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Old June 1, 2008, 12:48 PM   #1
Jason 9
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Tulsa Man Pleads Guilty - Concealed Carry - What's the point?

I reside in the great state of Oklahoma and feel privileged to have the right to possess and carry firearms. However, after reading this I'm seriously questioning whether anyone in their right mind would take the risk of going to jail for something that I thought was a God given right such as defending myself.

Would any of you have acted any differently? In my case, I don't think that I would have and that's the reason that I purposely keep my guns in a locked case when in transit to and from the gun range now. This trial really made me question whether I want to face that option. It almost makes me feel like I'd sooner get shot, hopefully not fatally, than kill someone and risk going to jail.

Could I kill someone? I don't know. But in the confines of this forum I can state that I wouldn't have any reservations about taking someone's life who threatens mine or my family's. However, that statement is academic and who knows what I would really do.

The concealed carry law was a great step forward for citizens wanting to defend themselves and feel safe. It was not a response to a lack of police protection, in my opinion. Law enforcement officers in Oklahoma do a wonderful job of keeping the streets safe and do so while remaining cool under pressure. A lot of police in Oklahoma, like in other states, are ex-military and so have actually fired a weapon in a charged highly-excited state-of-mind and realize the significance of pulling the trigger. While I advocate the right of the average citizen to protect themselves, I'm not advocating that citizens replace or fill the role of trained law enforcement officers. But, in those crucial minutes or seconds prior to police involvement there must be an option.

Only Kenneth Gumm knows what really happened, because unlike in "CSI TV fantasy land", dead men don't speak. The consensus around here is that he was justified.

What do you think?

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/artic...1_hTheRi146269

The link is for the article. If there is anything offensive on the newspaper's site, then apologies in advance.

Last edited by Jason 9; June 1, 2008 at 01:31 PM.
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Old June 1, 2008, 01:13 PM   #2
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Wow.

Unless the facts are substantially different than related in the news article, he should not have pled guilty.

Just wow.

(Hmmm. And this is why I'm all for the new Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network. If they can help prevent apparent travesties like this, more power to them!)

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Old June 1, 2008, 01:33 PM   #3
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Makes you wonder if there is some more to this story.... Oklahoma has the "Stand Your Ground" law, so I suspect there is more here than is reported.
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Old June 1, 2008, 01:35 PM   #4
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Shoulda got a better lawyer! I'm not going to take an ass-beating, if I'm armed.
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Old June 1, 2008, 01:43 PM   #5
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Sounds to me he felt guilty about taking another man's life, justified or not.
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Old June 1, 2008, 03:03 PM   #6
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It looks like a good shoot, from what I have read.

Quote:
"People have asked me was there anything else I could have done. I don't think there is. My car was locked. He was right on me all the time. There's no way I could have gotten in my car," said Kenneth Gumm.

Witnesses say Turney shoved Gumm and threatened to kill him. Gumm last year told The News On 6 that he had no other choice. Turney's family doesn't buy it.

"He could have used a cell phone. He could have stayed in the car. He could have yelled for help," said Sharon Macintosh, Dale Turney's sister.

"Mr. Gumm had the authority. He had the gun, and Dale was unarmed," added James Macintosh, Turney's brother-in-law.
Disparity of force. A 48 year old man attacks a 67 year old disabled man.
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Old June 1, 2008, 04:43 PM   #7
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Sounds to me he felt guilty about taking another man's life, justified or not.
Kind of like that whiny Bernie Goetz!
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Old June 1, 2008, 05:04 PM   #8
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That Tulsa prosecutor is an OK one of a kind. In this county (Comanche) he would have gotten a pass.
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Old June 1, 2008, 06:30 PM   #9
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I agree that he should not have plead guilty. And I fail to see how people can be so blind to the fact that a human being does not need to be armed in any way to cause you serious harm or kill you. There is a real danger there when you are being assualted, and you should not have to assume that a person will stop beating you before causing you serious injury or death.
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Old June 1, 2008, 07:09 PM   #10
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Should not have pleaded guilty, does not appear to have had top legal advice.
The person who was shot no doubt bought most of it upon himself, despite being the great person his family describes him as being.
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Old June 1, 2008, 07:56 PM   #11
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Sounds like he's going to get a deferred judgement, which means he won't have a conviction on his record provided he doesnt violate the terms of his supervision.

