Why We Need Better Self-Defense Laws. Maybe.

shooting  by reported carry-permit holder in South Minneapolis may just illustrate the problems facing the law-abiding citizen.

We’ come back to that.  First, the reported details:

A man was fatally shot Thursday night in south Minneapolis in what may have been a case of self-defense by another man who interrupted a robbery, police said.

Just before 10 p.m., police got a 911 report that someone had been shot in a parking area behind the Super Grand Buffet restaurant about a block west of Cub Foods near the intersection of Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenues, according to police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer.

Among all the shootings that have plagued that neighborhood – which is, by the way, my old neighborhood – over the decades, this one is distinguished by one factor:

When police arrived, a man with a gun who said he had a valid concealed-weapon permit told them he had interrupted the robbery of a woman in her 60s. The man said that he chased the robbers, a male and a female, exchanged fire and killed the male robber.

And if you’re a normal person with a living soul (and, of course, all the facts check out), that’s all it takes; guy interrupts two pieces of vermin not just robbing but (according to some media reports) pistol-whipping an older woman; and gives chase. Robber turns to shoot the good samaritan; samaritan shoots first.

But the Hennepin County Attorney’s office aren’t people – they’re prosecutors.  People who not only focus on the letter of the law, but the letters of the law that their bosses want empasized; they work for an office whose tacit purpose, run as it is by a DFL elected official, is to enforce DFL social policy, which is that only urban thugs and the police should have guns, and that we, the law-abiding, should be disarmed and docile.

Police took both the alleged female robber and shooter into custody while they investigate his account of the shooting. Two guns — one from the slain man, one from the shooter — were recovered, Palmer said.

On the one hand – especially if you’re a resident of a long-blighted neighborhood, or have ever had a grandmother – you can sympathize with the guy chasing the scumbags down. You might even root for the guy – I sure would.

But there are two problems here:

Self Defense Law Starts Our Shooter Out With Two Strikes – The problem with self-defense is that it is an “affirmative defense” – you’re saying “Yes, I killed the guy, but I have an excuse”.  In other words, you essentially plead guilty to murder, and spend the trial process fighting that admitted guilt by proving four things:

  • You had reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. No problem in this case (as reported): scumbag, who had just pistol-whipped a defenseless woman, points a gun at the samaritan.  It’s reasonable.
  • Lethal force was justified under the circumstances – Hello?  It’s a gun.  Two down.
  • You weren’t a willing participant in the incident – This is intended to prevent people from claiming self-defense after, say, bar fights.  This wasn’t (reportedly) a bar fight.  Any rational person gets this.  But some pencil-necked dweeb with big political ambitions who is trying to parlay a U of M Law degree into a political career, sitting in a nice warm office with metal detectors and cops protecting him, can decide “the letter of the law is you can not be involved in the scuffle first”, forcing the samaritan to spend his life’s savings defending himself at trial.
  • You made reasonable efforts to avoid using lethal force – And that same pencil-necked lawyer can say “he made NO effort to avoid shooting the alleged robber!  He chased the poor disadvantaged fellow!”.

This – if all the facts are as reported, as I am assuming they are – is why we need more reforms to Minnesota’s self-defense laws like those proposed in the past several sessions by Tony Cornish.  A key reform would be to do what many states do, with great success; give self-defense the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; make the Assistant County Attorney prove the self-defense shooter didn’t meet the criteria of a self-defense shooting.

“But that’ll make it easy for people to shoot each other over fender-benders!  Or because someone thinks they got the stink-eye!”  Nope.  Think of every non-justified shooting – like, second-degree murder – that you can remember.  Find one that that meets the four critera above.  Good luck with that.

I’m going to hope that saner heads prevail in this case.  Of course, the Henco Attorney’s office has a long record of not having many of them, when it comes to the law-abiding citizen’s right to self-defense.


22 thoughts on “Why We Need Better Self-Defense Laws. Maybe.

  1. Skip Humphrey warned us Minnesota would become the Wild West if we allowed ordinary people to carry guns. Think of the heartbreak and devastion. This poor man’s meth dealer is down one good customer.

  2. Not enough details yet to know what really happened (first reports from battle are usually wrong) but even IF the guy broke the law by running down the perp and IF he fired when it was not 100% necessary, this would still be one of the only times that has happened in MN since shall issue was passed.

    Wild West we ain’t.

  3. My first reaction was that the C-C person was in the wrong. We always say that if you carry, your firearm will only be used as a last resort, not to chase down a criminal.

    But giving this some more thought….the carry holder didn’t chase the criminal with the intention of shooting him/them. He chased them in order to catch them. Then the criminal pulled a gun.

  4. This is something I wrote elsewhere, something to ponder:

    It may well be he wasn’t being a “cowboy” in pursuing the BG’s, only following them in order to give police useful info on their description, and maybe vehicle info that could be used to catch the criminals. It could be that the perps didn’t want to be followed and started shooting. How many times have we heard about a DUI arrest, hit and run, etc., where a citizen followed the party and updated the police on their whereabouts leading to them being caught?

    Lots to learn as this goes forward, I’m not forming any opinions as yet.

    WE DO NEED A GOOD “STAND YOUR GROUND LAW”

  5. The GS has been released. Don’t know what the terms of that release are but, he is out now.

    Read some of the armed citizen articles from the 50’s and 60’s the heros of those stories often “hunted” suspects after hearing a noise from the garage. Those cases were open and shut self defence at that time. Now unfortunately, this person will probably need a good attourney.

