Latinwolf: redmid17: Deucednuisance: TripcodeMel: You never pull out a firearm unless you are ABSOLUTELY, 100% sure that you're going to use it.

Boy, that's not what the Gun Rights advocates say. They talk quite a bit about how the mere "brandishing" of a firearm deters criminals.

Gun owners actually say, "Never pull a gun unless you're willing to use it" or "Never Point a Gun at Someone Unless You Plan to Shoot Them."
If I point my shotgun at someone who breaks down my front door, I'm not liable to shoot them until I've made sure it's not someone I know (who has a right to be there). If they start running away before I can do that AND pull the trigger, I'm not going to run them down and shoot them. No responsible gun owner would advocate anything of the sort.

Funny I've seen plenty of Fark gun supporters either advocate that or defend someone who did do that.

Key word is responsible...

The Jami Turman Fan Club: crab66: I would use a rented property as an analogy. It doesn't matter who owns it. If I am a renter and the landlord enters my residence in a threatening manner without my consent then responding with deadly force might be appropriate.

I can see that working great...
Landlord: "You're two months late on the rent! Pay or get out!"
Tenant: *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*

The victims had been defrauded by the shooter for $500. They came to either get the boat back or to get their money back. The shooter decided to kill them instead.

Somebody claims they were going to kill him...I'm not buying it. On the face of it, this looks like murder. Let's see what comes out in trial.

Guess you missed the part where there will be no trial.

The judge completely dismissed the charges and issued a finding that he acted in self defense. IIRC, under Florida law that also grants him immunity from any civil claim.

Oh, and just so everyone knows 30 or so states have castle doctrine laws.

Don't want to wind up dead? Don't get drunk, coked up, and board the home/boat of an old guy you've been threatening to rough up or kill over a small claims court amount of money. It really isn't a hard concept to understand.

Probably already been said, but why not let them use the self-defense defense?

If he used reasonable force to protect himself, then ok, but a judge determining that you don't even get to a point where you put the evidence in front of a jury just seems wrong . . and reversible (unless somehow jeopardy already attached, in which case I have an even BIGGER problem with this law).

Even in Texas you have to prove self-defense.

RedT: Probably already been said, but why not let them use the self-defense defense?

If he used reasonable force to protect himself, then ok, but a judge determining that you don't even get to a point where you put the evidence in front of a jury just seems wrong . . and reversible (unless somehow jeopardy already attached, in which case I have an even BIGGER problem with this law).

Even in Texas you have to prove self-defense.

Not always. The grand jury did not indict the Houston man who shot the people robbing his neighbor.

goatan: so as far as I'm concerned he is not mentally stable and is a threat to anyone in range of any concealed weapon he might have.

As far as I am concerned anyone who lacks basic reasoning skills (as is apparent by your post) Cannot be trusted in the public at large....too big a risk you need to be locked up for life.

Good thing individuals are not allowed to make such decisions

Don't corner an old man.

You might get the bullet you so richly deserve.

mc6809e: Quit blaming the killer and and quit blaming the wrestler.

The fault lay with an inefficient government and slow moving justice system that makes it a pain in the ass to handle disputes like this before they escalate.

These deaths could have been avoided had there been a willingness by authorities to straighten all this out. My guess is that the wrestler tried to go to the authorities, but no one gave a damn, so he decided to take care of the problem himself.

Ok, what's your excuse for the two guys, both drunk (and perhaps on cocaine and weed) driving to the place? Depending on who drove, it's either just DUI or felony DUI. Gonna make up a story about them hitch-hiking there now?

Can go around and around all day on what ifs, and the bottom line is "street justice" in FL can get you shot. Don't try to enforce your own problems. The courts are inefficient sometimes, however, this is just a couple hundred bucks we are talking about. That's small claims court territory. I am sure in your meat-headded family, your dad beat your mom for not heating the pot-pies well enough. The rest of us, we don't act like that.Hey, if you are that hard up for money, try not snorting coke, or drinking yourself stupid.

