Dr. John Holdnak, President of Florida’s Gulf Coast State College, stopped by the League of Women Voter’s “Gun Summit”to share his opinions on campus carry. His argument against firearms freedom? An armed self-defender couldn’t afford to shoot at bad guys. Financially. The family of bystanders shot by mistake would sue the you-know-what out anyone who dared attempt to take out an active shooter/terrorist before he slaughtered unarmed students, faculty or staff. What kind of calculus is that? But wait. It gets better/worse . . .
He argues that current law – where legally armed Floridians can stash their guns in their vehicles on campus – represents a clear and present danger to staff. But…
At least my faculty and I have a head start. If there’s a student and they’re upset and they say ‘I’m so angry at you I don’t know what I’ll sit wait right here I’ll be back in a minute’ at least you got a head start with that.
A head start to do what? Call Valencia College’s unarmed campus police? Get a gun? Wait. No. Not that. Never that!
Anyway, at least he’s thinking ahead. Not with his head. But ahead. With his head up his behind. Sorry, couldn’t resist. I mean, this guy says he’d be OK with campus carry if he could ring the campus with metal detectors to detect legally carried firearms and then follow their owner. And they say we’re paranoid.
At least my faculty and I have a
head start. If there’s a student
and they’re upset and they say
‘I’m so angry at you I don’t
know what I’ll sit wait right here
I’ll be back in a minute’ at least you got a head start with that.
Might get interesting if that student is merely taking a walk to cool off and clear their head. Something I regularly do when my temper runs hot.
I would imagine that if you have entire families of bystanders witnessing these crimes then enrollment is going way down. Forget losing money to lawsuits, no one is going to attend a school where criminals get to do whatever they want.
Does this (shooting the wrong people) happen a lot in movies or tv shows or something? I don’t know because I don’t watch much.
No, to the best of my knowledge this is only a problem when the police are the shooters. . .:)
Exactly. Most regular carrying civilians have way more trigger time than the fuzz because we aren’t limited by departmental budget constraints.
The problem is it’s an eternal adolesence. These “police-only” people are still living in the days where they had a parents or teachers or some other authority figures rules to follow. They don’t know how to think in other frames of reference. They’re more comfortable not having any independence – the idea scares them.
And they’re educating the next generation. Great.
I don’t know FL law, but I know that in some states, at least my state, if a defender accidentally shoots an innocent bystander during a lethal attack, the attacker is charged with the harm done to the bystander.
If FL is similar, than his argument is weak sauce.
Many of these arguments are so easily beaten by doing some prudent research.
Yes, this seems to be the case: is a problem with cops; isn’t a problem with civilians. And it makes sense that this is so. It’s the cop’s job to go looking for trouble when he suspects a danger to public safety. So, e.g., if he sees a robber leaving a store we can expect him to engage in a gun-fight. A civilian is only likely to engage the robber if the robber assaults the civilian.
Civilians are apt to be assaulted – and defend themselves with guns – in unpopulated venues; e.g., lonely streets and parking lots. Because there are few (if any) other people around it’s highly unlikely that a missed shot would hit anyone.
Yet, for the sake of argument, let’s take the complaint seriously. Suppose a civilian is armed and defends herself against a perceived assailant. If her pretext is sound (innocence, ability, opportunity, jeopardy) then the common law of self-defense protects her against criminal and civil charges.
On that premise, would the law of self-defense ALSO protect her against criminal and civil charges if an errant shot hits a bystander? This is a question to ask of competent lawyers with a practice in self-defense. I am not such a qualified lawyer. Nevertheless, I SUSPECT that the law of self-defense is apt to be very lenient. If she has a bona fide pretext to protect herself then it would not be reckless endangerment of bystanders. If a bystander is injured the law MIGHT excuse her from culpability.
We presume the bystander has been hit; with a bullet from a handgun. Single-shot handgun wounds have only a modest probability of “stopping” the person they hit. Low probability when the shooter is AIMING to STOP; in the bystander case, the shooter wasn’t aiming at the bystander at all. It’s even less likely that one poorly-aimed bullet is going to hit a vital organ causing prompt death. It’s fairly likely that the injured bystander will be given prompt medical attention that will save his life.
We are talking about a contingency that does NOT ACTUALLY happen in real-life. Moreover, we understand WHY it doesn’t actually happen, so our empirical observations are not a sampling fluke. Finally, if-and-to-the-extent that they MIGHT happen they have at most a modest propensity to be life-threatening.
Ultimately, it’s the defender’s “shot-to-call”. If her judgement to shoot her attacker is sound, likely the contingency of liability for hitting a bystander isn’t serious enough to dissuade her from her decision to shoot.
” If her pretext is sound (innocence, ability, opportunity, jeopardy) then the common law of self-defense protects her against criminal and civil charges.”
That is exactly how it should go in a nation of Laws, but that does not apply to our nation anymore. The guy in the video is saying that a person has to choose financial well being or living. What a choice, in a nation that was based on morality and individual liberty.