  6. There were a series of violent robberies last summer on the streets of Uptown, complete with pistol-whippings. Then villains happened to pounce on an ex-Marine (if there is such a thing) with a permit, who proceeded to perforate one of the perps. I tried to keep an eye on this story but never saw a follow-up where the Marine was charged or sanctioned in any way, which might be a sign of a more enlightened approach by HennCo. The robberies, however, did seem to stop after that.

  7. Night;

    The proper term for an honorably discharged Marine is former Marine, as they are never considered ex, unless they were dishonorably discharged. 😉

  8. By the letter of the law, yeah, this guy is guilty whether you agree with what he did or not.

    That said, while I appreciate the end result, I don’t agree with what he did. Although, that in itself doesn’t necessarily mean it shouldn’t be legal. Even if you changed the law, he’s still opening himself up to a civil suit by the family of this thug who I’m sure was “just getting his life together” and was on his way to “read the bible and give puppies to blind orphans”. Sorry but my family’s financial well-being is more important than doing the police’s job for them.

    Nah, personally I’d have dialed 911, gave them a description and let them know which way they were running. After making sure the lady was fine, I’d have gone home to my family without any extraneous holes and without the threat of criminal/civil prosecution over my head. And I’d sleep just fine. I’ll protect myself, you protect yourself.

  9. What if the woman in her 60’s was the carry-permit holder’s mother or grandmother? Still guilty?

  10. The thug was just about to turn his life around. He just needed to mug one last little old lady and he would have had enough to pay next semester’s tuition.

  11. In the interest of objectivity, I’ll second Kevin’s assessment. A better use of this man’s CC privilege would have been to alert law enforcement and then stay with the victim on the off chance the dirtbags decided to return do further harm. This guy would have looked much better if he had blown a hole in the piece of crap while standing over a defenseless old woman. Sadly, we are not always presented with ideal circumstances.

  12. “Dispatch, St. Paul, MN
    State: MN
    American Rifleman Issue: 7/1/1962
    After being aroused by a homemade burglar alarm in his grocery store next door, Clifford Carlson of Minneapolis, Minn., armed himself and surprised two men in the act of looting the store’s cash register. Carlson downed one with a chest shot. While hunting for the second burglar, he found a car with motor running near the store. Shortly thereafter he had the second man trapped and held him for police. The incident brought Carlson’s bag of burglars to six since 1959. ”

    I don’t know that the laws have changed but, the interpretation of them sure has. Today a prosecutor and the press would brand Carlson as a vigilante.

  13. By the letter of the law, yeah, this guy is guilty whether you agree with what he did or not.

    Sorry, Kevin. That’s absolutely wrong.

    This was a dynamic incident: the actions of all parties can only be properly analyzed in the moments they occurred.

    While we vertainly don’t have all the facts (and won’t, really, unless there’s a great video), there are lots of ways the good Samaritan’s behavior is completely within the law, and only a couple extremely unlikely ways that they were not.

    Chasing a purse-snatcher or batterer, even with one’s gun out, is NOT “using deadly force” and thus subject to the duty to retreat attached to MN Stat. 609.065. Instead, those actions are in the realm of “reasonable force,” which is certainly permitted to resist a crime committed against yourself or another under 609.06.

    So, unless the good Samaritan charged after the felon, yelling “I’m going to kill you for taking that purse,” his actions hadn’t left the “reasonable force” arena.

    If the thug then threatened the life of the good Samaritan, the good Samaritan, only then, would be subject to the four-part test.

    And he’d pass it: he’s be in reasonable, immediate fear for his life, without the ability to retreat, where no lesser force would have served, and wher he was the non-aggressor. Yes, really. That status is inherited from the woman who he was helping, as provided for in the law. Were it not, the “or another” would be meaningless in the law.

    We don’t need to throw this fellow under the bus. While it may certainly have been cheaper and safer and easier for him to ignore the mugging or call 911, it was probably not illegal for him to step up.

  14. Oh, and Kermit? The good Samaritan didn’t have a “CC privilege.” He had a right to carry (concealed or otherwise), guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and recognized by Minnesota law.

    The legislature of the state of Minnesota recognizes and declares that the second amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. The provisions of this section are declared to be necessary to accomplish compelling state interests in regulation of those rights.

    MN Stat. 624.714, Subd. 22

  15. Andrew,

    I’ll be interested in seeing how this turns out.

    I’ll note that the enduring impression I got from Joel’s class – he repeated it often – was that “your permit doesn’t make you a junior lawman”. Had I been in that parking lot, I might have drawn on the pistol-whipping, but I doubt I’d have given chase.

    that said, I’m not throwing anyone under the bus. I hope you’re right.

  16. Andrew that may very well all be correct, but there isn’t nothing rock solid in the law to protect him. And I have about 0% confidence that a jury couldn’t be convinced this guy is guilty.

    Just ain’t worth it.

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  18. Listening to “that other talk station” this morning, the talk of a civil suit against the shooter was already being suggested (but I wasn’t paying enough attention to catch who it was actually suggesting it), and of course the dead man’s mother was all “he was a good kid, he didn’t do anything wrong, now I don’t have my son”. Something we’ve heard many times before.

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