8 September 2004
Randall Dice: Menace to Public Safety
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The buzz was all over the school today, about a robbery at Herkner Jewelers, right here in downtown Grand Rapids. That's just a block away, and there were gunshots and everything. Not an everyday thing, and alarming, to say the least. Then I heard a more complete version of the story: the shots were fired by the store owner, at the fleeing robber, out on the street. Now I'm really scared.
This is an excellent example of why - to hell with the Second Amendment - guns need to be regulated, for public safety. And this Randall Dice - owner of the store - should not be allowed to have one. Anyone irrational enough to fire a weapon at an unarmed, fleeing thief, down a downtown street at lunch time with people walking by and traffic on the street, cannot be trusted with one. This gun-wielding lunatic hit a minivan with a man driving it, and shot out the rear window of a woman's SUV, also with her in it.
This wasn't self-defence; the thief was fleeing. It wasn't to protect anyone; the thief was unarmed. And you can't argue that Dice was simply trying to wound the man; someone of such obviously marginal marksmanship can't be that precise. He was shooting to kill, and doing so with reckless disregard for any innocent victims. If any of his shots had killed someone, it would be murder (if it was the guy he was aiming at) or manslaughter (if it was one of the bystanders). The fact that he missed shouldn't let him off the hook.
I'm not forgetting that there's a thief and his getaway driver, who are guilty of larceny and being an accomplice to it. I hope they're located and convicted accordingly. And of course we should take into consideration that Dice's volley of gunshots was a crime of passion. I can certainly understand the owner of a store reacting emotionally to a robbery. (Hell, I can even understand him firing the gun; that's why I have the good sense not to own one.) But how much weight to give that should be for the jury to decide. If this guy isn't charged, and if he's allowed to keep that gun, then a menace to public safety will be left, unchecked on the streets.
# 2004-09-08 06:17 PM | TrackBackUPDATE: Dice has been charged with reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor. He pleaded "no contest", which isn't an admission of guilt, but is treated that way in sentencing. By not pleading "guilty" he's in a better position with the civil suits he's going to face from the victims of his shots. The conviction could put him in jail for 3 months.
That's probably a fair sentence: enough to make him think twice before playing Wyatt Earp next time. But it still amazes me that - except for endangering bystanders - what he did was legal.
His lawyer is blathering about Dice's right to "defend himself". Of course he has that right. Shooting at an unarmed man who is running away from you is not "defence". But since the thief was a "fleeing felon", it's OK.
By what moral standard?
The retaliatory aspects of our legal system are usually justified as coming from the country's religious roots. But this kind of scenario certainly doesn't get an endorsement anywhere in the New Testament, and the more punitive Old Testament standard of "an eye for an eye" is still more merciful than "a life for a Rolex".
So what about other religions? As I understand it, strict Islam would call for the guy's hand to be cut off, not for a potentially fatal gunshot to be administered. I'm less familiar with Hinduism, but I think the emphasis there would be on requiring penance from the guilty party, and definitely not taking his life. I know that Taoism says to repay evil with kindness; this doesn't sound at all like that. The Dalai Lama teaches that killing interferes with the potential for criminals to improve themselves, so no support from Buddhism either.
Basically it comes down to the same old amoral principle that's behind so much of our "criminal justice" system: revenge. It's OK to shoot a fleeing felon because felonies are serious crimes and we want to hurt people who commit serious crimes. When I'm too close to the crime, I feel the same way. But I believe it's wrong to carry out that feeling, as surely as it's wrong to beat your wife when she pisses you off or any other act of passionate violence. Shooting at a fleeing felon is no better.
Posted by: God's ex-Boyfriend at September 18, 2004 12:28 PM
