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1. My car accident yesterday
2. RIP - VCDL member killed in a motorcycle accident
3. Florida shooting - a look again at Virginia laws on self-defense
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1. My car accident yesterday
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Yesterday, while headed up to Annandale to run the VCDL meeting, I was involved in an automobile accident.
Cliff's Notes: a teenager making a turn pulled out in front of me unexpectedly, I had no time to react and hit her at about 35 mph.
Although I think both cars are totaled, my seatbelt and airbag did their job and I walked away with some minor cuts and bruises. Executive Member Bob Sadtler, who was my passenger, wasn't quite as lucky as he ended up with a broken kneecap and is recuperating at home. Immediately after the impact, as the airbag was deflating and my car was still rolling, I was concerned because Bob was coughing and gagging. It turned out that when my airbag deployed all the smoke and gasses were blown out sideways - right into his face.
Bob and I were both open carrying as we exited the vehicle. My car had gone about a 150 feet past the point of impact before I could pull over and get the vehicle to stop moving (the motor had died and all power steering and power brakes were gone), so we weren't near the teenager's vehicle. But there were a lot of people at her car helping her. We were about a block from a police substation, so they were on the scene pretty fast, as was EMS and Fire, whose station was about 1/2 mile down the road.
Bob was able to walk. but was complaining about his knee, and it was good that he let EMS take him to the hospital. The teenager left on a stretcher, but the insurance company told me she would be fine, and was mostly shook up.
I mentioned that Bob and I were open carrying. When EMS was getting ready to transport Bob, they asked him to give me his gun to secure, which he did. Chesterfield Police handled everything smoothly and professionally and no questions were asked about our lawful carry, including asking to see any permits. Yes, the four or so officers at the scene definitely saw we were armed.
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On a funny note, when the wrecker was hooking up to my car and we were unloading the contents it into my wife's car (luckily this happened only about a mile from my home), I realized that I needed my key to open the trunk. However, the key was stuck in the ignition as the car refused to be placed into "park." The wrecker didn't want to wait, but I insisted that they would not take my car until the trunk had been emptied.
Out of frustration I pushed as hard as I could on the transmission shifter and got it close enough to the "park" position to where I could finally get the key out.
I opened the trunk and as I was emptying it, two of the police officers walked over and laughed when they saw me take some cased firearms out of the trunk. One said, "I was betting THAT was why you weren't going to let them tow your car before emptying your trunk!"
The other officer said he was interested in getting an AK-47, so we chatted a little about AKs. Hey, he started it!
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Thanks so much to everyone who heard about the accident and sent their wishes that Bob and I would heal quickly. I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that I'm a member of such a great family of people! My wife, Margaret, and Dennis O'Connor were at the scene in a flash to make sure that Bob and I were alright and to help out. Jim Snyder, on very short notice, ran the meeting in my place.
If any of you would like to send any messages to Bob, you can email him at:
bob.sadtler@vcdl.org
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2. RIP - VCDL member killed in a motorcycle accident
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While Bob and I were lucky in our accident, another VCDL member was not so lucky earlier this week.
I received this email from EM Ed Levine. Rest in Peace, Matt:
Philip -
It is with great sadness that I inform you of the tragic death of VCDL member Matt Kish. Matt has been a neighboring co-worker of mine for years and a recent Maryland transplant to Ashburn, VA. With that move to Virginia came gun rights... Matt bought a handgun and started learning about gun rights, VCDL and Open Carry. He could be seen at many or our open carry events in Northern Virginia.
Matt was riding his motorcycle about 40 MPH on a curve when a truck pulling a horse trailer in the other direction was cheating half-way into Matt's lane. Matt was forced off the road and hit a tree. The newspaper article is here:
From Insidenova.com: http://tiny.cc/mattkish
Matt's friend Darin Eller had already cleared the curve and said "Matt didn't lose control, he was avoiding a head on collision with a truck pulling a horse trailer who crossed into his lane and he unfortunately went off the road and crashed. Inside Nova needs to get their facts straight. I know because I was there in front of him and I nearly got hit. The driver of the truck never stopped and to my knowledge has not been found."
