Florida mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Florida mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots (2012)

cbsnews.com

14 pointssalimmadjd36 comments

The sentence is excessive, but some sort of penalty definitely should be assessed. The stand your ground/castle laws provide for someone to defend themselves and others in their house with deadly force with a firearm when they are in imminent danger.

If you are firing warning shots and not shooting the center of mass to disable and/or kill, then you don't need to be discharging your weapon at all. Guns are not toys and they aren't meant to dissuade someone from a course of action. They are meant to end the life of someone.

In short, if you're not threatened enough to kill, you're not threatened enough to fire your weapon.

> In short, if you're not threatened enough to kill, you're not threatened enough to fire your weapon.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Obviously, the discharging of a firearm should never be taken lightly. But the sound of a gunshot is an extremely effective deterrent, and I don't see why that doesn't make it a legitimate form of self-defense.

> Guns... aren't meant to dissuade someone from a course of action

Isn't that exactly what they're for? Police don't (usually) draw their weapons for the express purpose of killing. They do so to force a violent attacker to stand down, ideally without having to fire a shot.

I meant actually firing one. I mean, most gun training classes do actually tell you that you shouldn't ever point your firearm at anything you don't intend on harming. I tend to think of a policeman drawing their weapon slightly differently, because they are an extension of the, ostensibly legitimate, force of the state. This is different than a private citizen using a firearm according to the law.

Warning shots are illegal everywhere. It's considered use of deadly force when it is not required. Any firearms training course will tell you this. It just so happens Florida has very harsh mandatory minimum sentencing for this offense. In Vermont they'll just give you a fine.

Errr, they have harsh sentencing for attempted murder, as well they should.

The mandatory minimum is for "unlawful use of deadly force."

Ah, I see. Of course, by definition attempted murder is "unlawful use of deadly force", but the state wants to, quite properly, sanction the latter.

I did not know that. Though I'm aware of the risks of firing a weapon when you don't know where the bullet will land, I don't see why a warning shot should be illegal if done safely (shooting at the floor, etc).

I also wonder if any state license(s) held by the shooter required learning that warning shots are unlawful. As a guy who doesn't own guns, it seems extremely counterintuitive.

Florida's concealed carry license doesn't require instruction in legal use of lethal force, e.g. a hunter safety course will satisfy its training requirements; she had one or at least she claims to have had one.

Any reading or training you get on this subject will emphasize that you can only use lethal force when it is necessary to stop a threat of "grievous bodily harm" or the like including rape, or death, so by implication warning shots are not legitimate. (Texas is not surprisingly a special case, it uniquely allows the use of lethal force after a verbal warning to stop the theft of property, don't know how warning shots are treated by that state.)

As a non-gun owner this may strike you as extremely counterintuitive, but it's a general part of most any training you might get or relevant safety rules; you own every bullet you shoot, you're responsible for what they hit. E.g. see Jeff Cooper's 4 safety rules, which I consider to be the best set: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Cooper#Firearms_safety Note rule 4: "Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified." A shot into the floor is not 100% safe, you're directing a lot of energy into it, you don't know what that might kick up. However, she shot a wall, and that's inherently dangerous unless your nearest neighbor is far, far away which I gather wasn't the case (Jacksonville has 1,100 people per square mile).

None of this would appear to be relevant to the case, the court determined she was guilty of attempted murder vs. lessor charges that I assume could have applied, like assault. If they'd believed her dodgy claim of self-defense it shouldn't have resulted in a judgement that she was actually trying to kill her husband.

That's wrong (you may mean "in the US", though, I don't know about that). And incredibly stupid.

Of course it is desirable to give the attacker a chance to retreat by firing a warning shot. If he continues and you're in imminent physical danger, you shoot at the legs.

And only if that did not help you go for the torso.

(If there is enough time, if the killing shot is the only one you're ever going to get to fire, then that it is)

In the U.S. state I'm from, you are not allowed to perform "kill shots". You are only allowed to shot to stop. Training classes will always advise against shooting at the legs. They are easily missed, take precious time, and waste ammo (hopefully you won't need to use all of your ammo, but it has happened to persons defending themselves against multiple threats).

