This is a good one

[cck51]

The Utter Corruption That Is New York City


In NY (as with the rest of the country) it is legal to kill someone who presents an unambiguous and credible intent to murder you.

However, if you do it with their firearm in NY you will go to prison for five years. Even when the shooting is is ruled justifiable homicide.

In a case seen as a test of the battered-woman defense, Barbara Sheehan, 50, was acquitted of second-degree murder last month after her lawyers successfully argued that she fired a gun at her husband only after he threatened to kill her.

So he threatened to kill her and she shot him. The jury bought it - that the threat was credible and he intended to actually imminently commit murder, making her shooting him justified under the law. So far we're good. But then...

She was sentenced in state Supreme Court in Queens to five years in prison and two years of probation on the unlawful gun possession charge, based on her use of her husband's weapons. She had faced a possible sentence of 3-1/2 to 15 years.

She shot him with his gun, and since we all know that The Second Amendment does not apply in New York (because the people of NY refuse to demand the protection of their right to keep and bear arms) she goes to prison for two to five years because she exercised her lawful right to prevent her own death using a weapon owned by the person who threatened to kill her.

Let's take this out of the realm of the "battered wife" issue for a moment and focus on something that might well happen to you.

You're walking down the sidewalk in Queens. Suddenly a man pops out from around a corner and sticks a gun in your face, demanding your wallet. You withdraw your wallet to comply, and as you do so a car backfires nearby, startling the robber. He turns and you grab his pistol, successfully relieving him of it.

He then pulls a second weapon from his belt and is about to shoot you with it.

If you drop him -- a perfectly legal shoot anywhere in the United States under these circumstances -- you go to prison for 2-5 years and are permanently debarred from ever owning a firearm in the future as a convicted felon since you unlawfully possessed the weapon you just successfully defended yourself with and which you took from your assailant!

If the people of New York allow this to stand then there is never a purpose for any justice-minded person to ever set foot in

 

[CEHollier]

Another good reason not to live there.

 

[goodburbon]

I'm curious if any other country has laws such that you're guaranteed by the foundational law the right to keep and bear arms, but can be convicted of no other crime but the bearing of arms, and have that right revoked. It requires mental gymnastics just to comprehend.

 

[sandman7925]

Get used to this kind of insanity. It's a disease and it is spreading.

 

[Gus McCrae]

Can you provide a link to the story please? Thank you.

 

[cck51]

Here's the link sorry http://market-ticker.org/

Can you provide a link to the story please? Thank you.

 

[jimdana1942]

Poor lady. I don't know why the South doesn't rise up again, secede, and have our own Constitution. After all, we have most of the U.S. energy sources and reserves. Maybe the midwest and some of the West would join us.

 

[JWG223]

Poor lady. I don't know why the South doesn't rise up again, secede, and have our own Constitution. After all, we have most of the U.S. energy sources and reserves. Maybe the midwest and some of the West would join us.

Because plenty of NY'ers will say "Man, that's crap, I hope it doesn't happen to me..."

That's how people work. Nothing bad is ever "real" until it's happened to them. It's going to have to get A LOT worse before it gets better.

 

[Yrdawg]

Poor lady. I don't know why the South doesn't rise up again, secede, and have our own Constitution. After all, we have most of the U.S. energy sources and reserves. Maybe the midwest and some of the West would join us.

all the documents exist IIRC, articls of confederation, La State Constitution, I don't 'member so much but I got it on Google or Wiki before...amazing how close we really are to a repeat

 

[woopazz403]

Poor lady. I don't know why the South doesn't rise up again, secede, and have our own Constitution. After all, we have most of the U.S. energy sources and reserves. Maybe the midwest and some of the West would join us.

+1000
Of course now the ATF will come barging into our homes and take every firearm we own for saying such a statement.
Funny how that works eh?

 

[70116]

Here's the news report from The New York Times.

5-Year Term for Woman Who Killed Her Husband

By DAN BILEFSKY

A Queens woman who killed her husband after suffering years of abuse at his hands was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison on a weapons charge, less than the maximum sentence of 15 years but short of her request for further leniency.
The woman, Barbara Sheehan, shot her husband, Raymond Sheehan, 11 times in their home in Howard Beach in February 2008; although she used two guns, she claimed that she fired in self-defense after he had first threatened her life with one of the guns. Ms. Sheehan was acquitted of murder, but convicted of gun possession — the second gun that she used that day.
During a one-month trial that cast a spotlight on the issue of domestic violence, Ms. Sheehan and her children testified that she had faced years of relentless abuse, including having a phone smashed in her face when she tried to call 911. But the prosecution argued that she was a manipulative liar who had killed her husband, a former police sergeant, to escape an unhappy marriage, and claimed abuse only to escape justice.
Acting Justice Barry Kron of State Supreme Court in Queens acknowledged that the trial underscored the cumulative toll of nearly two decades of domestic abuse, but he said the sentence had to reflect the crime committed during the course of the killing. “Raymond Sheehan was not the person on trial,” he said.
Jurors found Ms. Sheehan guilty of gun possession because she had used the weapon after he no longer posed a danger, since she had already shot him several times with a different gun.
Before the sentence was given, Linda Sheehan, the wife of Raymond Sheehan’s twin brother, Vincent, urged the judge to remember that Barbara Sheehan was the criminal, not the victim in this case. She said Barbara Sheehan had killed her husband for selfish reasons, had manipulated the facts and had not once expressed remorse for what she had done.
“We are heartbroken that the jury lost sight of the real victim in this crime; it was not Barbara Sheehan,” she said, shaking. “It was Raymond Sheehan. She took the life of Raymond Sheehan, the only victim.”
As Linda Sheehan spoke, Barbara Sheehan showed no emotion, at one point looking directly at Vincent Sheehan. When the judge asked her if she wanted to speak, she said quietly: “I’ve said numerous times I am sorry what this incident has done to me and my family. I am sorry for what happened.”
Prosecutors had asked for a “substantial” sentence. Debra Pomodore, an assistant district attorney, told the judge that Ms. Sheehan had been “smug” throughout the trial and had shown “not one scintilla of remorse.”
“This was not a victimless crime,” she said.
Referring to the second gun Ms. Sheehan fired at her husband, Ms. Pomodore said, “She used that gun and fired it six times into a man lying on the bathroom floor who was disabled and not able to do anything but scream.”
Outside the courthouse, Ms. Sheehan’s lawyer, Michael G. Dowd, said he was “hurt and angry by this sentence.” Referring to Raymond Sheehan, he added: “Every time he struck a blow, put a gun in her mouth, spit on her in front of her children, he committed a crime. It is appalling that such behavior is sanctioned.”
Judge Kron had the discretion to send Ms. Sheehan to prison for as little as 27 months. The sentence included two and a half years of supervised release.
Ms. Sheehan was allowed to remain free on $1 million bail while her appeal of her verdict is pending. After the sentencing, she walked out of the courthouse and headed for the subway to go to her job as a school secretary.
She expressed deep disappointment in an interview that the judge had imposed such a harsh sentence and had failed to account for the fact that she had been the victim of vicious domestic violence.
As she walked, a passer-by hugged her.
“Keep praying for me,” Ms. Sheehan said.