11-18-2013, 01:03 AM
(11-17-2013, 04:50 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: I knew he would try the “I feared for my life” defence otherwise know as the “zimmerman amendment” every shooter will try that now.
To be fair, "I feared for my life" self-defense claims are nothing new. They've been around longer than George Zimmerman. They're sometimes true, and they're often times used by murderers trying to escape justice/punishment by attempting to turn the tables on their victims.
What's disturbing to me are the recent cases where that defense claim is being used by people when they shoot unarmed strangers who posed no immediate threat to their lives. The problem is that the laws in some states base "reasonable fear of great bodily harm or death" on the shooter's mindset at the time. It shouldn't be that way, as far as I'm concerned. It should be based on what the jury finds a reasonable person would think/do under the same circumstances.
Lot's of nervous nellies out there who qualify for gun ownership; scared of their own effin' shadows, for real. The law shouldn't enable jittery Joe Blow to shoot unarmed people who aren't in the commission of a crime or posing an immediate threat just because Joe has a gun and he's a pussy, whether he's truly (albeit irrationally) in fear for his life or not. IMO.
Anyway, in the McBride case, I think Wafer would have a hard time with any self defense claim in any state. It would be pretty damn tough to convince any judge or jury that he was truly in fear for his life and had exhausted all reasonable alternatives when he decided to shoot through a protective door - killing an unarmed, drunk, teen-aged, female accident victim. At least, I hope it would be damn near impossible to make that claim fly.
We'll see. Maybe Wafer will plead guilty to manslaughter and save the taxpayers some money.