I came upon this bit of proposed legislation and while I should know better than to be surprised by anything from states with restrictive gun laws, this one did surprise me. I first came upon it on the Guns.com site, but it cited this article,
"The new proposal seeks to tighten and clarify state regulations about who can buy guns and how they can be bought. One potentially contentious change would give police the discretion to deny a permit for a rifle or shotgun if an applicant is deemed unsuitable.
Under current law, police can apply a vague standard of unsuitability for licenses to carry a gun. But police do not have that discretion in issuing the Firearms Identification Card, which allows Massachusetts residents who pass a background check to buy a small-capacity rifle or shotgun.
In an effort to establish uniform criteria across Massachusetts, the bill would require the state Executive Office of Public Safety to create specific standards for suitability."
Of course, the criteria for suitability would be set after the bill is passed which make it problematic. While there is potentially a route for the criteria to be uniform state wide, something being decided by some executive branch panel has the potential for unpleasant surprises with no way (at least nothing mentioned yet) of overriding it is a concern.
If you cannot accept a vague criteria for a license to carry (details to be determined later) how can you possibly accept a stand your ground shooting law which is totally vague and doesn't get determined until after someone is dead and can't testify to what happened, or what they did to justify getting shot? It's a little late (after a person is dead) and a violation of a persons right to life, to find a person had no right to shoot using a stand your ground defense. The fact that a shooter might go to jail doesn't bring anyone back to life. Justice is not served because a person is dead, who should not be dead.
ReplyDelete"If you cannot accept a vague criteria for a license to carry (details to be determined later) how can you possibly accept a stand your ground shooting law which is totally vague and doesn't get determined until after someone is dead and can't testify to what happened, or what they did to justify getting shot?"
ReplyDeleteMost self deadly force laws are based on the reasonableness standard. Minnesota uses the same standard in its deadly force law, though it doesn't have SYG hearings. The only real difference is the obligation to retreat if it can be done reasonably safely. Yes, the reasonable standard is there too.
There is a difference between having SYG, or not and that is evidenced by the court cases we see. Even without SYG, if the person is dead we only have the shooters word.
DeleteThat's the problem I have with the Martin case. We only had Zim's word and considering his past and the fact that they lied to the court about their finances, I don't believe him. Citing the end of a fight tells us nothing about who started the fight. And since he was told to stay away, but did not, he was the aggressor. If Zim was the aggressor, then the end of the fight (which there was a witness to) only proves Martin was and had a right to defend his life with physical deadly force, not to mention he did not have a gun, but Zim did.
A reasonable standard means little, if only the shooter is alive to say what happened.
This seems against the whole "shall not be infringed" section of the 2nd Amendment.
ReplyDeleteYou could say that, or you could say it's perfectly within the guidelines that Scalia set when he said reasonable restrictions are acceptable.
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