An armed defender is not even supposed to exist,unless employed by the state, is how self defense is viewed in our emotionally corrupted institution of mob justice.
Look to ancient Greece for how are new governmental system functions, and that extinct culture was also widely popular through the support of the ignorant and comfortable masses.
I don’t know what the rules are either, but let’s analyze it. First, assuming a valid exercise of lethal force for self-defense, there is no and can be no intentional tort vis-a-vis bystanders, especially since the victim did not intend to harm the bystander. So we are looking at proving a case of negligence against the victim. First is the question of duty, and on balance the existence of a duty is arguable either way. Assuming a duty of care exists, ask yourself, would a reasonable person in the victim’s shoes, under the stress of a violent, life threatening assault, with the tunnel vision incident to such events, also missed? Is it reasonable to impose a duty of absolute accuracy in this circumstance? Even if we assume that the victim owes a duty of due care to bystanders, I wouldn’t think so, but ultimately this will be a fact specific inquiry. Then add to that that there is insurance for these things.
The Florida statutes do have a provision that prevents lawsuits being filed by the perpetrator against the defender, if the shooting is ruled justifiable. That’s one of the reasons that George Zimmerman hasn’t been sued by the Martins.
That being said, I have no doubt that a righteous shooter would be sued if one of his shots hit an innocent person. The totality of the circumstances would weigh heavily on the case.
Say that you encounter an active shooter who’s already shot several people, and still has ammo left. The argument you would have to make was that by you not shooting that more lives would be lost.
Muddy the waters a little more, and say that you hit the perpetrator, and the round passes through him, and hits an innocent right behind him. What then?
I haven’t done any googling, but have there been any cases where a private citizen has engaged a shooter and hit a bystander?
Unfortunately, I don’t have the knowledge to shed any more light on the subject.
My suspicion is that there is not much in the way of case law over recorded history of a defender injuring an innocent bystander. There may be some cases, but the judicial record is probably not RICH with such cases.
I also suspect that the issue hasn’t been dealt with consciously in any State laws.
I can hope to be mistaken. Perhaps some lawyers who specialize in self-defense law might be able to weigh-in here.
My sense here is that the defender probably wouldn’t be dealt with harshly if she were within her rights of self-defense. It’s a bad situation to be in to feel compelled to take a shot when the background is NOT clear. One would really NOT want to do it and would avoid taking the shot at all but the very highest cost.
Ultimately, none of us can call the shot unless and until one of us is in this worst-case scenario. So, I doubt that there is much of an realistic answer albeit I’d like to know what it is.
Everything is political. We need to think through every such case that the Antis come up with and have thought-out the best answer we can. I think most of that has been covered. It doesn’t happen often enough to appear in the news. There are logical explanations for why it shouldn’t happen. We really ought to be much more worried about defenders having the means to defend themselves. There is no need to agonize of the the possibility of innocent bystanders being injured. We are already living with the fact that police injure innocent bystanders. What is society’s response? Take the guns away from police? Or, give the police “qualified immunity”? If innocent bystanders were a controlling issue we would take the guns away from police.
Innocent bystanders might get hurt? Using this logic, we should first disarm the police.
Which their campus actually chose to do. At least they are consistent.
I’ll take my chance of getting sued, it is better than just being dead. Oh and practice, practice, practice.
As said before on the blog;
better be sued by 12, than carried by 6.
‘The family of bystanders shot by mistake would sue the you-know-what out anyone who dared attempt to take out an active shooter/terrorist before he slaughtered unarmed students, faculty or staff.’
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. I know that if you pull someone out of a burning car wreck and subsequently cause his broken vertebrae to sever his spinal cord rendering him paraplegic he does not have a case against you. I think they call it a ‘good Samaritan’ law. So if there’s a terrorist or lunatic shooting up the joint and you return fire I don’t see how that would be any different.
I would assume that the plaintiff would need to prove negligence on the part of the shooter. Given that most gun owners have more trigger time than most cops, I think that would be a very high hurdle.
Actually, Gov, unless the relevant state legislature specifically passed a “Good Samaritan law”, the paraplegic you described in your hypothetical certainly does have a case. And again, that’s going to vary state by state.
Yes, I’m sure it’s state by state, but I think most states do have a law like that. Without ‘good Samaritan’ laws no one would dare help anyone in distress out of fear of being sued. Even without a specific law, the counter argument in the suit would be that if you hadn’t pulled him out he’d be dead and paraplegic (at least in theory) is better than dead.
There is considerable variation from state to state. Some states’ Good Sam laws only protect “professionals” acting in the line of duty. EMTs, Police, Fire etc. A bystander attempting to render aid can be sued.
In other states bystanders are mandated to render aid if they are able.
Many are specific about it being “medical” aid, some even list the events that are covered.
“cardiac only”, etc.
So we’re agreed: grant statutory immunity to lawful carriers, just as we do with the police. Now that’s a common sense gun law reform.
Common sense reform we can all get behind.
what about that war on women thing? Who’s the primary antagonist?