I suspect he pled to avoid the "what if" factor of going to trial.
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Old June 1, 2008, 09:08 PM   #12
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The more I think about this the more it disturbs me. The state passes a law and then the local DA goes after the people who exercise their rights under that LAW.

Are we suppose to call 911 and ask for permission before defending ourselves?

What if the man didn't fire in self-defense and was disarmed? Then what?

Frustrating.
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Old June 2, 2008, 12:27 AM   #13
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Taking a guaranteed deferred and ultimately having no record might not be a bad idea.

Spare me the righteous indignation, being "right" doesn't mean anything, "winning" does...
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Old June 2, 2008, 09:40 AM   #14
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True, but this doesn't seem like a win to me. It seems like a limited loss. He lost, but the side who beat him didn't get to run up the score in order to beat the spread.
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Old June 2, 2008, 09:58 AM   #15
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If I was chosen to sit on this jury he would have been found not guilty.

I sure would not have taken a beat down by some 47 year old hot head. The DA is just trying to make himself look good...I wonder what he would have done if someone came at him with the intention of doing bodily harm, the hot head had blocked the guy in and had already pushed him, would he have turned the other cheek so it could be pounded on? I doubt it. These people need to consider what they would have done if they found themselves in a similar situation.
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Old June 2, 2008, 09:59 AM   #16
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I think I would have went to trial...it only takes one.
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Old June 2, 2008, 10:08 AM   #17
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WOW is all I can come up with!
I don't care if the attacker is my age or even twice my age, I would have to meet force with force. Just what force is determined at a very distinct moment in time. Now that I do not have both upper limbs at the ready to fist fight or grapple my opponent I have limited options available. I think that Gumm gave the guy more than enough time to back off.
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Old June 2, 2008, 10:12 AM   #18
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One feels privileged if one went to Riverdale or Collegiate or Horace Mann or some other awesome private school. One feels privileged (and honored) if the most beautiful, charismatic, faithful, and financially responsible girl in the world accepts one's marriage proposal, and the billionaire father-in-law agrees to finance the lavish wedding.

Quote:
I reside in the great state of Oklahoma and feel privileged to have the right to possess and carry firearms.
Not so related, but very important. Your right to keep and bear arms *is not* a privilege. Maybe you just chose the wrong words; to consider any of our rights as a "privilege" is extremely bad.

On topic: we obviously don't have all the facts, but from what I can pull out of the article, BAD LEGAL ADVICE.

Quote:
"I thought my life was going to end, so I pulled the trigger to stop him, not kill him," according to Gumm's written version of events.
Isn't that the correct training?
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Old June 2, 2008, 10:31 AM   #19
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Doesn't matter what canned response one uses, when you point a firearm at somebody and pull the trigger, it's ALWAYS your intention to kill that person, unless you make some OBVIOUS attempt at wounding, such as kneecapping, shooting a foot, etc., etc.
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Old June 2, 2008, 10:53 AM   #20
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1. Having lived in OKC and seen the news regarding several self-defense shootings where the outcome was "no charges filed", I think the castle doctrine and stand your ground law are both highly respected in OK, at least in OKC and there would have been plenty of case histories for an adequate defense.

2. I think the undoing of this man's case was this statement:
"I thought my life was going to end, so I pulled the trigger to stop him, not kill him," according to Gumm's written version of events. If I was the prosecution, I would have snatched that up and come back with, "So, you want us to believe that you honestly thought your life was in danger and yet your intended actions were to use less than deadly force?"

In the military I am trained that, when using a gun, there is no other intent other than to shoot to kill someone. There are no warning shots, there are no wounding shots, there are only shots fired to kill.

I think my response would have been, "I felt my life was in danger and I had no other choice but to respond with deadly force." But the best advice is still probably to never, ever make a statement to the police or to the public regarding self defense until the advise of a good lawyer with self defense case backgroung is obtained.
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Old June 2, 2008, 12:03 PM   #21
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Quote:
Doesn't matter what canned response one uses, when you point a firearm at somebody and pull the trigger, it's ALWAYS your intention to kill that person, unless you make some OBVIOUS attempt at wounding, such as kneecapping, shooting a foot, etc., etc.
Quote:
"So, you want us to believe that you honestly thought your life was in danger and yet your intended actions were to use less than deadly force?"
No. Using deadly force is not the same as wanting to kill someone. Hitting a person with a bat is deadly force.* Shooting them with a .22 is deadly force. The fact is, I don't care if the person against whom I use deadly force dies or not. If he dies in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital after killing my entire family, that does me no good. All I care about is that he stops doing whatever it was he was doing that caused me to find it necessary to shoot him. If I can do that reliably without killing him, great. All that matters is that my loved ones and I survive.

