Donald W. Bohlken Letter to the Editor 11:15 a.m. CT April 11, 2017
Another View(Photo: File photo)
In their responses to my defense of HF517, a reform measure which preserves the Second Amendment rights of law abiding people, Roger Kuhle and Michael May fabricate arguments I never made and distort the ones I did. Despite Mr. Kuhles assertion to the contrary, I have never advocated for an unrestricted or unregulated right to gun ownership or use. Like the NRA, I would like to see stronger enforcement of federal laws prohibiting gun ownership by felons and the use of firearms in violent crimes and drug offenses.
I never tried to sell the idea that that the police need the stand your ground law to avoid liability for mistakenly shooting someone using a toy gun in a robbery. I argued that the bill was needed to ensure that civilians, and not just police officers, should be able to avoid liability if they use deadly force as the result of a reasonable, but mistaken, belief that such force was required. This principle should be codified in law and not be merely the result of prosecutorial discretion.
Kuhle is mistaken in his belief that pro-gun legislation results in increased gun sales. It is the threat of oppressive, anti-gun legislation that drives gun sales. That is why, during the Clinton and Obama administrations, gun stores often displayed posters of Clinton or Obama with the caption Worlds Greatest Gun Salesman.
Michael May apparently believes that, prior to HF517, the people of Iowa had no right to defend themselves in public places. For decades, the law has allowed people to use Reasonable force [which] is that force and no more which a reasonable person, in like circumstances, would judge to be necessary to prevent an injury or loss and can include deadly force if it is reasonable to believe that such force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to ones life or safety or the life or safety of another, or it is reasonable to believe that such force is necessary to resist a like force or threat. Iowa Code section 704.1. The law also allowed one to defend others and to resist forcible felonies. Iowa Code sections 704.3 and .7. HF517s continued allowance of self-defense in public places does not deputize anyone. The most significant difference between current law and stand your ground is that innocent victims of crime in public places will no longer be subject to the dangerous requirement to delay self-defense while they make an evaluation of whether or not a safe alternative to force is available. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.
It is amazing that May opposes the proposition that people should be required to base their acts of self-defense on a reasonable belief that they are in danger. This is simply a clarification of the reasonable force standard and an extension of the reasonable person standard, where the law requires people to act in a reasonable manner in a variety of situations. The law makes it clear that if a claim of self-defense or defense of others is made on a basis that is unreasonable, then that claim will not shield anyone from liability.
Mays problem, however, is that he is unalterably opposed to self-defense in public places. His callous disregard for the right of self-defense is evident when he characterizes defensive shooters as undisciplined, untrained, and unidentified active shooters. A Texas State University study makes clear that active shooters are one or more persons murdering or attempting to murder multiple people in an area (or areas) occupied by multiple unrelated individuals. Thus, Mr. May equates defensive shooters with murderers. He also claims that stand your ground violates right to life principles. He thereby equates the life of an innocent unborn child with that of a violent criminal. Incredibly, he believes that an armed civilians role should be limited to see something, say something without daring to defend themselves or others, even if failure to do so costs innocent lives.
May asks How would police arriving at a shooting at the Warren County Fair, an Indianola movie theater, or or Friday night football game tell the difference between an active shooter and a Stand Your Ground shooter?
What Mr. May doesnt know is that, in 49 percent of active shooter events, the event is over before the police arrive. In 19 percent of active shooter events, the shooter is subdued or shot by other people at the scene before the police arrive. Apparently, the defenders would not agree with Mays position that self-defense is wrong.
With respect to mass shootings, the average number of people shot when the shooter is stopped by police is 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians is 2.5. The reason for the discrepancy is because the police were not there when the shooting started.
Can May name a single active shooter event where the police were so confused that the police mistakenly shot a defender? In the Pearl, Miss., high school shooting, the Appalachian Law School shooting and the Edinboro, Pa., school dance shooting, the defenders used their guns to stop the mass shooters without firing a shot. In the Winnemuca, Nev., bar shooting and the Colorado Springs, Colo., church shooting, the civilians shot the mass shooters. In none of these cases did the police shoot the defenders.
Ask any police officer which he would prefer: to arrive at a scene where a mass shooters victims have been limited to two or three because an armed defender stopped the shooter, even if there is confusion at the scene; or to arrive at a scene where 13 have been shot and the shootings are ongoing, but the mass killer can be easily identified because he is the only person standing and the only one with a gun?
Because guns are successfully used for self-defense approximately 3 million times a year in America, the police are used to scenarios where it may not be clear whether a defensive gun use, which most often involves pointing a gun or using it to detain an offender and not an actual shooting, is justified or not. They direct anyone holding a gun to lay it down and detain everyone involved until the matter can be sorted out.
The nonsense that law-abiding citizens defending themselves or others would hinder police is contradicted by the massive support by police for liberal concealed carry policies as demonstrated by the PoliceOne survey of 15,000 police officers cited in my previous letter. Police officers such as Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wis., and police chief Craig of Detroit, Mich., have expressed support for armed citizen intervention against crime. In Florida, after the Trayon Martin incident, a task force, which included police officials, conducted an investigation into whether their stand your ground law should be retained. Their conclusion: [A]ll persons who are conducting themselves in a lawful manner have a fundamental right to stand their ground and defend themselves from attack with proportionate force in every place they have a lawful right to be. Iowans deserve no less.
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