Sure, some people will die with a stand your ground law, but it's the type of people we don't need in a civilized society. Hold your goddamn temper and you won't have a problem. How hard is it? Most people go through life never once threatening bodily harm to those around them, you know that right?

/Nothing of value was lost
//Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

FTA: Oftedahl noted those facts in his ruling, but said the law didn't require the men either to be armed or actually commit physical violence for Monahan to have a reasonable fear that they would either kill or severely harm him aboard the boat that had been his home since October 2010.

Don't see the problem yet, from a legal standpoint.

JustGetItRight: Don't want to wind up dead? Don't get drunk, coked up, and board the home/boat of an old guy you've been threatening to rough up or kill over a small claims court amount of money. It really isn't a hard concept to understand.

This.

MeinRS6: but I don't want to be beaten/killed by a couple of farked up losers over $500 either.

I used to be in favour of strict gun control, but my uncle Emmett Smith was shot in the back over a matter of $80 by a criminal.

Now I don't let anybody call me chicken.


/His wife Clara was terribly distraught.

/hot like Coastal Florida.

umad: Since only a few people in here seem to have read the most important line of the story, I will repeat it:

witnesses told police that by the time Mohlman boarded the Green Galleon with Vittum on the day they died, his plans were to either evict Monahan from the boat, or to kill him.

bu...bu...but 20 feet......

Madbassist1: MeinRS6: If 2 big, totally drunk/loaded, guys jumped on the tiny boat I lived on uninvited and started making threats - yeah, they probably wouldn't last long. I might give them a chance to retreat and I might not. Depends on how the situation unfolded. The amount of space to move around on a 35ft boat is not huge. Anyone can move from the front to the rear of the boat in seconds. I don't want to shoot anyone, but I don't want to be beaten/killed by a couple of farked up losers over $500 I was gleefully farking them out of either.

Edited for clarity.

As a landlord who has to face deadbeats like this all the farking time, it chills my blood and makes me regret giving assholes like this (and the idiots who defend them) a chance at all. fark em.

You get to choose who you rent to. You can even get a deposit up front so that a bad tenant can't hurt you too bad. However, you shouldn't show up at their place drunk and high with another guy and start making threats and demands. How hard is that to remember?

YEAH BECAUSE 20 FT MIGHT AS WELL BE A MILE!!!!



Or not.


A criminal can cover 21 feet in around 1 second. In fact, there is a "21 ft rule" with knives that says if a guy gets within 21 ft of you with a knife, you can pretty much plan on being stabbed or cut.

I cut j00 f00! (new window)

ALso, remember.. unless you get a head shot, 1 bullet doesn't just flip a switch... the guy can still attack you or fall into you.

Deucednuisance: Boy, that's not what the Gun Rights advocates say. They talk quite a bit about how the mere "brandishing" of a firearm deters criminals.

Latinwolf: Funny I've seen plenty of Fark gun supporters either advocate that or defend someone who did do that.

My dad is like that. He prefers to keep a 12-gauge pump at the ready so he can scare somebody off with the sound of him racking it. Of course, he lives out in the sticks and has an average-sized home. I live in an apartment. If someone breaks in, they're going to be in the living room, with one door between them and me. Me, in a bedroom with no easy escape route.

In my opinion, the king of "what to do" and "what not to do" has always been Massad Ayoob. I've read several of his articles in gun rags, and they're basically tutorials on legal wrangling and how to cover your ass when you're forced to shoot, backed up by actual situations and how they played out in US courts. He's super-paranoid when it comes to prosecutors and the police, sometimes to the point of being silly, but I can't entirely blame him given the legal climate today.

TripcodeMel:


In my opinion, the king of "what to do" and "what not to do" has always been Massad Ayoob. I've read several of his articles in gun rags, and they're basically tutorials on legal wrangling and how to cover your ass when you're forced to shoot, backed up by actual situations and how they played out in US courts. He's super-paranoid when it comes to prosecutors and the police, sometimes to the point of being silly, but I can't entirely blame him given the legal climate today.