Ask police officers or soldiers if they shoot at the legs of threats, or if their first shot is towards center-mass.

Sorry, but echoing Casseres, you've demonstrated you know little to nothing about the legal use of lethal force in the US or practical self-defense with a gun. If you own a gun, please get a book like this classic http://www.amazon.com/In-Gravest-Extreme-Personal-Protection... before you end up being convicted of a serious crime.

Extending his remarks, if you hit the femoral artery in someone's upper leg, they're going to quickly bleed out unless they get serious first aid.

Well, but I know about what German courts require in cases of self-defense with a gun.

I'm sorry to hear that the US have not developed some sensible framework of self-defense.

Ah; the US has 50+ frameworks of self-defense, given our federalism.

What do you not find sensible about Florida's? If you accept Zimmerman's account of the incident, which we presume the jury did, he only resorted to lethal force after he was in legitimate fear for his life, and he never had an opportunity to retreat (states vary greatly on duty to retreat vs. stand your ground).

What do German courts require?

> and he never had an opportunity to retreat

He had the option to not follow someone, and to stay inside his vehicle, as he was advised to do by the police he called.

Poking someone with a stick and then killing them when they respond is a bizarre use of self-defence.

No, by his account, and more importantly the recording, which I've listened to in full, the "police"---actually a dispatcher, who's instructions have no force of law whatsoever--- said "you don't need to do that" after Zimmerman got out of his vehicle after he said Martin started running. You can tell by the ambient noise he then stopped, that he did follow the advice.

Again by his account, while returning to his vehicle he was confronted by Martin, who said the first and also hostile words, and not even the prosecution claimed that Zimmerman initiated force, the affidavit strangely changes to the passive voice, "Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued".

It comes down to who's use of lethal force was justified; I find it bizarre you don't think getting your face pounded, as confirmed by an eye witness, and getting your head bashed into concrete, also confirmed by photos and the physician's assistant who attended to him, isn't sufficiently lethal force to allow a reply of lethal force in legitimate self-defense.

That isn't even going into Zimmerman's claim that when Martin realized Z had a gun, he said he was going to kill him and reached for it.

I find the Florida system eminently sensible, even not going far enough. Maybe just because I'm kind of used to it.

German self-defense law is even stronger than all those Stand Your Ground laws in the US.

I guess only here law professors can write about the "ignominious/dishonorable flight" when discussing options against an attacker.

"Justice does not have to yield to injustice" is a very common saying.

But even if the law allows you to strike back, it's usually still a good idea to retreat. :-)

"But even if the law allows you to strike back, it's usually still a good idea to retreat. :-)"

Indeed; the good thing about Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws is that they presume the citizen without fault will make a good decision on that and don't allow the state to second guess him along with everything else it will be questioning (i.e. SYG doesn't touch on biggest question of "is this use of lethal force justified?", which should be the real focus).

I've seen some horrible abuses of duty to retreat from your own home in Massachusetts when the courts were negating as much of every legislative reform as they could; you should never have to decide between abandoning your children to the tender mercies of a thug and going to jail (real case, followed contemporaneously in the Boston Globe in the early '80s).

A saying from an aquaintance who works as a public prosecutor in capital cases:

"Generally it's preferable to discuss the limitations of self-defense with the prosecutor, than having the family discuss with the undertaker."

Well, it's not, and not for police outside of perhaps riot situations. And in many if not most states civilians are allowed to use the threat of lethal force in self-defense, just like the police.

Shooting is lethal force; if you're not justified in using lethal force, you're not justified in shooting to begin with.

There's also the minor detail that the court system determined she tried to murder her husband, "Alexander was convicted of attempted murder..." (and even if not officially, with an aggravating factor of putting children at risk), but "Fla. mom gets 20 years for being a bad shot" isn't as sexy, and "Fla. mom gets 20 years for attempted murder" is not even nationally newsworthy.

