Why do we need "Stand Your Ground?" Let's provide proof

CdP

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Hi all

I can't stand listening to the Margery Egan types who claim we have no need for Stand Your Ground, saying that existing laws work just fine. If we have any chance of getting this law passed, we need real examples where people have either been jailed, prosecuted or suffered financial harm as a result of defending themselves. Can you help me build a list of these sorts of examples? I couldn't find this here already, but sorry if my search didn't work and this is a dupe.

Thanks!
Craig

Oct-2011, Swampscott, Anthony McKay, fought off armed robber in driveway with bare hands and was arrested, DA dropped charges after 3 months but after initially supporting charges in court.
Nov-2000, Dorchester, Colum J. Flaherty, fought off road rage attacker with a knife, charged with Assault & Battery with a Deadly Weapon, attacker charged days later, unclear disposition
Dec-2009, Quincy, Robert O'Connell, involved in road rage confrontation and shot possible attacker, $500K bail on charges of attempted murder, assault, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building, unclear disposition as of May-2011 articles
Oct-2009, Boston, Paul Langone, shot and killed armed man attacking psychiatrist at MGH, placed on paid leave as security officer, DA declined to press charges on April 1, 2010
2003, Cambridge, Alexander Pring-Wilson, stabbed and killed one of three attackers, found guilty, JAIL TIME???, ordered to pay $260K to estate of attacker
1999, Boston, David and Paul Pepicelli, attacked by five men and at least one was armed with a gun, found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and in prison

Thanks for the additions: hminsky, Devils Paintbrush
 
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*shrug* i live in a red town..... SYG law wouldn't help me anyway.... if anyone confronts me or threatens my/my family's lives i have to ask them to follow me back to my house so i can shoot 'em....
 
*shrug* i live in a red town..... SYG law wouldn't help me anyway.... if anyone confronts me or threatens my/my family's lives i have to ask them to follow me back to my house so i can shoot 'em....

SYG helps everyone- it's not just a gun law.

-Mike
 
My wife's Uncle was arguing with me about this on FB. I told him, "What if I was walking down the streeet with my wife. Some guy runs up, stabs me in the back and starts raping my wife. I come to, and I shoot the guy. Then the guy's family can sue me for it.". He still didn't seem to get it [rolleyes]
 
SYG helps everyone- it's not just a gun law.

-Mike

Excellent point. SYG assures that you may use lawful force to defend yourself, if you choose to do so. It doesn't require that you do so, and it doesn't say what tools you have to use. It could be your fists, a machete, a baseball bat, or a gun.

It's the concept that's important, not the tools you use.
 
Mass would rather you let the police do their job instead of taking matters into your own hands... Cause we all know you can tell an armed attacker to wait while I call the cops and give them time to get here before you do anything.
 
My wife's Uncle was arguing with me about this on FB. I told him, "What if I was walking down the streeet with my wife. Some guy runs up, stabs me in the back and starts raping my wife. I come to, and I shoot the guy. Then the guy's family can sue me for it.". He still didn't seem to get it [rolleyes]

Well duh. As if something like that could ever happen. [/sarc]
 
Stand your ground is certainly nothing new. The irony is not lost on me, either. In 1775, Captain John Parker reportedly uttered the words that inspired a fledgling group of patriots.
They were heard on the Lexington Green, right here in the Commonwealth, 237 years ago. It is as relevant today as it ever was.
"Stand your ground.
Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here".
All I need to know about standing my ground, I learned from Massachusetts' own history.
 
This case really bugged me. The attacker was a first class scum bag of the first order, according to the press reports he was a violent abusive piece of excrement.

Michael Colono was no angel. It turned out he had a criminal record - and a temper. His previous exploits included "a 2001 episode in which he threw money in the face of a cashier at a pizza restaurant, then kicked in the front door and shattered the glass." Curiously, he was waiting outside another pizza restaurant with a friend, Samuel Rodriguez, when they accosted Pring-Wilson. The guy seemed to have had a thing about pizza.

But in Cambridge, you 're supposed to make sure not to hurt the three guys who jump you.

Harvard grad student ordered to make payment to family of man he killed with a knife
By adamg - 3/13/12 - 5:09 pm

The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that Alexander Pring-Wilson was negligent enough in a fatal knife fight on Western Avenue in Cambridge in 2003 that he owes his victim's daughter $250,000 in damages.

The court agreed with a lower-court judge that Michael Colono was equally negligent in starting the three-on-one beatdown that Pring-Wilson ended by taking out and waving around a folding knife - which left Colono with a fatal stab wound to the heart. But the court also agreed with that judge that Pring-Wilson should have found another way to extricate himself from his attackers:

The judge found that Pring-Wilson was negligent for both "failing to avail himself of reasonable alternatives to combat," and "employing more force than was reasonably necessary to repel the attack." Finding that Colono was comparatively negligent and Pring-Wilson and Colono were equally at fault for Colono's death, the judge decreased the damage award by fifty percent, ordering entry of judgment in the amount of "$10,000 to the Estate of Michael Colono for conscious pain and suffering, and $250,000 for the benefit of Leah Colono [his daughter], for wrongful death."

On appeal, Pring-Wilson's sole claim is that, although the judge's factual findings are sound, those facts require an ultimate finding that he acted intentionally, not that he was negligent. We disagree.


The attacker's brother later committed a heinous crime. Fine upstanding family.

Cambridge —

Cambridge resident Marcos A. Colono was held on $1 million bail after allegedly raping a 11-year-old boy and stabbing his father with a knife in a Pearl Street apartment on Aug. 26. Investigators also tied him to the 2008 rape of two women in Brighton.
 
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Stand your ground is certainly nothing new. The irony is not lost on me, either. In 1775, Captain John Parker reportedly uttered the words that inspired a fledgling group of patriots.
They were heard on the Lexington Green, right here in the Commonwealth, 237 years ago. It is as relevant today as it ever was.
"Stand your ground.
Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here".
All I need to know about standing my ground, I learned from Massachusetts' own history.

and im sure the majority of the liberal population of MA are prob ashamed by that. We should of reasoned and negotiated with them. Dam rednecks and your guns [laugh]
 
My wife's Uncle was arguing with me about this on FB. I told him, "What if I was walking down the streeet with my wife. Some guy runs up, stabs me in the back and starts raping my wife. I come to, and I shoot the guy. Then the guy's family can sue me for it.". He still didn't seem to get it [rolleyes]

You cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
 
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