Yes, Ayoob knows the laws VERY well. Maybe better than anyone. At any rate, the law says 2v1 constitutes the ability... obviously they were going to do it immediately... and they clearly were intent on harming him at the least.

Intent... ability.... impending... check, check, check...

Technically, they might beable to get him on shooting the 2nd dude... at that point it was just 1v1... but with his age, he may have been ok, especially because of the water.

Latinwolf: True, however what gun advocate would ever claim he's not a responsible person?

Just to bring out the traditional "a car is a 2 to 5 ton bullet" point, what person would ever claim that they weren't a responsible driver?

Madbassist1: As a landlord who has to face deadbeats like this all the farking time, it chills my blood and makes me regret giving assholes like this (and the idiots who defend them) a chance at all. fark em.

So you tell the cops or the Florida coast guard the dude hasn't registered the boat in the 30-day grace period he has to do so. Failing that, you get a notice of eviction. Failing that, you file a case in small claims for the amount he owes you. When you get the judgment, you send the cops to take your boat back. In none of these cases do you wind up dead because you attacked a guy with a gun.

It's all absolutely a pain in the ass to deal with a scumbag. But the story ends with you not dead.

wholedamnshow: I'm not saying he acted the most rationally. Me personally, I like to think I may have attempted to threaten them with my gun first before actually killing them, but in the heat of the moment, it's not fair to hold that against him.

That's illegal.

To The Escape Zeppelin!: The two dead guys were sketchy as hell. A drunk, high, pissed off, ex-wrestler demanding money. If they had entered his house rather than his boat, there would have been no question that he was in the right to shoot them.

The article failed to answer the most important question though. Did he actually rack up $500 in tickets?Because I'd be pretty pissed too.

Maybe it's different with boats, but when you sell a car, you can go down to the tax office, file a form that states you're no longer the owner of that vehicle, and you won't be responsible for any legal action that results from the use of that vehicle from that point forward. Then it wouldn't matter how many tickets the guy racked up, they wouldn't be paying for any of them.

As far as the "legal owner" goes, if the buyer hasn't transferred the title yet, then the original owner will still show up as the registered owner if anyone looks up the registration, but LEGALLY, the ownership trades hands at the time the title is signed. So no, they were NOT the legal owners of that boat, and had no right to repossess it, or be on it at all without permission.

The 20 foot thing does not support a murder charge. The Tueller drills (new window) demonstrate that an average man of good health can cover 21 feet in about a second and a half. For a person armed with a handgun, there is no assurance of being able to draw, aim and fire a stopping shot in that time. Letting them start the engagement reduces the chance of survival. The fact that the assailant was drugged up may reduce the effectiveness of the shot even more. For more information about that, ask the U.S. Army soldiers that tried to stop the Moro Warriors with .38 Long Colt revolvers. And, given that this is 2 against 1, the 2 being appreciably younger (43 and 49 vs. 65), and that at least one of the two had unarmed combat training, there's a massive disparity of force question.

That said... holy crap, what a farking mess. I'd love to read the police reports.

GAT_00: Sid_6.7: In theory it would have to be demonstrated that the shooter had a "reasonable" belief that they were in immediate danger of serious physical harm.

Apparently someone standing 20 feet away from you without a weapon constitutes a serious physical threat on your life now in Florida.

20 feet is nothing to a coked up person

/would have shot em too

Restil: To The Escape Zeppelin!: The two dead guys were sketchy as hell. A drunk, high, pissed off, ex-wrestler demanding money. If they had entered his house rather than his boat, there would have been no question that he was in the right to shoot them.

The article failed to answer the most important question though. Did he actually rack up $500 in tickets?Because I'd be pretty pissed too.

Maybe it's different with boats, but when you sell a car, you can go down to the tax office, file a form that states you're no longer the owner of that vehicle, and you won't be responsible for any legal action that results from the use of that vehicle from that point forward. Then it wouldn't matter how many tickets the guy racked up, they wouldn't be paying for any of them.

