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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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More here:
Viewpoint: Stand your ground - DesMoinesRegister.com

The House and Senate are in a stand-off, for now, about a controversial bill dealing with stand your ground self-defense cases.

The two chambers have approved different versions of a proposal (SB 128) intended to shift a key burden of proof in stand your ground cases from defendants to prosecutors in pre-trial hearings.

As the bill returns to the Senate after the House approved its version this week, House and Senate leaders are maintaining support for their different positions.

The House wants to require prosecutors in stand your ground cases to overcome the asserted immunity sought by defendants through clear and convincing evidence. The Senate, which rejected the clear and convincing evidence language earlier this session, has set a higher standard known as beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ive said from the beginning, if the government wants to convict you of a serious crime and send you to prison, they should have the burden of proof at every stage of the proceeding beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, told reporters Thursday. Its the highest legal standard in the world. Its served us well. And in order for the government to prevail in the underlying criminal case theyre going to have to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. So I prefer the Senates higher legal standard.

When asked if the House language could kill the bill, Negron, an attorney, said, Its only week five (of the legislative session). I assume theyll send the bill back to us, and it will be up to the senators on what they want to do. My preference would be that we stand on the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt criminal standard.

The 60-day regular session is scheduled to end May 5.

The overall proposal, backed by groups such as the National Rifle Association and the Florida Public Defender Association, stems from a Florida Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that said defendants have the burden of proof to show they should be shielded from prosecution under the stand your ground law.

House sponsor Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, told reporters Thursday the clear-and-convincing-evidence threshold was a reasonable and fair place to land after hearing from numerous groups regarding how the 2005 law should be interpreted.

We need to consider the opportunity for encouraging victims to come forward in those particular situations, Payne said when asked why he supported the clear and convincing language.

On Wednesday, before the House voted along party lines to support the bill, Rep. James Grant, a Tampa Republican who is an attorney, also defended the House clear-and-convincing-evidence approach.

If the government cannot beat the lesser, easier burden in an immunity trial, then they darned sure cant meet beyond and to the exclusion of each and every reasonable doubt when they ask for a conviction, Grant said.

The Senate voted 23-15 to approve its version of the bill on March 15.

The stand your ground law has long been controversial. It says people can use deadly force and do not have a duty to retreat if they think it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.

In its 2015 ruling, the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Barbara Pariente said immunity in the stand your ground law is not a blanket immunity, but rather, requires the establishment that the use of force was legally justified.

But a dissenting opinion, written by Justice Charles Canady and now highlighted by Republican lawmakers, countered that the majority ruling substantially curtails the benefit of the immunity from trial conferred by the Legislature under the Stand Your Ground law.

The factual question raised by the assertion of Stand Your Ground immunity in a pretrial evidentiary hearing is the same as the factual question raised by a Stand Your Ground defense presented at trial: whether the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants conduct was not justified under the governing statutory standard, Canady wrote.

The proposed change has been opposed by Democratic lawmakers and groups such as the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association and the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who have argued it would put an end to cases before all the facts are revealed. They also contend the stand your ground law has disproportionate effects on minorities, as it is used more successfully as a defense when white shooters kill African-Americans.

Read the rest here:
House, Senate At Odds Over 'Stand Your Ground' Change - WLRN

As Florida state Representative James W. Grant argued on Wednesday in favor of expanding Floridas already deadly Stand Your Ground law, he invoked Trayvon Martin and the name of my son, Jordan Davis. He used my sons name to claim that the system was workingthat the fact that my sons killer is now spending life in prison after claiming self-defense and citing the Stand Your Ground law means that Floridas Stand Your Ground law doesnt get in the way of justice being served.

Related: Guns in America: Law restricting doctors gun speech struck down

Heres my message for RepresentativeGrant: Dont you dare use my sons name to justify your support for this reckless bill. As RepresentativeGrant knows, I testified against the bill and expanding Stand Your Ground in Florida. I did so in hopes of protecting children like my son.

RepresentativeGrant said on the House floorthat the system worked for us. We went to trial twice to get a conviction for Jordans murder. The first time, the jury could not convict the man who shot my son nine times as he sat unarmed in the backseat of his friends car, in part because of the Stand Your Ground jury instructions. The second trial won us the verdict we wanted, but it didnt bring back my child.

Jordan Daviss mother, Lucy McBath, leaves the courtroom with her husband Curtis McBath as court recessed for the jury to reconsider the first charge against Michael Dunn in Jacksonville, Florida, on February 15, 2014. Dunn was accused of first degree murder in the death of Davis after an altercation over loud music at a Florida gas station in November 2012. Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union/Reuters

Jordan was 17 when he was shot and killed while sitting in a car at a Jacksonville gas station for the apparently threatening behavior of listening to loud music with his friends. Jordan was unarmed, but he was a young black man. Now my beloved only son is gone.

