Category: Darwin would of approved of this!
Ohio Self Defense Reform Bill Passes House Committee
Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- Ohio bill HB 228 has passed out of the House Federalism and Interstate Relations Committe on a seven to three vote. The vote was along party lines, with seven Republicans voting for the bill and the three Democrats voting against the bill.
The Ohio legislature is looking to reform Ohio law on self-defense. Currently, Ohio appears to be the only state where the burden of proof in a self-defense case rests with the defender. When a person claims self-defense in Ohio, the defender has to prove that they acted in self-defense. In nearly every other state, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. They have to prove that the defender did *not* act in self defense. From the nraila.org:
HB 228 would place the burden of disproving a self-defense claim onto the prosecution, similar to how it is in almost every other state. Further, House Bill 228 would expand the locations that a person has no duty to retreat from before using force to defend themselves under both civil and criminal law.
Arizona flirted with this reversal of the traditional burden of proof for a decade. Prosecutors lobbied the legislature and reversed the ordinary burden of proof in 1996. It is much easier for prosecutors to obtain a conviction when the burden of proof is shifted to the defendant.
Harold Fish paid the price for the prosecutor’s power grab.
Harold Fish killed a man who was charging at him and yelling that he was going to kill him. The first investigator on the scene reported it was such an open and shut case, he classified it as self defense and did not arrest Harold. The county prosecutor did not like that assessment, so they replaced the first investigator and arrested Harold Fish.
After much public outcry, involving three separate bills passed by the Arizona legislature to change the law, a long appeals process, two vetoes by Democrat Governor Janet Napolitano (a former prosecutor), $700,000 dollars spent on legal defenses, and three years in prison for Harold Fish, the trial court was found to be in error, and Fish was freed. He died three years later.
It is this type of abuse within the legal system that HB 228 is meant to prevent.
Prosecutors in our society have enormous power. They can lie. They can recruit false witnesses. They can have obvious conflicts of interest. They can repeatedly bring prosecutions against people who have committed not crime, for personal reasons. The Supreme Court has ruled that they can not be sued for any of this. They have absolute immunity.
Prosecutors have incredible levels of power. Shifting the burden of proof in self defense cases away from the defendant is a small step in placing limits on that power.
Jim Irvine of Buckeye Firearms says that Ohio is the only state in the United States that has this burden of proof placed on the defender. From buckeyefirearms.com:
“Ohio is the ONLY state in the U.S. with this absurd requirement for burden of proof,” said Jim Irvine, Chairman of Buckeye Firearms Association. “It has been talked about in legal seminars around the country for years. It is an embarrassment to Ohio.
“People under attack should be able to defend their life. They should not have legal hurdles to jump before acting to defend themselves. They should not be second-guessed for years over a decision they were forced to make in a second. Ohio law should protect the victim, not the aggressor. This bill corrects this problem with Ohio law.”
HB 228 has 34 sponsors in the House, and one in the Senate. The Ohio House (the legislative assembly) has 99 members, of which 66 are Republicans. The Ohio Senate has 33 members, of which 24 are Republicans.
The Ohio governor is Republican John Richard Kasich, Jr.
Governor Kasich has been making noises about supporting various restrictions on gun ownership. Those restrictions include outlawing private sales, allowing police to confiscate guns on the basis of basis of “gun violence protection orders” without any due process, and others. It is unknown if Governor Kasich would sign this self defense reform bill.
©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
Hitler definitely died in 1945, according to new study of his teeth
By
French researchers claim to have put an end to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler, after a study of his teeth proved he definitely died after taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head in Berlin in 1945.
The researchers reached their conclusion after they were given rare access to fragments of Hitler’s teeth which have been held in Moscow since the end of World War II.
“The teeth are authentic, there is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945,” said professor Philippe Charlier.
“We can stop all the conspiracy theories about Hitler. He did not flee to Argentina in a submarine, he is not in a hidden base in Antarctica or on the dark side of the moon,” he told AFP news agency.
The teeth were put on display in 2000 in Moscow as part of an exhibition to mark the 55th anniversary of the end of the war.
They were back in the news again last month when the memoirs of a Russian interpreter who worked in Berlin in 1945 were published in English for the first time.
She recounted how she had been tasked with proving Hitler’s death by tracking down his dental records in the ruined German capital and seeing if they matched a set of teeth she had been entrusted with – which they did.
In March and July 2017, Russia’s FSB secret service and the Russian state archives authorised a team of French researchers to examine Hitler’s bones for the first time since 1946, said Professor Charlier, who was one of the scientists chosen.
They were able to look at a skull fragment presented as being from the Fuhrer, which showed a hole on the left side which was in all probability caused by the passage of a bullet.