As far as the "legal owner" goes, if the buyer hasn't transferred the title yet, then the original owner will still show up as the registered owner if anyone looks up the registration, but LEGALLY, the ownership trades hands at the time the title is signed. So no, they were NOT the legal owners of that boat, and had no right to repossess it, or be on it at all without permission.

When I sold my last car I filled out a DMV report online with the purchasers name and driver's license #. Simple. This absolves the seller of any liability regardless of what the buyer does.

Sorry bubba, you and your coked-up boyfriend climb on a boat to get all up someone's grille you are just looking to have some lead pumped into you. I have zero problems with what happened here. Had he taken the dude to court instead, he'd be alive today.

Here's an idea: don't advance on someone holding a gun. Regardless of how justified you may feel, if you move threateningly towards someone holding a gun, you're a goddam idiot. I won't say you deserve to die, but that is a distinct possibility.

Hard to feel sympathy for someone that gets liquored up and then decides to harass an old guy holding a gun.

NightOwl2255
what did you notice...

She has poor trigger discipline, and the fact that she's most likely to end up with a black eye, or broken cheek bone if she actually fires like that.

BarbadoSlim: Sorry bubba, you and your coked-up boyfriend climb on a boat to get all up someone's grille you are just looking to have some lead pumped into you. I have zero problems with what happened here. Had he taken the dude to court instead, he'd be alive today.

That way the guy serving the papers could have gotten shot instead. If they can even serve papers. Address: Green Galleon somewhere out in the harbor.

Meanwhile, the guy out in the harbor continues to rack up "boat tickets" in his name.

Not saying it wasn't justified, but it's amazing there wasn't even a trial.

Madbassist1: MeinRS6: If 2 big, totally drunk/loaded, guys jumped on the tiny boat I lived on uninvited and started making threats - yeah, they probably wouldn't last long. I might give them a chance to retreat and I might not. Depends on how the situation unfolded. The amount of space to move around on a 35ft boat is not huge. Anyone can move from the front to the rear of the boat in seconds. I don't want to shoot anyone, but I don't want to be beaten/killed by a couple of farked up losers over $500 I was gleefully farking them out of either.

Edited for clarity.

As a landlord who has to face deadbeats like this all the farking time, it chills my blood and makes me regret giving assholes like this (and the idiots who defend them) a chance at all. fark em.

Yeah.. he wasn't renting the boat. And no one can find the tickets that he supposedly racked up. I would chock this up to drunk arshats trying to steal money.

tbyte: BarbadoSlim: Sorry bubba, you and your coked-up boyfriend climb on a boat to get all up someone's grille you are just looking to have some lead pumped into you. I have zero problems with what happened here. Had he taken the dude to court instead, he'd be alive today.

That way the guy serving the papers could have gotten shot instead. If they can even serve papers. Address: Green Galleon somewhere out in the harbor.

Meanwhile, the guy out in the harbor continues to rack up "boat tickets" in his name.

Not saying it wasn't justified, but it's amazing there wasn't even a trial.


I know what you are saying. Yet, there's no doubt in my mind that the dudes went there to lay down some good ol' fashioned butt-whooping and weren't expecting what went down. I do not think a process server would have gotten him or herself into that type of situation.

varmitydog: More background on this. Link
...
I don't know how it is downstate, but the way these cases are decided in northwest Florida has a whole lot more to do with who the shooter and victims are and who they are related to than with the contents of the case. Some guy living in uber expensive Palm Beach county as a vagrant on a boat? Who also owns multiple boats that he doesn't have registered? Who gets off on a murder charge due to some gray area in a new law? And gets the local papers to do a write up on the story that avoids giving information on him but is heavy on painting the people he killed as drunken drug addicts who were skilled in close combat?

Aye, up here we would say that shooter boy is related to someone important.

IANAL but, in Oakland, things similarly ride on connections. Color too, depending.

goatan: Sounds like anyone who comes into contact with the killer would now be justified in shooting him under the same law. I would certainly feel my life was threatened by him being near me.