Quote:
In the military I am trained that, when using a gun, there is no other intent other than to shoot to kill someone. There are no warning shots, there are no wounding shots, there are only shots fired to kill.
We all know that the military is entirely different from what we are discussing here. Even so, you shoot to stop.


* Deadly force is defined as that amount of force which will, or is likely to, result in death or great bodily harm. Great bodily harm includes any permanent or temporary incapacitating injury, non-trivial scar, or any other injury of a serious nature. This can include broken bones. Hence, use of a bat, being likely to cause broken bones, is considered to legally be deadly force.
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Old June 2, 2008, 12:14 PM   #22
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Quote:
No. Using deadly force is not the same as wanting to kill someone.
There's a lot of interpretation on these issues about what a person says and how it is taken. I was just saying, I think, if I was ever in that situation, I would never say that, once I truly felt my life was in danger, that I was attempting to use anything less than deadly force. I would make no statements to the effect of or that could be construed as I only meant to wound him/her.

The whole point is, if we are ever in that situation to have to defend our actions, we have to be very careful as to exactly what we say and how we say it because so much can be interpreted to mean so many different things. Like, I didn't mean to kill him/her only to stop them can be taken to mean, so you didn't mean to use deadly force and if you didn't mean to use deadly force, then you must have thought at the time that deadly force wasn't warranted.
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Old June 2, 2008, 12:33 PM   #23
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Quote:
"And the first thing he said was 'You're history,' and I pulled my gun out and pointed it at him and I thought that would deescalate the situation, but it didn't. He just kept coming," said Gumm.

Gumm says Turney backed him around his car two or perhaps three times. He says Turney accused him of tailgating and said “You don't mess with me.” He says Turney caught up to him and shoved him, and he says that's when he shot Turney in the chest.

"People have asked me was there anything else I could have done, I don't think there is,” Gumm said. “My car was locked, he was right on me all the time, there's no way I could have gotten in my car. With my health issues, it was the best I could do just to keep away from him as long as I did."

Gumm hasn't changed his mind about carrying a gun, or what could have happened if he didn't have it.

"I think I could have been hurt very badly. He's 20 years younger than me, he was pretty big, I don't think he was especially tall, but he looked like he was pretty heavy, pretty stocky to me," said Gumm.
The gun was presented at the first words coming out of the dead mans mouth. It sounds to me like there was no effort made to really de-escalate any part of the situation.
No part of any of those articles shows where Gumm apologized for whatever infraction, real, or imaginary, he might have done to Turney. Often a situation like this resolves itself when one party says "hey you are right, i am wrong, you have the giant genitalia, i have miniatures, you are the god of the universe, i am the scum of the earth".

Some people think that they shouldn't have to let their ego take a bruising, that they can use deadly force to save face or escape embarrassment. That is NOT what the 'stand your ground' laws allow for.
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Old June 2, 2008, 02:46 PM   #24
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He had no responsibility to attempt to deescalate the situation. Many times attempting to deescalate the situation will, in fact, make things worse. He gave the guy fair warning. He attempted to escape. The guy continued to pursue him and escalated the situation by begininng the use of force. Did Gumm do everything he could to prevent the situation? Probably not. When he was being pursued, he could have called 911, IF he had a cell phone. We don't know if he had a cell phone or not. He could have driven to a police station, if he knew where one was - do you know where all the police stations are in Tulsa?

He could have driving to a convenience store and parked right at the front and ran in - oh wait, no he couldn't because he was carrying a concealed weapon and most C-stores are posted no self defense, so that option is out.

But the fact is, Gumm did not continue to escalate the situation to the use of force, Turney did, and Gumm should have gotten decent lawyers, but he probably could not afford them, so he had to settle for what he could. I know, I have been in that situation as well, where it just plain costs too much money to prove your innocence in court, and that situation just plain sucks. He should never have been prosecuted and should have been found not guilty if he was.
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Old June 2, 2008, 03:19 PM   #25
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Navy, Having read all the posted press on this I see that Gumm had already locked his car door and shut it when the dead guy pounced. Gumm was sure he could not out run the guy and his car was blocked in by the dead guy's. Thus he had little option.
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