An unnamed Ohio man was cleaning his muzzle-loading rifle and decided to fire one round in the air. The round traveled over one mile and reportedly killed Rachel Yoder, 18, an Amish girl driving her horse-drawn buggy home after a Christmas party.
Yoder fell out of the buggy near her home after the horse continued on its path. Police traced the blood marks back toward the man’s home and neighbors recalled hearing a shot.
The police are clearly inclined to treat the matter as non-criminal, which would include a simple manslaughter charge. Yet, there is considerable fault in someone randomly shooting in the air, even in a rural area. It often drives me to distraction to watch idiots in Middle Eastern countries firing machine guns in the air as the favorite form of celebration without a thought to the danger to others. We have seen such tragedies in this country, including cases where officers ended up shooting people using guns to celebrate their birthdays or the Fourth of July.
There is obviously ample room for a negligence case, though (we have discussed on this blog and in my torts class), juries vary considerably in what they consider unreasonable in hunting accidents between rural and non-rural areas.
Firing into the air simply leaves any danger to others to chance — the very definition of externalizing risk. A wrongful death action would be merited in such a circumstances.
Source: Fox8
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Good points, Rick K.
“Police traced the blood marks back toward the man’s home…”
WHAT??? How? If the girl was wounded “over a mile away” and then fell out of her buggy, what blood was there to be traced anywhere? Who the H3LL reports this stuff?
Blouise, if one wants to clarify those values, the way to do it is to propose a new Constitutional amendment repealing the Second Amendment. Otherwise the argument is just arguing for the sake of argument. It will go nowhere in the face of the Heller and McDonald decisions. Stare decisis.
I agree with Jude that the argument by rcampbell is a logical fallacy of the strawman type .
And just for the record:
“VALUES CLARIFICATION
Your values are your ideas about what is most important to you in your life —what you want to live by and live for. They are the silent forces behind many of your actions and decisions. The goal of “values clarification” is for you to become fully conscious of their influence, and to explore and honestly acknowledge what you truly value at this time in your life. You can be more self-directed and effective when you know which values you really choose to keep and live by as an adult, and which ones will get priority over others.”
“Jude
rcampbell, you have a penchant for overstatement and a flair for emotional appeal, especially by utilizing false arguments (setting up a strawman). Not one person on here has excused this gun owner, and I doubt anybody would – he was clearly in the wrong.”
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rcampbell also has a tendency to hit the nail squarely on its head …
“Let’s just keep defending those guns. This girl’s life was apparently less valuable than the gun owner’s right to have his gun.”
Strawman misrepresenting an opponent’s position(?) … I think not.
What was the value of that young girl’s life when compared to the value of the gunowner’s right under the Constitution’s Second Amendment?
It’s an exercise in values clarification.
I would never in a million years would yhink this could happen.So very sad..
CP7.
The constitution does not put any distinctions on how or why we are allowed bear arms, just that we have the right to.
It does not, however, protect us from making stupid decisions with those arms that wind up hurting others and getting us sent to jail.
So while we all have the right if we abuse that right it is on the legal system to punish the abuser, but NEVER to take away the rights of everyone else.
And, while the sound system will help detect and possibly catch criminals who shoot guns in cities…they certainly won’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals who haven’t shot it in the city (yet.)
I personally don’t think every citizen should be walking around with a 9mm in their back pocket, I don’t think the average citizen is safe or smart enough to make that decision…but we’re guaranteed that right and we’re far better off as a society with a handful of idiots making stupid mistakes than with only criminals and the government having the weapons.
CP7,
That issue has been addressed by the SCOTUS. “Militia” and “well regulated” does not mean what a lot of people think it means. See the Heller and McDonald decisions.
Quick read from Wikipedia. Follow the links and references for more detail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
doesn’t the second amendment say “right to bear arms” “to form a militia”? not for people to randomly wield dangerous weapons for personal use without proper training, and for only the personal satisfaction of having them.
While at this point, Im not against a persons right to a weapon on their own property, as he was, or firing in a gun range. Discharging for no reason shouldn’t be acceptable. And as more cities get these:http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/big-brother-is-listening-riviera-beach-installs-sound-392810.html
They should be able to take more guns out of the hands of criminals so the argument that if the citizens don’t have guns and ammo the criminals will is eventually no longer valid
MASkeptic, IMHO, he does not have less liability–as I see it the actual liability exposure comes close to being about the same. However, the Amish are not likely to sue him as a matter of religious belief and principle. So, if he is punished in any way (other than by his conscience) it will be up to the criminal justice system.
I don’t understand how someone can believe this guy has less liability than a hunter who didn’t check his backstop before firing at a deer.
rcampbell, you have a penchant for overstatement and a flair for emotional appeal, especially by utilizing false arguments (setting up a strawman). Not one person on here has excused this gun owner, and I doubt anybody would – he was clearly in the wrong.
If the four rules are followed religiously, “accidents” are virtually impossible. It disgusts me that people can’t get this stuff through their heads.
One more thing. If one is opposed to the “right to keep and bear arms,” then propose a Constitutional Amendment to repeal the Second Amendment. Good luck with that!
rcampbell, I don’t think you will find anyone excusing the gun owner in this case. He did something both careless and stupid with a primitive rifle.
With rights come responsibilities. Unlike a driver’s license which is a privilege, owning a firearm is embedded in the Constitution as a right. With all rights, come some basic responsibilities, one of which is to exercise common sense and safety rules. If one behaves irresponsibly and harms another, then expect the full fury of the legal system to descend upon one’s shoulders.
Let’s just keep defending those guns. This girl’s life was apparently less valuable than the gun owner’s right to have his gun. For him it’s an excusable accident because he didn’t practice proper gun safety (oops, my bad), but she’s still dead. Thankfully this is the only such senseless, needless gun death of an innocent person this year, right? And it won’t happen again, will it? There’ll be no domestic violence incidents ending in gun deaths and no kids playing with parents’ loaded unsecured weapons and no jealous ex-lovers and no road rage violence in 2012 and beyond. If there are, they’ll be “oops’ed” away once again.
A muzzle loader is a serious weapon. They are accurate to a few hundred yards. The first sniper kill came during the American Revolution. It was by a rifleman named Timothy Murphy at a range of 300 yards. He killed General Simon Frasier during the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. One of those rifles can easily do serious damage at the range of a mile or more. Many are .50 or .54 caliber, which is a very large slug and with a maximum powder charge, I can see how that might happen.
We had an incident locally where a KKK type fired his .45 pistol straight up into the air–it was either during a demonstration or a celebration, I am not sure which. A few seconds later he was hit in the top of the head with that same .45 slug, killing him. The irony was thick on that.
The guy with the rifle violated almost all the rules of gun safety, the primary one is not to discharge a weapon unless you know where the round is going to end up. In firearms training, they teach to not only look at the target, but what is behind the target.
Andy,
I have heard of 50 cal….muzzle loaders….that must give one hell of a recoil…and they are only good for about 500 feet or so…I stand to be corrected..much further than that the accuracy goes down….
Yes AY, a much shorter range. After using these weapons for most of my life it is difficult to believe the accuracy of this story at least concerning the range.
This is sad…Muzzle loaders from my understanding are shorter range…