Much like those he shot and killed, they had no deadly weapons. If he had a spine they would be alive or at least a lot closer than 20 feet away and an actual threat to him.
Anyway the law doesn't say he has to be brandishing a weapon just that he has to make me feel like I'm threatened. He killed them with the minimum of provocation so as far as I'm concerned he is not mentally stable and is a threat to anyone in range of any concealed weapon he might have.
I'm using his reasoning but with a bit more justification he has a track record now. if it was good enough justification for him to kill others it's good enough justification for him to be killed.


You should never touch a firearm.

Restil: Maybe it's different with boats, but when you sell a car, you can go down to the tax office, file a form that states you're no longer the owner of that vehicle, and you won't be responsible for any legal action that results from the use of that vehicle from that point forward. Then it wouldn't matter how many tickets the guy racked up, they wouldn't be paying for any of them.

You're presuming this $1,000 (probably) cash transaction ever dealt with things like "bills of sale" and "titles."

Some 'Splainin' To Do: Are you saying that the law is actively discouraging people from taking a warning shot or otherwise trying to deescalate the situation short of shooting other people?

Yes. Warning shots can do things like "go through bystanders." They don't just vaporize. Firing a warning shot in a random direction is a horrible idea.

Pretty sure he was justified, but how about we thow this in front of a jury just to pretend that we still observe due process.

Maybe then the fact would have been presented that the shooter was fleeing when the officials showed up, instead of waiting around to explain his side of the story.

NathanAllen: Pretty sure he was justified, but how about we thow this in front of a jury just to pretend that we still observe due process.

Maybe then the fact would have been presented that the shooter was fleeing when the officials showed up, instead of waiting around to explain his side of the story.

So, you know that DA's will frequently not press charges when they know they do not have enough to convict, not only to avoid wasting time, but also to avoid attaching jeopardy? And you do know that the people who decided not to pursue this further had more facts than we did, right? And you also know that due process is the due diligence needed to convict, not the requirements needed to not press charges?

I'm a sissy touchy-feely Californian and these Stand Your Ground laws, at least in basic concept, are good. The idea that a law-abiding citizen is legally obligated to make way for a non-law-abiding citizen is so unconstitutional it's not even funny. That's saying that the freedom to exercise legal activity is a tenuous privilege and not a right. That one is allowed to do anything which is not prohibited is pretty much Rule Zero in the US, the basic assumption where law starts.

Sitting on your porch is not a crime. It then follows that sitting on your porch while subject to an attack isn't a crime. It is unacceptable that the attacked party is somehow encumbered by a duty toward an attacker whom obviously isn't feeling very encumbered by a duty to their attackee or by the law itself they are violating by attacking.

It's the implication...

NathanAllen: Pretty sure he was justified, but how about we thow this in front of a jury just to pretend that we still observe due process.

Maybe then the fact would have been presented that the shooter was fleeing when the officials showed up, instead of waiting around to explain his side of the story.

They did follow due process; even so, if he wants a jury trial, even after the judge said that his actions were warranted, I'm sure that could be arranged.

NathanAllen: Pretty sure he was justified, but how about we thow this in front of a jury just to pretend that we still observe due process.

Juries are only needed to confirm guilt. If the state (judge, prosecutor) thinks they're not guilty, the jury is not needed.

Accused have a right to jury trial. Victims do not.

I'm loving the ignorant responses. It's clear that most farkers' knowledge of deadly force laws, defensive training, or just reality in general comes from television.

This man was faced with two, very big, very angry, very drunk guys. There's a disparity of size, numbers and physical ability. They were 20 feet away. An attacker can cover 21 feet in 1.5 seconds, which means the would-be victim must recognize the threat, make the decision to draw his weapon, draw his weapon, make the decision to fire and fire his weapon in less than 1.5 seconds.

I can completely understand why the judge ruled as he did. It seems that many of you want him to be beaten half to death before he might be allowed to fight back. Thank goodness this isn't the UK.

Threatening someone with a gun is called brandishing and is illegal. If you pull it out, you had better pull the trigger.