Anti-HB40 editorial...

[HyDef]

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/opin...e_gun_violence

Allowing people to defend themselves is "promoting gun violence"

Don't promote gun violence
Published: November 22, 2009

Pennsylvania law holds that a person in his home has no "duty to retreat" when confronted by an intruder. The "Castle Doctrine" is as old as Western law itself, derived from the English common law principle that a man's home is his castle.

In modern usage the provision is meant to prevent someone who acts in good faith against an intruder from being prosecuted or sued.

A bill in the state House risks converting that provision for personal defense into an encouragement of gun violence. It would do so by expanding the "Castle Doctrine" well beyond the castle, and even well beyond the moat.

"H.B. 40 appears to encourage people to shoot first and ask questions later - a concept we simply cannot support because it jeopardizes the safety of our citizens and law enforcement," state police Capt. Marshall Martin testified Thursday at a legislative hearing.

The bill would expand the Castle Doctrine by eliminating the "duty to retreat" in situations far beyond the home. It is not difficult to imagine how such a provision could be misused by criminals, vigilantes or someone simply out for trouble.

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico, president of the state district attorneys association, testified that the proposed measure could be used to defend shootings of gang members by other gangs, "road rage" shootings, and any number of other confrontations where the "duty to retreat" clearly should be retained.

The bill would pose a special threat in the area of domestic violence, providing a potential defense for a shooter who could have, and should have, retreated from an argument.

By expanding potential defenses for violent criminals, the bill actually would make it more difficult for police and prosecutors to jail perpetrators of gun violence.

This bill threatens to escalate gun violence. It should die in committee before more people die on the streets.

[o1dakota440]

i think my IQ dropped 27.3 point just for having read that.

[fingers80002]

Sounds like the author needs to actually read HB 40, and not listen to the rumors,and testimony of anti-gun assholes.

[dc dalton]

Another ill informed moron with a keyboard.


The levels of stupidity are too deep to even contemplate.

[Shawn.L]

anonymous ????

smells funny to me.

[jcabin]

I completely understand where the author is coming from.

Knowing that the majority of citizens don't know much about law in general, and have literally no education in firearms and self defense law. I can only imagine passing this bill will prompt the street gangs and average dip shit road rager to send out the call to fellow assholes and begin researching self defense laws to use them insidiously to their advantage.

Instead of shooting it out with eachother in the streets during criminal activities, the gang members will now wade into enemy territory, evoking an attack from rival gang members, and at which point will stand their ground, and kill the attackers, under the fact that they had a lawful right to be there legally. This is certainly the most probably effect of passing HB40.
It just makes sense doesn't it?

Road ragers will go out and buy guns, and taunt and irritate people with the intent of getting them to pull over, so they can then claim self-defense as they gun people down.

That makes some fucking sense. NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!!!!


fuck that. Let's keep coming up with extremely rediculous scenario's that have a 1 in 1 billion chance to ever happen, and use that to diminish these fucking jerk offs rights. Who the fuck would ever take a life in self defense? DONT THEY UNDERSTAND GUNS ARE WRONG?

[thefirstndsecond]

Castle Doctrine would be great.

[HyDef]

anonymous ????

smells funny to me.

This wasn't a letter sent in to the paper. This was the paper's own editorial, those are always anonymous, and usually cowardly and ultra-liberal.

[Conglomeration Al]

This editorial is easily refuted by telling the author to look at other states that have an equivalent law and equating the before and after crime rates involving guns and gangs.

I'm sure they'll be getting mail from people who actually have a brain in their head pretty soon.

[fizzyone]

"Anonymous" is getting slammed in the comments. I stopped reading the editorial page in my local newspaper. It was a quick way to get me aggravated at how short-sighted some people are.