My answer to that question is "NOYFB" That usually shuts them up.
Posted on 06/18/2012 4:24:09 AM PDT by marktwain
In a case attorneys say has no precedent in New Hampshire, a federal appeals court is weighing whether the owner of a handgun used to kill three people at a Conway military surplus shop in July 2007 could be held liable for their murders.
Lawrence Secord didn't do enough to secure the .22-caliber handgun he kept at his camp in Wentworth Location, enabling his grandson, Michael Woodbury, to steal it and open fire in the Army Barracks store several days later, according to a lawsuit brought by the mother of one of the victims.
A federal judge decided Secord didn't have a duty to store his gun in a different manner, citing the circumstances of the case - that Woodbury had broken into Secord's cabin - and a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that individuals ordinarily can't be held liable for crimes committed by others.
Attorneys for the victim's mother disagreed with the decision and took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which recently heard the appeal.
The court won't decide whether Secord stored the gun safely - only if he had a duty to, said Roberto Tepichin, a Boston attorney representing Gail Jones, whose 23-year-old son, Gary, was killed by Woodbury.
The case represents the first time a court has addressed whether gun owners have a duty to store firearms in a safe manner in New Hampshire, Tepichin said.
"What's at stake here are potentially many lives," Tepichin said in a phone interview last week. "The rule we're advocating for is a pretty commonsense one, that you should store firearms safely."
Secord didn't do that, he said. "If he just locked the guns up in a safe, Mr. Woodbury could not have gotten a hold of them, and we wouldn't be here today," Tepichin said.
A felon with a history of armed robbery, Woodbury left prison in the months before the murders, and Secord knew his grandson was back in Maine, Tepichin and attorney Michael Perry said in their appeal.
Woodbury, meanwhile, knew the layout of Secord's camp, including the spare key his grandfather kept outside the cabin, the attorneys said.
He also knew about the handgun inside it, telling the state police he considered it his own, the attorneys said. While the gun was hidden under a hot water heater, it wasn't locked up, and the door to the cabin didn't lock properly, the attorneys said.
Those factors created an "unreasonable risk of criminal misconduct," the attorneys said, noting that Secord "knew his felon grandson was in the area and familiar with the cabin and handgun."
Attorneys for Secord said the camp was kept locked, however, and only Secord's close family was allowed to use it.
Woodbury, who hadn't had a relationship with Secord for 14 years, didn't know where the spare key was kept and had to break into the cabin, attorneys Mark Shaughnessy and Andrew Ranks said in their response. Neither attorney could be reached for comment Friday.
While Tepichin and Perry argue Secord knew before the murders that someone had been in the cabin, Secord's attorneys said he didn't learn until the day after, when he and a friend visited the camp and discovered a cut screen and broken window.
At that point, Secord didn't know his grandson had killed three people in Conway, his attorneys said. They said it wasn't until Secord visited his son the next day that he learned Woodbury had used his gun during the shootings.
In addition to denying he stored his gun in an unlocked cabin, Secord's attorneys say he can't be found liable because he didn't have a duty to the victim, Gary Jones. In proving a negligence claim, a plaintiff has to show the defendant had a duty and breached it.
But "having a duty doesn't usually mean it extends to everyone in your community, or everyone in society," said Concord attorney Bill Christie. "It would have to be foreseeable the gun would be used in a crime."
In 2006, Christie won a lawsuit against the U.S. government by proving the FBI violated its duty to an informant, John McIntyre, who was killed after an FBI agent leaked to mobsters James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi that McIntyre was working against them.
If a gunowner has a firearm stolen, and he knows the thief has a vendetta against someone else, the owner "may have a duty to warn that person," Christie said.
The challenge is proving that duty, he said. "In a situation where a firearm has been taken and they don't know who took it and don't know what the gun would be used for, if anything, there's a very good chance they did not have a duty of care," Christie said.
Secord had a duty to store his gun safely not because of his relationship to Jones - he didn't know him - but because of the circumstances surrounding the case, Tepichin said.
He cited a 2006 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that ruled a homeowner was liable after her boyfriend's son, who had a history of violence and mental instability, stole a gun from a locked cabinet and used it to kill a police officer.
In Secord's case, "the facts here were even more egregious," since the gun wasn't in a container or safe, Tepichin said.
If the appeals court decides Secord had a duty to store his gun safely, it will send the case back to federal court in New Hampshire, where a jury will decide whether Secord violated that duty, Tepichin said. He said it could take months for the appeals court to issue a decision.
There must be some seriously anti-gun money involved in this case.
whether gun owners have a duty to store firearms in a safe manner in New Hampshire...
Has anyone taken notice that all of these attempts at gun control are from the “left coast” or somewhere in the northeast?
Is there something in the water of freedom there?
Can the same logic be used to hold the Fed Gov and Sanctuary Cities liable for murders and crimes against US citizens by illegal immigrants. After all the US gov and Sanctuary Cities refuse to enforce immigration laws allowing murders and criminals to slip in from Mexico to US.
So much for “Live Free or Die”.
New Hampshire appears to be becoming just another soviet state seeking to remove second amendment rights.
Charging someone because property stolen from them was used to commit a felony is just wrong in so many ways.
Yes it’s insane but we live in a country run by idiots who have no common sense.
I have never understood how your doctor can ask you if you own a gun?
if they decide that he is guilty, can we prosecute judges that release people that then go and harm others?
These fools prefer “secure and useless” to “ready to defend”.
The only “secure” obligation is to keep them from the hands young children.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court shot down this case, so do not blame New Hampshire.
The lawsuit is coming from Boston Massachusetts.
My answer to that question is "NOYFB" That usually shuts them up.
I have never been asked by any of the doctors I visit with frequently or the pediatricians my kids visit if we owned firearms and I live in NY.
about a year ago, I told my GP I got a tick up hunting(I thought I might have lymes.) his eyes perked up and he asked my all kinds of questions and started talking about the guns he owned ....he does not like public ranges so I am going to take him to my club's private range...
This case is being heard in a FEDERAL court, NOT a state court.
Because he wants to go shooting with you? My kid works in a hospital. Several of the surgeons were discussing their household firearms trying to see if they could get a rise out of her, having no idea where she stood on the issue. She stated that you couldn't beat the AK-47 for reliability, but the muzzle climb on full auto made her prefer the M-16, but she really liked MP5K for home defense. The subject was dropped.
He can ASK all he wants.You’re under no obligation to answer.
He can ASK all he wants.You’re under no obligation to answer.
Just because there is a court case about something does not mean that New Hampshire is becoming anti 2nd amendment. NH is one of the best states in the union when it comes to the 2nd amendment and I have little doubt this case is going to get very far, despite the state supreme court being stacked by lefty governor Lynch.
What, a locked home/cabin just isn't enough?
Charge the shooter with B&E, Burglary, Felony theft, too!
The owner (also a victim) should not be held liable.
If you lock your car, but someone manages to steal it anyway and run someone over, are you liable for that, too?
There is a logical argument for liability in circumstances of clear negligence, like leaving a loaded firearm on a bench at a playground.
In this case, the firearm was in his home. If his car had been stolen in the same manner and people killed with it, would he be liable? Of course not.
Insane to you or me. Some anti-gunners think like this. Some are cynical seizing on anything no matter how irrelevant to try and restrict the rights of their fellow citizens, and others are just plain nuts.
Unfortunately there are no consequences for people who act this way. Gun owners are too law abiding to shoot them which kind of refutes the anti-guners arguments to start with. Of course they don't see it that way. Their hatred of freedom and the right to keep and bear arms isn't based on logic.
So if he’d stolen a car and run down the victims...
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