guys with guns
trying to look stern and important.
Mostly, they just look constipated and impotent.
But the Wisconsin legislators, urged on by the National Rifle Association in a series of meetings, wanted it to go further. They shaped an amendment that extended the bill’s protections to include lawns, sidewalks and swimming pools outside the residences, as well as vehicles and places of business.
That expanded bill, passed with little debate by the Legislature and signed in December by Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, is the newest of more than two dozen so-called Stand Your Ground statutes that have been enacted around the country in recent years.
Those laws are now coming under increased scrutiny after Mr. Martin was shot to death by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator, in late February. Similar legislation is pending in several other states, including Alaska, Massachusetts and New York.
Though the laws vary in their specifics and scope, they expand beyond the home the places where a person does not have a duty to retreat when threatened, and they increase protection from criminal prosecution and civil liability. All contain elements of the 2005 Florida statute that made it difficult to immediately arrest Mr. Zimmerman, who has said he shot Mr. Martin, who was unarmed, in self-defense.
Zimmerman expected to take stand in Martin murder case

Critics see the laws as part of a national campaign by the National Rifle Association, which began gathering on Thursday in St. Louis for its annual meeting, to push back against limits on gun ownership and use.
That effort, they say, has been assisted by conservative legislators in states like Wisconsin, and by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has promoted model legislation based on Florida’s law; the council, known as ALEC, is a conservative networking organization made up of legislators, corporations like Walmart, a large retailer of long guns, and interest groups like the rifle association.
The success of the campaign is reflected in the rapid spread of expanded self-defense laws as well as laws that legalize the carrying of concealed weapons.
Only one state, Illinois, and the District of Columbia now ban that practice, compared with 19 states in 1981. Bills pending in several states that would allow concealed weapons to be carried on college campuses, in churches, in bars or at other sites would further weaken restrictions, as would either of two federal bills, now in the Senate, that would require that a permit for carrying a concealed weapon that was granted by any state be honored in all other states.
“Both directly and with cutouts like ALEC, the N.R.A. is slowly and surely and methodically working at the state level to expand the number and kind and category of places where people can carry concealed, loaded weapons and use them with deadly force,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of more than 650 mayors that has not taken a position on the Stand Your Ground laws.
Repeated requests to speak with N.R.A. officials about Wisconsin’s law or Stand Your Ground laws more generally met with no response.
Political influenceIn Wisconsin, as in other states, the passage of an expanded self-defense law was helped by the 2010 elections, which vaulted conservative Republicans into office. In Pennsylvania, for example, a Stand Your Ground law passed the Legislature in 2010 but was vetoed by Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat. Introduced again last year, the bill was signed by his Republican successor, Tom Corbett.
In Wisconsin, a narrower version of the legislation had languished and died in previous sessions. But with a Republican governor and Republicans dominating both houses of the Legislature, several state lawmakers said that the success of the bill and the expansion amendment promoted by the N.R.A. seemed assured.
“I think it’s only normal they assumed this could be their year,” said Representative Dean Kaufert, a Republican who introduced the legislation, speaking of the rifle association.
Prosecutors: Zimmerman provoked confrontation with Martin
Darren LaSorte, a lobbyist for the rifle association, wanted the legislation, like Florida’s law, to extend protection to any place where a person had a legal right to be, said several Republican lawmakers who met with Mr. LaSorte. But having been successful in getting an earlier bill passed to allow the carrying of concealed weapons, Mr. LaSorte accepted a compromise.
“It was almost a ‘we’ll take what we can get’ kind of mode,” Mr. Kaufert said. In its final form, the law contained language that closely tracked some parts of the Florida bill.

