September, 2007
Fighting Force with Force
Matt Mitchel
"...the Legislature finds that it is proper for law-abiding people to protect themselves...and others from intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others...[and] no person or victim of crime should be required to surrender his or her personal safety to a criminal, nor should a person or victim be required to needlessly retreat in the face of intrusion or attack..."
--Florida Senate Bill No. 436, Enacted October 1, 2005
Before April 16, 2007, the debate surrounding the 2nd Amendment and the right to use firearms in self-defense had taken a more academic tone. Eight years after the Columbine shooting and nearly three years after the sunset of the Brady Bill banning certain classes of assault weapons, the debate over gun rights became marginalized by the curious devolution of Iraq, the health care crisis, and natural disasters. But the tragedy at Virginia Tech has reawakened the debate, and made the issue of gun control more than just a problem for classroom discussion. Rather, the Blacksburg murders must rekindle a real national conversation on how much value we place on our natural rights as Americans and how these values affect how we best protect our nation's children.
A fighting chance: The importance of the Castle Doctrine
"And the law...has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with immunity: agreeing herein with the sentiments of ancient Rome... For this reason no doors can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though, in criminal causes, the public safety supersedes the private."
--William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 4, Chapter 16
There is a real case to be made with respect to arguing that the 2nd Amendment is in some respects outdated. At the time of America's founding, America was still a largely rural nation with state governments operating militias independently of the professional military force under the command of the President of the United States. However, by the end of the 19th century, the combination of conscription, Napoleonic command structure reforms, and the federalization of state military forces had made America's armed forces a professionalized citizen's army or "well-trained militia" as referred to in the text of the 2nd Amendment. In this respect, certain justifications for the right to bear arms, such as the right to revolt against the state should the government fail to protect our rights as citizens, are arcane and (unfortunately) not relevant in 21st century America.
But this does not absolve supporters of "gun-free campus" codes from explaining one of the underlying philosophical and legal justifications for the right of law-abiding persons to keep and bear arms. The Castle Doctrine, a common-law concept based in British jurisprudence, states that a person's property are his to defend from intrusion or attack. According to the Castle Doctrine, as the rightful owner of a threatened property, a citizen has the right to use deadly force in defense of that property against an unlawful intruder or any person committing a criminal act on that property in defense of self or others. This doctrine is one of the core justifications for so-called "stand your ground laws" such as that which exist in Florida.
In the Sunshine State, the Castle Doctrine's legal provisions have been extended by Florida Senate Bill 436, signed by former Governor Jeb Bush and enacted in 2005. Florida Statutes Section 776.013(3), created by this act, states the following:
A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a legal right to be has...the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself of herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
Note: Emphasis added.
The act also creates Florida Statutes Section 776.032, which provides that any act of self-defense permitted under the bill is "immune from criminal prosecution", unless the victim of deadly force is a law enforcement officer. To be perfectly direct, any public entity that prevents any resident of the State of Florida to possess and carry a firearm for the purpose of protecting self or others stands in clear violation of state law and Article I, Section 8 of the Florida Constitution. The University of Florida, an entity funded by the taxpayers of this state and the Florida Legislature, is required to not only observe and obey the laws of the State of Florida, but also honor and preserve the rights and safety of its students. So long as the University maintains its current prohibition on possessing and carrying firearms on campus, it is engaging in illegal and possibly criminal behavior at taxpayers' expense.
A reality check about self-defense
"A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that's just water-cooler chat."
--Larry Elder, "How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes?" (2005)
In an age where people would rather live by feeling rather than thinking, supporters of gun control are at a supreme advantage when taking their cause to the public. While supporters of the Second Amendment are left with mere legal dogma, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Million Mom March cite horror stories like workplace shootings and accidental gun deaths to raise support for duty to retreat laws and other restrictions on justifiable acts of self-defense. Blood and tears make for good television ratings and do a fine job of filling up airtime on cable news, but rarely do they help make good public policy. Where does the sophistry on self-defense shootings end, and where can the reality be found?
In 2003, there were 12,548 recorded deaths caused by acts of non-suicidal gun violence. Criminologist Gary Kleck has concluded that about 2.5 million Americans use guns in self-defense every year. The Department of Justice independently confirmed this finding, and has said that taking into account multiple uses of guns in self-defense per person, firearms may be used in self-defense by Americans up to 4.7 million times per year. Suppose that out of Kleck's estimate, ten percent of those uses actually saved a person's life. That means 25,000 Americans were saved from death by citizens using firearms, nearly double the number of non-suicide gun-related deaths recorded in 2003.
Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of cases of justifiable self-defense with firearms are non-lethal. Estimates place over 90% of all uses of firearms in self-defense as non-lethal; less than ten percent of all cases involve a citizen firing his weapon at an attacker. Even with such disproportionate figures, citizens shoot and kill more criminals per year than law enforcement officer by wide margins. In fact, police officers are almost six times more likely than a civilian to shoot mistakenly someone in self-defense who was not a criminal. And finally, just to put a last nail in the coffin of the "gun owners are cowboys" argument: In Florida, a person is two times more likely to be killed by an alligator than by a person with a concealed carry permit.
Conclusion
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
Hindsight does nobody any good on issues like this. It is easy for people on both sides of this contentious topic to look at tragedies like Virginia Tech and think "if only students could carry guns, this wouldn't have happened". And on the other side, it's equally simple to imagine "if only Virginia police found out about Seung-Hui Cho's mental illness, he would never have bought a gun in the first place". I cannot and will not delve into such hypothetical questions. It does no service to the memories of those who died that awful day, and equally importantly, to our collective need to prevent such an event from happening here on our own campus.
But in closing, simply consider this final thought. If a similar incident were to occur right here at UF, if someone sought to attack you and kill you, and you had the right to defend yourself against your attacker, would you use that right? If a passerby happened to be carrying a gun and he saved your life, would you begrudge his breaking the rules in order to preserve the safety of a stranger?
Of course, it would be much better if a repeat of Virginia Tech never happened again anywhere, much less at UF. But if the unthinkable were to happen, would you feel safer knowing that the shooter could freely kill innocent people with ease, without a fight? Or if students could protect themselves, would the shooter feel quite as safe and powerful? Would a potential killer even want to attempt murder if he knew such an act could be the last mistake he may ever make?
Florida's "stand your ground" law was enacted because we do have the right to protect ourselves when rules and those who enforce them fail. The men and women in Tigert Hall surely saw that rules and university police did not stop tragedy in Blacksburg. It's time they recognize that state laws allow their students to defend their lives and possessions if, God forbid, the university cannot.