USA Today
The arrest this week of a 73-year-old Nevada man in the shooting death of a trespasser has elicited debate on the state's "stand your ground" law. Wayne Burgarello was charged with murder and attempted murder in the February shooting of two people in a Sparks duplex. According to a police affidavit filed this week, on Feb. 13, Burgarello entered a vacant duplex he owned where two people were staying without his consent. Burgarello entered with two guns and fired several rounds, followed by a pause and a final shot, killing Cody Devine, 34, and seriously injuring Janai Wilson, 29, the affidavit said. Burgarello said the shooting was self-defense. He told police he shot after Devine, who was lying on the floor, appeared to move his arm parallel to the ground as if he had a gun. According to the affidavit, Burgarello told police: "I don't know which arm it was. I think it might have been the left arm. That makes sense because there's another person next to him. The arm came up ... right at the center of me. I think I said, 'Who are you? What are you doing here? Something like that. I don't know if I said anything or not. The arm came up like a gun, and I reacted."
The gun-rights fanatics love to say, "Aha, he didn't get away with it." They say this in response to the made-up gun-control position that every single person who cries "stand your ground" gets away with it. Of course we don't say that. Some get away with it, some don't.
The main point is that the stand-you-ground mentality is encouraging more people to shoot first and ask questions later. The fact that some of them don't get away with it means little to the people who are killed and injured unnecessarily.