The whole pro-choice crowd SCREAMS we should allow abortions for pregnancies caused by rape, but they rarely if ever say that we should make it easier for women to get and carry pistols.
Sam, not most police officers. Only NYPD.
How about including LA and its environs? After all, Compton is being sued for killing a hostage in a bank robbery getaway (at least 10 torso hits, all fired by police).
Seriously?
I don’t know whether it was the same event … there was a bank robbery recently in Stockton, California that resulted in a massive police chase and the police firing over 600 bullets at the getaway vehicle with a hostage inside. Needless to say the hostage inside the getaway vehicle did not survive with 10 gunshot wounds. In that event it was clear that the police had absolutely no regard whatsoever for the hostage.
You can see a news article about that event here:
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84227629/
My bad. It was Stockton, not Compton. I apologize for the mixup.
Stockton. The link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-stockton-bank-robbery-20150817-story.html
“The report highlighted an example during the final standoff, in which one officer lay prone on the ground and did not shoot while an officer next to him, standing, fired “round after round.”
“‘What’s your target?’ the prone officer yelled, thinking he was missing something,” the report stated.
‘The car!’ responded the officer,” according to the report.”
This is me, shaking my head in disgust.
A desperate and vapid attempt to rationalize the irrational.
They really are getting sad and desperate, aren’t they? If that’s the best argument they can come up with, we’re in better shape than I thought.
Now it should be obvious why recent college grads are unemployed — they have been taught by morons so they graduate stupid and broke.
Keep em dumb, in debt, and struggling forever. Tell them to blame the republicans… With frustrated entitlement like that, no wonder democrat voting districts are so violent…
College is for people who, after 12 years of school, are still too stupid to learn on their own.
With the power of google. I found that the video guy is Dr. John Holdnak. He is the president of Gulf Coast State College in florida.
http://Www.gulfcoast.edu/about_us/president.htm
Thank you sir!
No sir, thank you for the education to help me defend my natural and god given rights
So, we CAN trust that students will follow the law (keep their handguns locked in their cars) … even though we CANNOT trust that students will follow the law (refrain from assaulting someone in a fit of rage).
Yet another example where gun-grabbers reveal their hysteria. If you believe that a person willing to punch/stab/shoot you, then you have to believe that such a person is willing to carry a handgun in contravention of campus policy/law.
No, no. Those gun free zone signs are super magnetic, they’ll snatch the gun right out of the perps hand, you know, unless it’s one of those magic glocks.
When are the lawsuits going to start happening where people sue for being forced to be a victim? So, someone gets shot or a family member gets shot and they were not allowed to defend themselves. I thought it might happen with those FL college studens…one claimed he could have stopped the shooter.
Imagine how hysterical they’ll be after losing “Round Two.”
Sounds to me like they can’t afford to miss .
And they call us paranoid.
Pretty sure that your ideal “no gun carrying” student could just as easily stab the shit out of you, bludgeon you with a brick, drive over you with their car, or judo chop you into oblivion. The point is that everyone is armed anyway, just to what level. So apparently you just fear it being to easy?
Round 1 that Dr. Holdnak is referring to was Florida Carry vs Univercity of North Florida 12/10/2013 (1DCA en banc decision)
The rest of the “summit” vids along with the panelists can be found at http://thefloridavoter.org/lwvf-gun-safety-summit-video-round-up/
Yes, one could be sued by an injured innocent (or not innocent) party, and plaintiff prevail, or not, based upon the evidence presented, level of reasonable negligence, and facts involved. This is certainly a risk one takes when they decide to point and pull the trigger (unless one is employed by an police agency). We need to be responsible for our actions, and take the ability to do harm to innocents with the mere twitch of a finger very seriously. Not always so cut and dry I’m afraid.
LWV historically was a “good government” outfit that was pretty much non-partisan. They have long since devolved into just another liberal advocacy gang.
1. This is why I have a 24/7 prepaid legal plan. $26/mo for peace of mind.
2. Colleges have gone full retard already. Just look up the terms “microaggression” and “trigger warning”. They actively discourage anything that would offend or upset anyone in any circumstance. Comedians are heavily censoring their acts at colleges, a lucrative gig, and students refuse to read classics because someone might be triggered by past trauma due to the content. It’s so messed up some colleges warn the term “trigger warning” is a trigger in itself, referring to a part of a weapon, so they call it a content warning. Others then argue the word “warning” is a trigger. Meanwhile 10/10 psychologists agree keeping people distant from what triggers or upsets them is the opposite of healthy recovery. College is the most expensive babysitting you can pay for and it only teaches people it’s ok to be a child forever and have zero responsibility for yourself.
I love you man…
Your lives are belong to us now!
Can’t afford not to shoot.
Know your target and what is beyond it.
Practice your marksmanship.
I know I shoot much better than the average NYC cop.
Further proof that there is no education going on at college. These people are far too stupid to know or teach anything…
Well at least I know what a anti-gun idiot looks like now. Far-fetched scenarios, calling a magazine a “clip”, only demonstrates his ignorance. I couldn’t watch the whole clip as his ignorance was just too painful to witness.
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