Jordan is a victim of this states shoot first, ask questions later culture that is largely a product of the Stand Your Ground law. Jordans killer felt within his rights to shoot at my child because of Stand Your Ground and the culture it creates.

Stand Your Ground laws make all of us more vulnerable to the threat of gun violence, but they also have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Shootings of black victims by white shooters are deemed justifiable11 times more frequentlythan when the shooter is black and the victim is white. When controlling for other factors, Florida Stand Your Ground cases with minority victims are half as likely to lead to conviction, compared to cases with white victims.

Whats more, a list of Stand Your Ground cases in Florida from 2005-2012,compiled by the Tampa Bay Times, found that at least 26 children and teens were killed in incidents related to the law. My son was one of them.

The Florida House on Wednesday passed S.B. 128, which is a bill that would expand Floridas already deadly Stand Your Ground law. Lawmakers ignored the concerns of their constituents, gun violence survivors and even prosecutors to strengthen a law that has traumatized so many families in the state.

Stand Your Ground laws embolden everyday citizens, like the man who shot and killed my son, to act like vigilantes, instead of seeking peaceful solutions to everyday disputes. Floridas Stand Your Ground law gives untrained civilians more leeway to shoot than the U.S. military gives its soldiers in war zones. Now, with S.B. 128, this already deadly law would become even more reckless by effectively requiring criminal defendants who raise a Stand Your Ground defense to be convicted twiceonce by a judge and once by a jury.

S.B. 128 would allow more gun criminals to escape justice by flipping the burden of proof in pre-trial immunity hearings from defendants to prosecutors, forcing the state to prove a shooter acted unlawfully before it brings a case to trial. Under this bill, prosecutors would struggle under an insurmountable number of cases, with no additional resources to alleviate their increased workload.

This is unacceptable.

While most parents my age are cheering on their childrens prospective career plans and asking about dates, I find myself burying my face in Jordans polo shirts trying to imagine the man my boy would be today. I miss my son.

Lawmakers like Representative Grant should understand that the proposals they boldly support today are a slap in the face to those of us who know all too well the grief that gun violence can cause.

My son is not a tactic to be used in political arenas for relevancy and points. Expanding Floridas deadly Stand Your Ground law is not about politics. This is about parents having to bury their children before college acceptance letters roll in. This is about black mothers worrying if playing loud music means that her child will be stalked and killed. This is about communities of color being forced to live with traumatic experiences. Its about whether we want to live in fear of our neighbors and community members.

Nearly 21 years ago, I made a promise to my newborn son that my life would be dedicated to honoring and protecting him to the best of my abilities. Jordan was taken from me. I will still fulfill my promise. I will still do my part to create a country that would have been safe for my son. And while Representative Grant may claim hes doing just that with his support of S.B. 128, my sons final resting place and the graves of so many other innocent Floridians says differently.

Lucy McBath is the faith and outreach leader for Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Lucys son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed in an argument over loud music at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, on November 23, 2012. Lucy is also a member of the Mothers of the Movement.

See the article here:
Jordan Davis's Mother: Don't Use My Son's Death To Expand Stand ... - Newsweek

TALLAHASSEE | The House and Senate are in a stand-off, for now, about a controversial bill dealing with stand your ground self-defense cases.

The two chambers have approved different versions of a proposal (SB 128) intended to shift a key burden of proof in stand your ground cases from defendants to prosecutors in pre-trial hearings.

As the bill returns to the Senate after the House approved its version this week, House and Senate leaders are maintaining support for their different positions.

The House wants to require prosecutors in stand your ground cases to overcome the asserted immunity sought by defendants through clear and convincing evidence. The Senate, which rejected the clear and convincing evidence language earlier this session, has set a higher standard known as beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ive said from the beginning, if the government wants to convict you of a serious crime and send you to prison, they should have the burden of proof at every stage of the proceeding beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, told reporters on Thursday. Its the highest legal standard in the world. Its served us well. And in order for the government to prevail in the underlying criminal case theyre going to have to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. So I prefer the Senates higher legal standard.

When asked if the House language could kill the bill, Negron, an attorney, replied, Its only week five (of the legislative session). I assume theyll send the bill back to us, and it will be up to the senators on what they want to do. My preference would be that we stand on the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt criminal standard.

The 60-day regular session is scheduled to end May 5.

The overall proposal, backed by groups such as the National Rifle Association and the Florida Public Defender Association, stems from a Florida Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that said defendants have the burden of proof to show they should be shielded from prosecution under the stand your ground law.

House sponsor Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, told reporters Thursday the clear-and-convincing-evidence threshold was a reasonable and fair place to land after hearing from numerous groups regarding how the 2005 law should be interpreted.

We need to consider the opportunity for encouraging victims to come forward in those particular situations, Payne replied when asked why he supported the clear and convincing language.

