On July 26, Michael Drejka shot and killed Markeis McGlockton in a Clearwater, Florida parking lot. Pinellas County sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to charge Drejka, citing the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Outrage ensued.

It was just an argument over a parking spot, some say, hinting that the whole thing is Drejka’s fault in the first place because he  has a reputation for arguing about parking spots.

Drejka’s presumptive belief that shooting McGlockton was “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm” (as the “Stand Your Ground” law requires), they claim, was obviously not  “reasonable” (as the law also requires). They want Drejka charged with murder. Some want the law allegedly protecting his conduct repealed.

They’re wrong. Drejka’s belief that he was in danger of “imminent death or great bodily harm” was clearly reasonable, the law was clearly applicable, and his actions were clearly taken in self-defense. The video tells the story — not completely, of course, but with a measure of clarity.

Britany Jacobs pulls into the parking lot of Circle A Food Store. Even with several non-handicapped parking spaces available, she pulls into a handicapped-only spot. Her boyfriend (McGlockton) and their son exit the car and enter the store.

A short time later, Drejka pulls up, exits his own vehicle, steps behind Jacobs’s car to look at her plate, then begins to verbally remonstrate with her about illegally (and rudely) using a parking spot reserved for the handicapped.

McGlockton exits the store. Jacobs exits her car — whether to attack Drejka herself, or to distract him while McGlockton attacks, or for some other reason, is unclear. In any case, Drejka is still speaking to Jacobs and seemingly unaware of McGlockton’s presence when McGlockton knocks him to the ground.

At this point, Drejka is on his knees and likely dazed. He’s just been  violently assaulted, by surprise, out of the blue, by someone he  didn’t even know was there. His actual assailant and a second potential assailant are on their feet and may be preparing to do him more violence. He has neither a duty to retreat nor the ability to do so if he wants to.

It’s about five seconds from the time McGlockton attacks Drejka to the moment that Drejka shoots McGlockton. In that five seconds, Drejka has to determine whether or not he is at risk of “imminent death or great bodily harm” and act accordingly. His assessment, whether correct or not, is obviously within reason.

“Stand Your Ground” isn’t about cases in which the victim has ten minutes to make a decision while watching a known serial killer approach from afar, wearing a hockey mask, chainsaw in one hand and severed head of his last victim in the other. “Stand Your Ground” is about cases in which a victim has to make a difficult and almost certainly life-changing decision, in a very short time frame, and under extreme pressure.

Michael Drejka’s decision to defend himself wasn’t improper.

Markeis McGlockton’s decision to commit assault was the problem.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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By Mylesclark96 [CC BY-SA 4.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons

Nitasha Tiku of Wired reports on three lawsuits against JUUL Labs, makers of the JUUL e-cigarette device. The unifying complaint, in brief, is that nicotine is addictive, that the users are addicted, and that their addictions are the company’s fault. There are quite a few problems with these lawsuits.

First, we’ve known for decades if not centuries that nicotine is addictive.  The US government made it official in 1988 with the Surgeon General’s report “The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction,” but my parents were certainly telling me so, and unsuccessfully urging me to not take up smoking, a decade before that.

School anti-smoking curricula warn kids about, among other things, nicotine’s addictive properties. We’re constantly bombarded by public service announcements on the subject. It’s on billboards. It’s in magazines. It’s on TV. To not know that  nicotine is addictive, one must have actively resisted listening to all the people telling one that nicotine is addictive.

Secondly, plaintiffs in two of the three cases admit that they were addicted to nicotine before they began using JUUL’s product to get away from their existing habits of smoking tobacco cigarettes. JUUL didn’t hook them. They were hooked before they ever chose JUUL as their preferred drug dealer.

The third case was filed on behalf of a minor. His mother’s attorneys claim that he’s so addicted that he “is unable to avoid Juuling” despite draconian parental and institutional measures.  It was illegal for that minor to procure a JUUL device. He did so anyway.  JUUL Labs requires proof that a buyer is 21 or older for direct sales (even though the legal age in many states is just 18), so he either got the device elsewhere or lied to get it from JUUL.

Yes, nicotine is addictive. The plaintiffs knew (or, in the minor’s case, at least should have known) that it was addictive before JUUL ever entered their lives. All JUUL did was offer them an arguably safer, and probably less socially awkward, way of getting their fixes.

These lawsuits are the equivalent of a heroin addict suing a needle exchange or methadone clinic for helping her avoid some of the worst potential consequences of her problem with alternative delivery methods for her drug of choice.

To narrow down the obvious theme: Their problems. Their choices. Their actions. Not JUUL’s. These lawsuits are, plain and simple, just opportunistic money grabs that should be peremptorily dismissed.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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By Kamenev (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“It’s impossible to effectually outlaw guns,” I wrote in 2015, “without also outlawing writing, speaking and thinking about guns.” I was referring to a US State Department censorship order requiring Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed to remove 3D printing files for the plastic “Liberator” pistol from the Internet.

With the help of the Second Amendment Foundation, Wilson and his firm sued against the order.  With the help of the First Amendment, they won. The US government realized it had a losing case and settled. Effective August 1, America goes back to having a free press vis a vis guns.

A free press plus rapidly proliferating DIY production technology equals the final nail in the coffin of “gun control” as a practical notion. Not that it ever really was one, what with more than 250 million guns already in the hands of more than 100 million Americans. But now it’s no longer just a lop-sided contest, it’s a done deal. “Gun control” is over.

Wilson hasn’t been idle while awaiting his big win. He’s gone from plans for 3D gun printing in plastic to offering a consumer-priced CNC milling machine — the Ghost Gunner — with software that can turn a block of metal into the frame of an AR-15 rifle or a .45 semi-automatic pistol right in anyone’s home workshop. No serial number. No permit. No background check. That’s that. We’re done here.

As the clock runs forward, it’s now also going to run backward. Because 3D printers and CNC mills will make whatever they’re programmed to make, consider the National Firearms Act of 1934 repealed. If there aren’t already CAD files out there telling home milling machinery how to turn out machine guns and silencers, there soon will be. You don’t have to like it. That’s how it is whether you like it or not.

For decades, “gun control” advocates have, from behind the sturdy shield of the First Amendment, agitated for willful misinterpretation of, or even repeal of, the Second. They still have that shield, as well they should. What they no longer have is any plausible case that they can get their way.

So, are “gun control” advocates ready for a ceasefire? Are they willing to start discussing real ways of achieving their supposed goal — reducing violence in American society — instead of continuing to pursue their lost cause?

I doubt it. Lost causes are both more fun and more profitable than getting serious. But let’s hope.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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