Andrew Wiggin said:
I've heard that argument yet I have yet to see anyone produce a reference to a case where someone was convicted because of their use of a scary gun....
More of the usual drivel. As you, yourself, wrote in the article you linked to in the OP:
Andrew Betts (Andrew Wiggin) said:
The problem with opinions is that people who really don’t have any clue what they’re talking about are happy to offer one. They’ll just repeat any old garbage that they’ve heard on a subject, no matter how ridiculous and unfounded....
You are not as far as we know a lawyer. You do not, as far as we know, have any good reason to know from first hand experience how litigation works, how things are done in court, and how jurors think. For example, how many post verdict interviews of jurors by counsel have you participated in? Are you familiar with the research on jury behavior, such as this article,
"Will it Hurt me in Court", by our own Glenn E. Meyer and published in the professional journal,
The Jury Expert?
As far as looking for cases, the threshold question is always whether any the relevant factor (e. g.,modified gun, "scary gun", handloaded ammunition, etc,) was even present in past cases. How often have certain guns (or handloaded ammunition) been used in an incident in which self defense was claimed and which went to trial?
Historical research is helpful only if there's sufficient historical data. If the question is something like, "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be charged if he used a "scary" gun?", or "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be convicted at trial if he used a "scary" gun?", the availability of useful data depends on (1) a large enough sample of private citizens having shot someone in claimed self defense; and (2) a large enough subset of those private citizens having used a "scary" gun. I suggest that the vast majority of people who keep guns for self defense aren't enthusiasts and use pretty ordinary guns. Indeed, even many of the members here, who are enthusiasts, use pretty ordinary guns for self defense.
Just because there is insufficient historical data doesn't mean that professionals can't draw reasoned conclusions about how likely a particular result might be under certain circumstance. Indeed, it often happens in the practice of law that a particular issue of interest has not previously been addressed by an appellate court, and one must make a reasoned judgment without the guidance of on point precedent.
Things that go on in trials don't routinely hit the legal publications. In general, only decisions of an appellate court get published. So it would be very unlikely to see a case in which an issue with a lightened trigger showed up in published reports of appellate courts. There are very few cases of self defense in which a gun is actually fired; and only a few of those involved a modified gun; and only a few of those wind up in trial; and only a portion of those go up on appeal.
However, we have reasons to believe that things like ammunition or type of gun used can have an effect on the way members of a jury will view matters and therefore on whether, or how, they can be convinced. For example:
- From post verdict interviews of some of the jurors who convicted Harold Fish in Arizona, we know that the ammunition Fish used played a part in the jury verdict. (Fish did win his appeal, a new trial ordered, and the DA chose instead to dismiss the charges.)
- Jury simulation studies as describe in this article suggest that the type of gun used can also affect the perceptions of a jury. (The author, Dr. Glenn Meyer, is a moderator here.)
- I have personal knowledge, based on my participation in post verdict interviews of jurors, of how various things can affect how a juror views and evaluates evidence.
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out repeatedly in his books
Fooled by Randomness, the Hidden Role of Chance (Random House, 2004) and
The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2007), "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Taleb, a securities trader and professor at the University of Massachusetts, provides some interesting and useful insights into strategies for dealing with rare events.
Andrew Wiggin said:
So you can't find a case that supports that argument....
So how frequently have NFA weapons/devices been used in acts of violence against other persons in circumstances later decided through our legal processes to have been justified self defense?