On Wednesday, before the House voted along party lines to support the bill, Rep. James Grant, a Tampa Republican who is an attorney, also defended the House clear-and-convincing-evidence approach.

If the government cannot beat the lesser, easier burden in an immunity trial, then they darned sure cant meet beyond and to the exclusion of each and every reasonable doubt when they ask for a conviction, Grant said.

The Senate voted 23-15 to approve its version of the bill on March 15.

The stand your ground law has long been controversial. It says people can use deadly force and do not have a duty to retreat if they think it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.

In its 2015 ruling, the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Barbara Pariente said immunity in the stand your ground law is not a blanket immunity, but rather, requires the establishment that the use of force was legally justified.

But a dissenting opinion, written by Justice Charles Canady and now highlighted by Republican lawmakers, countered that the majority ruling substantially curtails the benefit of the immunity from trial conferred by the Legislature under the Stand Your Ground law.

The factual question raised by the assertion of Stand Your Ground immunity in a pretrial evidentiary hearing is the same as the factual question raised by a Stand Your Ground defense presented at trial: whether the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants conduct was not justified under the governing statutory standard, Canady wrote.

The proposed change has been opposed by Democratic lawmakers and groups such as the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association and the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who have argued it would put an end to cases before all the facts are revealed. They also contend the stand your ground law has disproportionate effects on minorities, as it is used more successfully as a defense when white shooters kill African-Americans.

Read this article:
House, Senate at odds over controversial 'stand your ground' self-defense cases - Florida Times-Union

The two chambers have approved different versions of a proposal (SB 128) intended to shift a key burden of proof in stand your ground cases from defendants to prosecutors in pre-trial hearings.

TALLAHASSEE The House and Senate are in a standoff, for now, about a controversial bill dealing with stand your ground self-defense cases.

The two chambers approved different versions of a proposal (SB 128) intended to shift a key burden of proof in stand your ground cases from defendants to prosecutors in pre-trial hearings.

As the bill returns to the Senate after the House approved its version this week, House and Senate leaders are maintaining support for their different positions.

The House wants to require prosecutors in stand your ground cases to overcome the asserted immunity sought by defendants through clear and convincing evidence. The Senate, which rejected the clear and convincing evidence language earlier this session, has set a higher standard known as beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ive said from the beginning, if the government wants to convict you of a serious crime and send you to prison, they should have the burden of proof at every stage of the proceeding beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, told reporters Thursday. Its the highest legal standard in the world. Its served us well. And in order for the government to prevail in the underlying criminal case, theyre going to have to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. So I prefer the Senates higher legal standard.

When asked if the House language could kill the bill, Negron, an attorney, replied, Its only week five of the legislative session. I assume theyll send the bill back to us, and it will be up to the senators on what they want to do. My preference would be that we stand on the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt criminal standard.

The 60-day regular session is scheduled to end May 5.

The overall proposal, backed by groups such as the National Rifle Association and the Florida Public Defender Association, stems from a Florida Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that said defendants have the burden of proof to show they should be shielded from prosecution under the stand your ground law.

House sponsor Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, told reporters Thursday the clear-and-convincing-evidence threshold was a reasonable and fair place to land after hearing from numerous groups regarding how the 2005 law should be interpreted.

We need to consider the opportunity for encouraging victims to come forward in those particular situations, Payne replied when asked why he supported the clear and convincing language.

On Wednesday, before the House voted along party lines to support the bill, Rep. James Grant, a Tampa Republican who is an attorney, also defended the House clear-and-convincing-evidence approach.

If the government cannot beat the lesser, easier burden in an immunity trial, then they darned sure cant meet beyond and to the exclusion of each and every reasonable doubt when they ask for a conviction, Grant said.

The Senate voted 23-15 to approve its version of the bill March 15.

The stand your ground law has long been controversial. It says people can use deadly force and do not have a duty to retreat if they think it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.

In its 2015 ruling, the Supreme Court majority opinion written by Justice Barbara Pariente said immunity in the stand your ground law is not a blanket immunity, but rather, requires the establishment that the use of force was legally justified.

But a dissenting opinion, written by Justice Charles Canady and now highlighted by Republican lawmakers, countered the majority ruling substantially curtails the benefit of the immunity from trial conferred by the Legislature under the Stand Your Ground law.

The factual question raised by the assertion of Stand Your Ground immunity in a pretrial evidentiary hearing is the same as the factual question raised by a Stand Your Ground defense presented at trial: whether the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants conduct was not justified under the governing statutory standard, Canady wrote.

The proposed change has been opposed by Democratic lawmakers and groups such as the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association and the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who have argued it would put an end to cases before all the facts are revealed. They also contend the stand your ground law has disproportionate effects on minorities, as it is used more successfully as a defense when white shooters kill African-Americans.

Read more:
House, Senate differ on 'stand your ground' - The News Herald