The scientists were not authorised to take samples from this fragment, they noted in their study published on Friday in the scientific magazine European Journal of Internal Medicine.
The skull fragment’s morphology was “totally comparable” to radiographies of Hitler’s skull taken a year before his death, the research found.
The analysis of the Nazi leader’s bad teeth and numerous dentures found white tartar deposits and no traces of meat fibre – the dictator was vegetarian.
The examination of the teeth did not find any traces of powder, which indicates there was not a revolver shot to the mouth, more likely the neck or the forehead.
Equally, bluish deposits seen on his false teeth could indicate a “chemical reaction between the cyanide and the metal of the dentures,” the researcher said.
If this study confirms the generally accepted view that Hitler died on the 30 April, 1945, in his Berlin bunker with his companion Eva Braun as the Soviets were capturing the city, it also sheds new light on the exact causes of death, said Mr Charlier.
“We didn’t know if he had used an ampule of cyanide to kill himself or whether it was a bullet in the head. It’s in all probability both,” he said.
Charlier, a specialist in medical and legal anthropology, was also involved in the analysis of the mummified heart of Richard the Lionheart.
I am just surprised it wasn’t Spam instead of hot dogs!
by JORDAN MICHAELS
A new report from the FBI has found that of the 50 “active shooter incidents” in 2016 and 2017, individuals with valid firearm permits successfully stopped four of them.
While that may not sound like a large percentage, concealed carry holders actually outperformed their representative segment of the population. The three million Americans who carry a handgun every day represent only .9 percent of the people living in the U.S., but CCL holders stopped 8 percent of the active shooter situations in the past two years. If a greater percentage of the population carried a firearm for self-defense, more incidents like these might have been cut short.
SEE ALSO: Suppressed CDC Survey Indicates Over 2 Million Defensive Gun Uses Per Year… in 1998
The FBI defined “active shooter incidents” as when “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” The feds didn’t include gang- or drug-related incidents, and analysts relied on official law enforcement investigative reports (when available), FBI holdings, and publicly available resources when gathering data.
Here’s a brief description of each incident in which a CCL holder stopped the suspect:
- On September 28, 2016, at 1:45 p.m., Jesse Dewitt Osborne, 14, armed with a handgun, allegedly began shooting at the Townville Elementary School playground in Townville, South Carolina. Prior to the shooting, the shooter, a former student, killed his father at their home. Two people were killed, including one student; three were wounded, one teacher and two students. A volunteer firefighter, who possessed a valid firearms permit, restrained the shooter until law enforcement officers arrived and apprehended him.
- On September 24, 2017, at 11:15 a.m., Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, armed with two handguns, allegedly began shooting in the parking lot of the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee. After killing one person, the shooter entered the church and shot six people. A citizen who attempted to subdue the shooter was pistol-whipped. During the altercation, the shooter accidently shot himself. While the shooter was preoccupied, the citizen, who possessed a valid firearms permit, retrieved a handgun from his car and held the shooter at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived. One person was killed; seven were wounded. The shooter was apprehended by law enforcement.
- On November 5, 2017, at 11:20 a.m., Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, armed with a rifle, exited his vehicle and began shooting outside the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. He then entered the church and continued shooting at members of the congregation. The shooter exited the church and was confronted by a citizen who possessed a valid firearms permit. The citizen shot the shooter twice, causing the shooter to drop his rifle and flee the scene in his vehicle. The armed citizen, together with the owner of a pickup truck, pursued the shooter. The chase ended when the shooter’s vehicle struck a road sign and overturned. Twenty-six people were killed; 20 were wounded. The shooter committed suicide with a handgun he had in his vehicle before police arrived.
- On November 17, 2017, at 4:30 p.m., Robert Lorenzo Bailey, Jr., 28, armed with a handgun, allegedly began shooting in the parking lot of Schlenker Automotive in Rockledge, Florida. The manager of the auto repair shop and an employee, both possessing valid firearms permits, exchanged gunfire with the shooter. One person was killed; one was wounded. The shooter, shot twice during the exchange, was held at gunpoint by the manager until law enforcement arrived and took him into custody.
The FBI recorded another incident in which the CCL holder forced the suspect to flee, but the suspect began shooting at a different location soon after.
SEE ALSO: New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, “Guns, however, have an almost entirely symbolic function. No lives are saved. No intruders are repelled. The dense and hysterical mythology of gun love has been refuted again and again.”
The study only reports one incident in which an armed citizen was wounded while attempting to intervene, which works to discredit the argument that CCL holders always end up getting shot when they try to stop a suspect.
These incidents represent only a small fraction of the millions of defensive gun uses each year, but they nonetheless suggest the good that armed law-abiding citizens can accomplish. If 20 percent of Americans carried a handgun every day rather than .9, perhaps all or most of these mass casualty events could have been averted.