PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Florida Self-Defense: Did having a gun hurt or help in this case? (Follow Up) :: 11/17/2015
SARASOTA COUNTY - There's a jumble of potential lessons people can choose from the incident in which Roger Atlas's apparent road-rage led to him being shot and wounded at a south Sarasota gas station.
The lesson you see might depend on how you feel about keeping a concealed gun handy at all times, and whether you think doing so is more likely to prevent violence or trigger it.
Atlas, at first, somewhat successfully portrayed himself as an innocent victim. As you may know, he told sheriff's deputies that when he drove into that gas station on Oct. 5, a man on a motorcycle followed him, just after they had exchanged angry words at a traffic light.
Atlas said when he approached and spoke to the motorcycle rider, Christian Gunter, the guy pulled a gun and then shot him as they fought over it.
But Atlas had twisted some facts. Though Gunter was arrested, video and witness accounts later showed it was Atlas who had followed him to the gas station and that Atlas approached the much smaller man angrily and aggressively. When the wary Gunter surprised him by pulling a legally carried concealed handgun, Atlas grappled with him and tried to take it away.
Whether that was aggression or just panicked stupidity I don't know. But the attempt failed. Atlas was shot in the abdomen during the struggle.
Last week, prosecutors announced they would file no charges against Gunter. Assistant State Attorney Earl Varn wrote that he would not be able to disprove Gunter's self-defense claim.
Under the stand-your-ground portion of Florida's self-defense law, someone in fear is not required to first try backing away. But to me, that seems moot in this case. Gunter had little if any chance to back away. He was in an awkward position refueling his motorcycle when Atlas drove up quickly, jumped out and came at him.
Even with Gunter flashing a gun, Atlas was able to slam the smaller Gunter to the ground as they struggled.
Self-defense seems like the right legal call, and I'd think the same with or without the new law.
But stand-your-ground backers like to credit that new law for preventing injustice whenever they can, and this case has become an alleged example. Maybe a legitimate one, if only because, details aside, the law seems to have pushed prosecutors to more heavily weigh the right to put our own safety first when someone comes at us aggressively.
In the past, drawing a weapon on an apparently unarmed man before any contact or any specific threat of violence, no matter how unwise it may have been to wait, might have been cast by some cops and prosecutors as a dangerous and criminal escalation. The shooting might well have been blamed on the man who pulled the gun.
Of course, in some cases, they may have been quite right. Even under the new law, if I approach you in a grouchy fashion and you avoid an irate discussion by shooting me, I hope cops and prosecutors aren't a total pushover for your claim that you were in dire fear of harm.
I also hope there is a video, because if I'm dead, I will be a poor witness and unable to refute your one-sided, embellished account.
But oddly enough, the adamantly pro-stand-your-ground crowd isn't as happy as you might think about this case. Some insist Gunter should never have been arrested in the first place. Even Sarasota School Board member Frank Kovach implied such a concern when he posted this peevish question for Herald-Tribune reporter Lee Williams: “Lee, how long did Gunter remain jailed for legally defending himself?”
That's not why Gunter was jailed. He might be an innocent and nice guy, but he was jailed because he was suspected of illegally shooting a man. Because Gunter invoked his right to remain silent, investigators did not even have his side of the story.
It is asking a lot that shooters be allowed to avoid arrest after a wounded man tells police that the shooter was the aggressor and the shooter refuses to talk. All shooters have the right to remain silent, and a right to a lawyer to advise them on that, but it may not be the best way to avoid a trip to the slammer.
Some insist Gunter used his gun well for much-needed protection, so any inconvenient consequences are a shame. Others may argue Atlas was probably just going to yell at him, and that Gunter's use of his handy gun is what led to the scary and inconvenient outcomes for all, Gunter included.
Atlas had just a minor wound. But Gunter had faced a 25-year minimum prison sentence had he been prosecuted and found guilty of shooting Atlas in a criminal fashion. Without video showing Atlas twisted key details, prosecutors might have decided the gun-toting Gunter used road-raging bad judgment and shot Atlas to make a point about his driving.
I'm glad that didn't happen. But I'm still not totally sure if having a gun helped Gunter or hurt him.
— Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com
This Link is from the original media report on this self-defense incident: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20151007/ARTICLE/151009741?p=2&tc=pg
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20151116/COLUMNIST/151119729?p=1&tc=pg