In a legislative alert on its Web site, the N.R.A. asked members to “please express your support for this critically important self-defense legislation” and for “N.R.A.-recommended amendments to these bills in order to make the final product a stronger law.” The bill, the association said in the alert, “ensures that you don’t have to second-guess yourself when defending your home from intruders.”
Further, it said, “It also provides civil immunity for good citizens who are acting defensively against violence.”
Last year, the N.R.A. spent $97,701 and 627 hours lobbying or engaging in other activities in Wisconsin on behalf of the self-defense law and the concealed carry law, according to the State Legislature Web site.
But as in other states, the most powerful weapon the rifle association wielded in Wisconsin was political, not financial. In a state with more than 620,000 registered hunters, the ratings the association gives to legislators could have significant impact on their political fortunes, particularly in the northern part of the state.
“A lot of politicians are apprehensive to go against the initiatives of the National Rifle Association,” said Representative Nick Milroy, a Democrat from northern Wisconsin who voted for the concealed carry bill but against the Castle Doctrine. “For a lot of people who are very particular about their gun rights, anything less than an ‘A’ rating is an antigun stance.”
Senator Jon Erpenbach, a Democrat, called the bill a substantial victory for the N.R.A. in the Midwest, where guns have a less central place, say, than Texas. “The N.R.A. did very well for themselves in Wisconsin,” he said.
Legislators: Who wanted the doctrine?Mr. Erpenbach said he would have voted for the original self-defense bill, which placed a heavier burden on prosecutors in self-defense cases but limited the protection to inside a residence. But he drew the line at the amendment expanding the legislation, he said.
“Who in their right mind could be asking for something like this?” he said he remembers thinking when the measure hit the Senate floor, amendment attached. “If someone takes a late-night dip in your swimming pool, does that mean you should shoot them?”
The fact that the amendment was added by the Assembly Committee on Judiciary and Ethics after the public hearing on the bill, he and others said, prevented it from getting much public attention. And with challenges to collective bargaining, requirements for voter identification and other controversial proposals before them, legislators had a lot on their minds.
“There wasn’t a tremendous amount of debate,” Mr. Erpenbach said.
In fact, at the public hearing, some groups expressed strong opposition even to the far more restricted language of the original legislation. Gregory O’Meara, speaking for the Wisconsin Bar Association’s criminal division, said that the division’s judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers unanimously opposed the bill as unnecessary and potentially problematic. Wisconsin’s existing law, he said, was already stronger than most states, placing the burden of proof on the prosecution to show that a person was not acting in self-defense.
Video: Zimmerman enters not guilty plea (on this page)Jeff Nass, president of WI-Force, a Wisconsin gun rights group that works with the N.R.A., and who carries a Glock 20 semiautomatic handgun at all times — “It’s a large pistol, but I’m a large person,” he said — testified in favor of the bill.
Prosecutors and law professors, Mr. Nass said in a phone interview, “can sit back and analyze in the safety of their chambers what you did and if you did the right thing, but if I kick down your door in the middle of the night, are you going to be worried about it?”
Representative Scott Suder, the Republican majority leader, participated in meetings to shape the amendment and said the bill’s expansion was not “driven by any group or organization” but came at the urging of other legislators and their constituents.
“We came up with a compromise that did include your car in addition to your home, and that was a fair compromise,” Mr. Suder said. “We didn’t go as far as some wanted to.”
But some legislators said they wondered who those constituents were, other than the N.R.A. The Castle Doctrine legislation, they said, was one of a series of bills that seemed to appear out of nowhere as part of some national agenda, rather than arising from concerns of Wisconsin residents.
Janet Bewley, a Democrat in northern Wisconsin who voted for the concealed carry bill but against the self-defense law, said, “I never heard anyone in this state crying out, ‘We must have the Castle Doctrine.’ ”
This story, "N.R.A.’s Influence Seen in Expansion of Self-Defense Laws", originally appeared in The New York Times.

17 comments:

  1. How typical of Dog Gone's screeds: long, disjointed, and always whining about how guns are the central evil of our society.

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    1. I don't think she says guns are the central evil. You're exaggerating again.

      Dog Gone and the rest of us understand, and I suspect you do to only you just won't admit it, that although there are many factors involved in violence and even in gun violence, gun availability is one of the main ones.

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    2. Only in the sense that oxygen is necessary for gun violence. A killer has to breathe, after all.