Zimmerman walks free for shooting an unarmed teenager who he stalked and this woman should go to jail? Looks like she had to kill her husband and walk free.

There's clearly some various biases going on here. In an ideal world Zimmerman would be in jail for a long time and this woman would be doing community service or something.

EDIT: I'm actually rescinding my comment here. I don't honestly know enough about the Zimmerman case to say he should be in jail for a long time. I haven't been following it at all, but I just read an article/long thread, and it would seem that the guy he killed physically assaulted him before Zimmerman shot.

While acknowledging that none of us were in the courtroom, I think the evidence that Martin attacked Zimmerman is pretty scant.

I'm sorry? The standard is reasonable doubt. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest that Zimmerman initiated (or even participated in) the "fight". Zimmerman had a fractured nose, a bruised face, and gashes on the back of his head. His sworn statement was that he was knocked down out of the blue by Trayvon Martin with the punch that broke his nose. He passed a polygraph, and was "visibly relieved" (according to the interrogating officer) when the police falsely told him in interrogation that the whole incident was caught on videotape. The only injuries to Trayvon Martin were bruising on his knuckles from throwing punches, as he straddled Martin and "rained blows upon him MMA style" (according to the main witness and ballistics expert). We don't have definitive evidence of Zimmerman's account (a surveillance tape or multiple eyewitnesses who saw the entire incident) but what evidence there is strongly indicates that Zimmerman's account was accurate.

The behavior this little cul-de-sac of law incentivises is clear. Say you missed.

Since she was convicted of attempted murder, that would have only sped up the verdict.

IMO, it might have been self defense if she'd been in a genuine self defense situation, as reflected by "shooting to stop her attacker", even if she missed. Warning shots is a sign her life wasn't in danger, so she fired, which put him at risk, which is attempted murder. Which is weird, but sort of consistent.

IANAL. (I also don't fire warning shots except to center of mass, and generally don't miss less than 10m with a pistol, and don't shoot unless it's a clearly justified situation.)

An interesting line of analysis, but I think it fails because "warning shots" that weren't don't have to have the intent to kill, they could e.g. have had the intent to terrify, to coerce, etc.

Although elsewhere in this discussion rdouble said "The mandatory minimum is for 'unlawful use of deadly force'" so it sounds like the outcome would have been the same, depending on the legal meaning of "use of deadly force".

In the ~10 self defense classes I've attended, warning shots have been nothing but soundly discouraged. Any discharge of a weapon is inherently dangerous and could be considered deadly force, even independent of intent.

The exception was in ROE/ROF training in war zones, where warning shots were explicitly part of the escalation continuum (although, in practice, if it was dangerous enough, the warning shots were generally fired into the driver, or at least into the engine block -- lasers and frozen bottles of water and such were used before that rather than warning shots, if possible.)

Had she simply stated "I was in fear for my life so I tried to shoot him. I guess I missed", this would have gone down quite differently.

She probably said something like "I was afraid of getting beaten again so I fired some warning shots to scare him." So jail then.

There's no part of this thats right.

There's a lot missing from this article's account of what happened. The woman left the house, went to her car, got her gun, came back inside and then fired the gun, multiple times. Other articles go into more detail. It certainly doesn't seem like she was in any immediate danger after reading the other accounts.

Well, this assumes she would have gotten away with lying. Since the court found her guilty of attempted murder, as long as there was a lesser charge possible it's clear she was judged to be lying, so it's unlikely she'd get away with a different lie like your hypothetical.

Any gun-owning Floridians here wanna comment on this?

There should be a law governing all verdicts requiring them to abide by a rule of common sense law.

That is equivalent to abolishing rule of law.

And leads to an immediate race to the bottom of human sentiments and emotions.

Feel free to google for "Gesundes Volksempfinden" (~"healthy people's perception"). The central pillar that allowed German jurists in the Third Reich to distort the existing law at will.

The German civil code has been changed often, but fundamentally it's the same now as it was in 1900. Pretty fascinating how it's now seeing the fourth totally different political system.

That is so fucking wrong.

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