Feeling threatened? Fire away;Shoot First law next on NRA agenda

Wondering what's next on the NRA agenda if they ever get concealed carry on the books in Wisconsin?

Wonder no longer. Sure as night follows day, it will be a Shoot First law.

Florida's had one since Oct. 1. It basically makes it legal to shoot anyone, anywhere in the state of Florida, anytime you feel threatened.

While useful for criminals who need an easy defense, the law (surprise!) is actually fairly dangerous for Florida residents and visitors. The Brady Campaign has been at the airports, handing out leaflets warning tourists to be careful around Florida's armed residents, in case they take a raised voice or a hand gesture the wrong way.

The Gun Guys say:

The gun lobby's arguments seem to get more and more ludicrous as we go along. They say that this law, which lets home and carowners legally shoot first without requiring them to consider retreating as a possibility, is merely a safeguard for their supposed "right" to keep and bear arms. When did the second amendment include a right to kill? Does the Constitution have an amendment we don't know about that makes it legal to kill other human beings for acting in any way that may be percieved as "threatening"?

This bill probably will lower the crime rate, because a certain amount of killings that would have been declared illegal will now be seen as completely legal, but one thing it won't lower is violence... {W]henever a trigger is pulled, for any reason, consequences are faced on both sides of the barrel. Killing in self defense? Guess what, America. It's still killing. Legal or not, it causes all kinds of pain either way.

Colorado has the law, too. Here's what happened last week, the Gun Guys say:

Last year, Gary Lee Hill was attacked in his home by four people, including a 19-year-old named John David Knott. Afterwards, Knott and his fellow criminals headed for the car, and drove away from Hill's house down the street. Hill, meanwhile, grabbed a gun, and, while Knott and the passengers were driving away from him, Hill shot them in the back and killed Knott.

By any reasonable set of deduction, this is murder. Knott had exited Hill's house and was clearly presenting no viable threat any more to Hill. Yes, Hill had been attacked, but he had all the legal recourse in the world. Since time immemorial, humanity has held that if you kill another human being, and it's not in self defense, you have committed murder.

Until the NRA came along.

Because under the "shoot first" law they passed in Colorado (and Florida, and soon, the rest of the United States), what Hill did isn't murder. It isn't even illegal. He was threatened by Hill at some point in the past, and so the NRA's law granted him the "right" to shoot Knott in the back. Taken to extremes, Hill could have shot and killed Knott years later, and it would have all been completely legal, as long as Knott had threatened him at some point in the past. Because of Colorado's "shoot first" law, Hill was, this past weekend, acquitted of the murder of John David Knott.

This is lunacy, as we've said all along about the "shoot first" bill. The NRA's law effectively legalizes killing. Even the sponsor of the Colorado bill called the Hill case a "miscarriage of justice."

But it's not a miscarriage of the law. What does it mean when the NRA passes a law like this, one that allows killers to run free in the streets? What does it mean when, at the cost of citizens' safety, they make it a priority to get this law passed in all 50 of our states? It doesn't mean they have the best interests of American citizens in mind, we'll tell you that.

Because they don't. This law is dangerous. It's violent, and unnecessary. "Shoot first" is a travesty of the American justice system, and passing it, in any state, is a license to murder.

What's that? You say it hasn't been proposed in Wisconsin? Of course not. It doesn't make sense to have a Shoot First law until you have a law that lets you tote concealed weapons. Shoot First is the next step. There is still a good chance that Gov. Doyle's veto of concealed carry will be upheld, which will keep the NRA occupied for awhile. One can only hope.