      And before Dog Gone gets snippy about a bit of fun, look at the places that I've named with high gun ownership, good gun laws, and low crime: Vermont and the Czech Republic, for example. How can those places exist? Your side must twitch with a desire to nuke them, since they're an excellent demonstration that the mere presence of guns isn't enough to make people violent and crazy.

      And what about South Africa and Puerto Rico? Both have strict gun laws, and both have a high rate of violent crime. South Africa is a good example of what would happen here if your laws came into effect. It's a country that has a long tradition with guns and a relatively high number of firearms in the country. It also has a long border with violent neighbors. (Noticing any similarities to another nation?) Puerto Rico is an island, so presumably, no one is walking across the border to buy a gun illegally from a private seller there. The existence of those two regions must also bug your side.

      So, no, I don't have to admit that gun availability is a major factor in gun violence, other than the logical statement that to have gun violence, there must be a gun. That's true by definition. But the claim that having guns causes violence is demonstrably false.

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  2. Greg, you forgot Republicans. ;-)
    orlin sellers

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    1. Well, Orlin, I think you agree that Republicans are a problem, no?

      Do you prefer them to the Dems?

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    2. That's something like asking if he prefers the mouth end or the asshole of the same varmit.

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  3. Laci - lets flip the situation. Say an older lady is outside in her back yard next to the pool when a young man hops the fence and decides to physically attack her when asked to leave. The lady is on the ground with the man banging her head around and hitting her. She manages to grap her concealed gun and shoots her attacker. Should she face criminal prosecution? If she does and is found innocent should she then face civil court costs and time from the family of her attacker suing for a wrongful death case?

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  4. Jim, older lady outside on her back?

    Seriously? How many people do you reasonably think hop a fence to take an unauthorized dip when there is a person present? Nor can I imagine a scenario where because someone is asked to leave they assault the home owner.

    I don't know of any instances where someone intrudes while swimming. Not one. If you can find an example, please provide it, and then be sure to indicate why that is not the exception to the rule.

    I also don't know of anyone who carries a gun while using a swimming pool. To do so would be stupid. Fortunately most women are not as ludicrously macho as the man in the NYTimes article photo.

    The woman in you scenario would be safest if she simply went indoors to wait for the police, instead of engaging in a physical confrontation with someone younger and stronger than she is.

    This is just one more example of the kind of fantasy that got George Zimmerman in trouble. The mistakes he made are exactly the kind of mistakes in judgement and reasoning that we see from all of you.

    Hey Greg- you might want to note that my writing was farimly brief in this piece. The majority of the post is from the New York Times. How typical of you to criticize national quality writing, as if you knew anything about writing yourself. Clearly your level of critical thinking has not improved in my absence. Keep trying; one of these days you might manage to think coherently. But no one should be holding their breath while waiting.

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  5. Dog Gone, you're speaking to me again? I thought that you'd run off in a tiff because you couldn't control the conversation.

    Saying that you did a copy and paste job doesn't excuse this. It's poorly connected. Paragraphs don't flow from the previous and into the next. It's too short to handle all the subjects that it tries to cover and too long for a rapid attack piece.

    But once again, you offer us your opinion that property owners have no right to defend their property or themselves. Yeah, we remember that this is your opinion. We also know that it's ridiculous.

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  6. Just a small problem with the pool intruder story, Castle Doctrine or "Shoot First" will not cover that. In all the versions I've read, the person you are shooting must be where they are unlawfully (check) and the invasion must be forceful (no check). You can not shoot some kid who walks on your lawn. You can shoot some kid who breaks down your door.

    For a nice and brief explanation http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/01/3139846/like-in-florida-ncs-castle-doctrine.html

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  7. I'm not sure what interest the greedy, corrupt corporate interests of ALEC would have in self-defense. Not buying that angle. The hate of interest groups seems to overlook something. They don't print money, people give it to them. They give it to them with the intent of raising awareness in Congress to their issue over the myriads of others Congress could choose to address. So it's not just "The Corporation" controlling "The Man", it's how American democracy has worked. There are liberal interest groups as well and even ones focused on gun control with their own corporate sponsors. The Brady Campaign is probably the one you're most familiar with.

