“Tobias Bybee, 38, of Marathon, was fishing and having drinks with four friends at sunset Thursday when they got into an argument,” local10.com reports. “Bybee got his rifle, struck one of his friends in the throat with the stock of the gun and fired several shots, scaring the others, who thought Bybee was going to shoot them, [Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Becky] Herrin said. While they were on their way to shore, one of the passengers called 911 to report the incident.”
Mr. Bybee had an interesting explanation for brandishing his rifle at sea. Mr. Bybee told the deputy that there’d been a “mutiny on board the vessel.” It’s not a bad argument — if Mr. Bybee was the captain of the Margaritaville (our whatever it’s called). Also assuming his boat was a military vessel.
Yeah, no.
Bybee, who is a felon, faces four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and one count of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
This may not be the time to say it (again), but I support restoring felons’ gun rights. But it’s stories like these that make it hard to make my case. Suffice it to say, you can’t fix stupid. Nor can you keep stupid away from guns. But you can keep criminals out of society and, of course, off the high seas.
Ah, yeah…”Florida Man”…say no more.
I’ll gladly go along with the aggravated assault and aggravated battery charges, but I fail to see why a felon, using the current corrupted legalistic definition of the word, has any less of a right to self-defense than I have or anybody else has.
Knuckleheads have a right to self-defense, just not with a firearm. It’s the ‘cost of doing business’.
Do you assert that a non-violent white-collar felon, say an embezzler, is any more of a risk to you if he has a firearm then any random person who has never been convicted of a crime? If so, please tell me why.
A felon has abandoned “Societal Agreement”. They’ve affectively done the thing we said was damn near worth killing them over (due to severity of said abandonment) but instead, give them time in prison to think it over. Who said to take away a portion of their means to defend themselves?
They did.
Having seen someone charged with felony conspiracy, best I can tell because they said they wanted to secure legal representation before talking to the USA, in relation to something an employer did, I question exactly how necessary an affirmative decision to abrogate society’s social pact really is.
Because he has slready shown a propensity to break the law!
Pretty simple, actually!
Aha! Jug is a pre-crime advocate.
For the record, the Second Amendment specifically prohibits the government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms – anybody’s right. There is no provision in the 2A for the government to decide, “Except for you” for any reason whatsoever.
The right to self defense is a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right, as is your right to defend yourself against an armed idiot, criminal or mental defective. Until an actual crime of violence has been committed the government has no authority to act and a specific prohibition from acting, and then it should be only to prosecute the specific nature of the crime, not the tool used to commit it.
Thank you for pointing that out. The modern corruption of the meaning of the word ‘felon’ changes how we should view people who are convicted of a ‘felony’–particularly when we all allegedly commit three Federal felonies every day without knowing it. Today, government deems just about every offense a felony, from nearly everything one can do with a firearm (including having one with a barrel 1/16″ too short) to draining a swamp on private land to giving too much to a political campaign.
They keep using that word; I do not think it means what they think it means.
You’re welcome. Thanks for expanding on it and showing why “felon” is now an abstract and largely value-free term.
In Denver recently, a reformed gang banger, convicted felon, shot an active gang banger and claimed self defense. He was charged with 2nd degree murder and felon in possession.
Jury came back not guilty on both counts, as they should have.
Not being a felon, I am speaking strictly in the academic sense. But in doing so,. I also feel that, once a man has served his sentence and has repaid society for his infraction of the rules, then he should be restored to his place in society with all the rights and privileges appertaining to the position of citizen of the United States. He should be able to own a gun, vote in an election, serve on juries and do all other things that any other normal citizen can do. If he can’t, then the “justice system” is just a sham.
As a Florida man, I resent that remark. Stupid is stupid no matter where you are & there are a LOT more people in Florida than were born here.
No offense intended, as I obviously wasn’t implicating you…it just seems like the stupid/crazy ones in Florida are extra special stupid/crazy.
I have to agree that the stupid and bizarre seem to have “blessed” Florida disproportionately. But that’s what makes life interesting and rewarding.
For the record, I’ve had family here since 1971 and visited several times a year until 2012 when my wife and I move here – voluntarily – for good. Literally for good.
In this case it’s almost certainly due to proximity to Key Weird. That place radiates stupid.
The reason Florida is always in the news for this kind of thing is because it is one of (if not the only) states where all arrest record AND police reports are available and searchable to the public. Wierd stuff happens everywhere but it’s Florida that makes it public.
Correction, “fishing and having drinks with former friends”.
Mutiny? I guess Tobias Bybee thought he was Captain Bligh. Too much Captain Morgan will do that.
Turns out he was actually Captain Ron . . . . Rico.
Quit sending your crazies down here!
“This may not be the time to say it (again), but I support restoring felons’ gun rights.”
How would restoring felons’ gun rights (or not) have affected this event? Current law somehow did not prevent this guy from having a gun. How ’bout we stop trying to control what people *have*, and concentrate on controlling what they *do*?
Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to control anyone. I know what you meant, but control never seems to work out well.
Soul patch. Nuff said.
Did they catch anything?
?
You’re right. It makes your argument tougher. I would support restoring rights once they finish probation.
Problem is that it didn’t stop him from having a gun. So it’s just one more charge against him.
If we still had recitavist laws, he’d be one step closer to the chair.
Repeat after me, Tobias: Boating accident.
You can’t keep guns out of felons’ hands, of course, but since these people have already demonstrated their appaling judgment and temperament, it’s good to keep them on a short leash.
Stray too far in general, or too close to temptations, like possessing a firearm, and boom! Your butt’s back in gen pop faster than you can say “Don’t drop the soap.”
You say that if they can’t be trusted with a gun, then they can’t be trusted on the streets. Then you say we can’t punish people for pre-crimes. Great.
Fellon in possession laws are a great compromise. Felons who can be trusted on the streets can demonstrate their trustworthiness. Felons who can’t, can demonstrate that, too, with something super easy like possessing a gun. Better they fail and we jail them for that than waiting around for them to commit the inevitable violent felony again.
What does this have to do with guns?
Nothing.
Giving assholes and criminals the IGOD award is focusing on the gun rather than the action. It’s the same as the dreaded term “gun violence”.
Stick to giving the award to people like me who just the other day while dry practicing my draw, suffered a severe burn to my right bicep from the Undercrown Corona Double I was smoking.
Minor point, unless TTAG is going to be a strictly local news service. When you name a city, it might be helpful to people in other places, to name the state as well. I’m in Texas, and when I read “Marathon”, I thought, “Oh no, not Marathon, Texas, please!” Then the local10.com link malfunctioned and I had to restart my browser. And naming the county is no help. Seventeen states have a Monroe County. Not Texas, but Texas has 254 counties, and I can’t remember them all. Just give the city and state, and everyone will know where you mean. Thanks.
Land of the kinky ones, don’t you know only crooks get guns, and police get to watch as BLM ers get to pillage and plunder at will cause a black criminal gets whacked, he was a graduate with a BS degree from Honky school at state!
Pass a law you know will take those guns away! guess another great divide ending in warfare is coming!
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