Matt was engaged to be married this summer to Iryna Kruchko from Minsk, Belarus.
Here are some photos of Matt:
http://tinyurl.com/89nloot
http://tinyurl.com/87b9rhr
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3. Florida shooting - a look again at Virginia laws on self-defense
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THE SHOOTING
There is a big uproar over a shooting in Florida this week. There is currently still some confusion over exactly what happened. The bottom line is that an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by the head of a local neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman.
One spin being put on the shooting is that it was racial - Martin was black and Zimmerman is hispanic (but a "light-skinned" hispanic as the media is noting over and over again - in the media's naive world only white people can be racists). So, the implication is that Zimmerman committed a racially motivated murder out of hatred and is hiding behind Florida's "Stand-your-ground" law to avoid prosecution.
Apparently Zimmerman saw Martin doing something suspicious and called 9-1-1 to report it to police. While on the phone with the dispatcher Zimmerman was told that he didn't have to follow the suspicious teen, which apparently he was doing. Shortly thereafter there was a confrontation that left Zimmerman bleeding from the nose and back of his head and the teenager dead. Zimmerman claims he was attacked and defended himself.
Zimmerman has not been charged and police are still investigating.
The antis, as one would expect, are dancing in Martin's blood. Their hope is that this one single event will be used as an excuse to weaken self-defense laws across the country.
FALLOUT FOR VIRGINIA?
Oh, the antis are going to try to change our laws to be a "must retreat" state, at least when out in public. I'm told that an ex-federal prosecutor is already starting to talk about such an idea in the media, but I haven't found a link to anything as of the time I am writing this.
The antis will have a very tough fight on their hands if they try to damage our right to self-defense! We are going to be on guard for such an attack next year.
We've covered self-defense in Virginia ad nauseum recently, but let's look at Virginia's self-defense laws again - it never hurts to review them:
Self-defense in Virginia's common law goes back over 400 YEARS. If attacked, Common law allows an innocent citizen to be able to defend himself wherever he may be. Deadly force can be used in such a case if the victim REASONABLY feels that he is in IMMEDIATE danger of death or GRIEVOUS bodily injury. If you REASONABLY believe that a person who is attacking you is armed, then you can use deadly force even if, in the end, he was unarmed. Or, if you REASONABLY feel that an unarmed person, who is more powerful than you, is going to kill you with his bare hands and/or feet, you can use deadly force to stop that attack.
The key in Virginia's Stand-Your-Ground common law is that you are not somehow an instigator of the violence so as to use that violence as an excuse to kill the other person. If, for example, you are closely following a suspect, or are confronting a suspect in some way, (both of which Zimmerman *appears* to have done) you may suddenly find yourself on very thin legal ice if attacked. This is where the extraordinary powers we give police come in handy for them. You and I lack many of those legal protections.
If you do find that you goofed up and are "part of the problem, " then you need to retreat as far as you can, indicate you have given up the fight, and only if cornered and the person persists in what you REASONABLY believe is a deadly attack, may you then use deadly force to protect yourself. You will certainly have a lot of explaining to do to the authorities if you find yourself in this kind of situation.
Bottom line: if you are not a police officer, you should avoid confronting a criminal whenever possible. If your life, or the life of another innocent person, is in immediate danger, and you feel that confrontation might stop the criminal from the act, then do what you have to do to save the threatened innocent life. Perhaps yelling at a person who is attempting to rape someone will scare them off - only you will be able to make that call if you find yourself in a position where you can make a difference.
Just remember this: at the end of the day, you need to be able to explain exactly why you feared immediate death or grievous bodily injury and, if the police and prosecutor agree that you had every reason to believe what you did, you will probably not be charged for murder (or attempted murder or brandishing). If the police or prosecutor reasonably believe that you were looking for trouble or a fight, that is going to be a problem, and rightfully so.
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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]