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  8. "How typical of Dog Gone's screeds: long, disjointed, and always whining about how guns are the central evil of our society."

    How typical of Greg Camp's comments; short, pissy and devoid of any factual rebuttal of any point made by dog gone or anyone else. And yet, he whines about others' "whining".

    "You can not shoot some kid who walks on your lawn. You can shoot some kid who breaks down your door."

    One of the "stand your ground" situations in Florida involved a man who had stolen something from a home and was chased several hundred feet--at least--and stabbed to death by the resident of the burgled building; the killer was not prosecuted. So, it appears that you don't have to demonstrate violence or the intent of violence on the part of the decedoperp.

    "I'm not sure what interest the greedy, corrupt corporate interests of ALEC would have in self-defense. Not buying that angle."

    Then you need to educate yourself by doing some reading. ALEC's "model legislation" is the genesis of much of the "stand your ground" nonsense. Why do the get themselves involved in that shit? Who knows or, really, even cares. That the GOP is in bed wiht them is not a question, the only question is who's on top.

    "The hate of interest groups seems to overlook something. They don't print money, people give it to them."

    Not as many people as were giving it to them before Trayvon Martin was shot*--without justification--by a man who is too insecure (or filled with hate) to go through life without a gun in his hand.



    * Since the Trayvon Martin shooting, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Kraft Foods, The Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation and a number of other corporate sponsors have been shamed into dropping their support of ALEC.

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    1. Stand your ground is a good law, as is the idea of good citizens stopping thieves. When your side no longer shows so much sympathy for criminals, you might get more support for your ideas.

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  9. "Stand your ground is a good law, as is the idea of good citizens stopping thieves. When your side no longer shows so much sympathy for criminals, you might get more support for your ideas"

    Let me see if I can clear this up for you. I have told you, on several different threads that I do NOT have sympathy for criminals. When you say that I do, knowing full well that I don't, it's a fucking lie. Do you understand how that works?

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    1. It's not a lie; it's an interpretation. I see a great deal of moaning about the demise of one or another criminal here far more than any praise or even concern for good gun owners.

      But tell me this: How is it that you know that what I say is a lie, when I'm supposed to know that what you say is the gospel truth?

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  10. "It's not a lie; it's an interpretation."

    Bullshit. When you say something, knowing that it is in direct opposition to a stated premise by someone, saying that they did not, it is a lie. I don't understand how someone as ignorant as you obviously even got a job teaching. You're fucking hopelessly stupid.

    "I see a great deal of moaning about the demise of one or another criminal here far more than any praise or even concern for good gun owners."

    You do? Well, then provide the quotes. If you can't provide quotes by me or anyone else that you accuse of that prove your assertion is true then you either need to retract it or simply go on being a LIAR.

    "I see a great deal of moaning about the demise of one or another criminal here far more than any praise or even concern for good gun owners."

    Point to some lies I've told about you.

    I told you that I don't believe you give a fuck about anyone but yourself--and it's pretty obvious that you don't. You would kill somebody, because they are "threatening" in your opinion or for their attempting to take the money in your pockets. I'm not imagining you've said these things, they are a matter of record. You're either sociopathic or on lying when you say things like that; neither of those things is admirable.

    Quit lying about what I say and I'll quit calling you a liar. Are you genuinely too obtuse to not get the connection?

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    1. So let's see: You just drew a conclusion about me that contradicts my statements and my beliefs and my actions, but that's not a lie? Actually, I don't call you a liar. I call you stupid and wrong, but not a liar.

      You just said that you don't believe that I care about anyone by myself. That is your interpretation. I have said that I believe your side really wants to ban private ownership of guns. That's my interpretation. If one is a lie, then so is the other. Are you a liar, Democommie?

      But you want a source for my statement above? Look at the articles posted here. Consider the tone taken in all of them. Look at the comments made by you or by Laci and Dog Gone, when they come around any more. Can you seriously suggest that the attitude therein isn't disparaging of gun owners? Do you not notice all the stories where some criminal gets shot and Mikeb expresses his regret for injury or loss of life?

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