Father of boy who shot friend gets 3 yrs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Father of boy who shot friend gets 3 yrs
186
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 1:21pm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Child%20Shot%20Sentence


Saturday, July 17, 2004 · Last updated 8:28 p.m. PT


Father of boy who shot friend gets 3 years


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


CLEARWATER, Fla. -- The father of a boy who shot and killed a playmate with a loaded gun he found stashed under a sofa was sentenced to nearly three years in prison, followed by probation during which he must speak monthly on gun safety.


Louis Mevec Sr. was sentenced Friday for felony culpable negligence in the 2003 death of Sean Caroline II. Mevec, who owned the .357-caliber Magnum used to kill the 12-year-old friend of his son Louis, was convicted last month.


During his father's trial, 14-year-old Louis testified that a small group of Largo Middle School students had skipped school and were playing video games at Mevec's apartment when he pointed the gun at Sean and shot him between the eyes.


"I blame you and only you for my son's death," Sean Caroline, Sean's father, told Louis Mevec Sr. in court Friday. "My wife and I are also serving a sentence ... but we got no trial. Ours is a life sentence."


Circuit Judge Brandt Downey sentenced Mevec, 53, to the maximum six-year prison term, but suspended more than half of it and replaced it with probation. His remaining sentence is 34 months, but with good behavior he could be released by late 2006.


The Caroline family had asked that Mevec be required to speak on gun safety after his release.


The younger Louis Mevec was sent to a juvenile facility and is now living in New York with his mother and younger brother.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 11:56am

Back when I was single, I had someone try and break in one night when I was home.


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 12:00pm
"Back when I was single, I had someone try and break in one night when I was home. When I heard them trying to jimmy the lock, I went up and started pounding on the door and screaming that I'd called 911. My neighbor heard the commotion and came over to check on me but the burglar was long gone"

Now imagine that person was a drug user, who was high or looking to get high and he broke in? By the time your neighbor or BF or police would arrive you could have been hurt or worse.

Guns aren't 100% protection but they provide you with another option.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 12:08pm

I guess you aren't going to address the point I keep bringing up - home invasion vs burglary.


We will never agree on this topic, so I feel like I'm just endlessly repeating myself.


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 12:30pm
"I guess you aren't going to address the point I keep bringing up - home invasion vs burglary."

I thought I have. I don't see a distinction. When you illegally enter my home I don't care about the intent. Same result. It would be profoundly foolish to try and discern the person's intent.

"I posted the OP because of the punishment involved - one that I thought should have been harsher"

I know and I agree, it should have been harsher. But this topic has evolved to gun control laws which was a natural extension of the OP. I haven't read one post that stated the guy didn't deserve a harsher sentence. Gun owners are typically harder on their fellow owners, when they are careless, than non-gun owners because of this type of incident and the typical liberal knee-jerk responses caused by them.

"Yes, someone who has entered your home is a criminal, but if they make no attempt to harm you or your family, why should you be allowed to kill them?"

Because in order to find out if they intend you harm you have to let them attempt to harm you. Screw that....you break in...you get killed...you deserve it.

"It sounds more like using a bomb to kill a fly."

Maybe but better to kill a fly with a bomb than attack a tank with a fly swatter.

"I had already stated that I knew that I would never, in my lifetime, see firearms controlled to any real extent in this country."

I hope you are right.




Edited 7/23/2004 1:08 pm ET ET by vader716

Avatar for papparic
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 1:39pm
Granted, the US may be far beyond the point of no-return (that's not intended as a pun about a gun ban. lol)

Guns are so unbelievably prevalent in your society. As a non-USAer (is there such a word) I find it incredible and shocking how freely available weapons are through dealers and trades shows. I'm not just talking about standard hunting rifles or target pistols (which we can also buy in Canada and Sweden) but AK-47s, machine guns, armor piercing bullets, assault rifles, etc, etc. People really do buy weapons for self protection, and I think I understand why. But it still doesn't add up to make real sense.

The number of legal guns in the hands of law abiding citizens goes beyond all belief. Talking with relatives in the States, who have bought weapons for self-protection, I find they spend time justifying why they need some new weapon to meet some imagined threat. They may have a 9 mm or a .357 magnum plus a .22 for the purse and a rapid fire Glock under their pillow and triple locks on every door and a gun in the glove compartment of the car and yet they still don't feel safe. And so they flip through weapons magazines and dream about owning a 250 mm howitzer or god knows what so they have the ultimate deterrent and protection.

I have three rifles in my Canadian home. The rifles are stored in a locked gun cabinet, with individual trigger locks. When I go hunting it takes me at least 30 minutes to find the keys for everything. Then I have to search for the rifle bolts, stored elsewhere and finally the bullets, also in another place. If someone was to break into my home (but the doors are always unlocked...I have this thing about loosing keys as you may alrady have guessed) I would have to invite them to sit down while I brewed up some tea and tried to assemble my weapons. Right around when I was serving up the second cup of tea to my intruder I would be ready to ask him to raise his hands.

But this has never happened and I don't sit around envisioning what I would do if it did happen. Anyone who breaks into my home is welcome to take whatever he wants. It can be replaced.

I worry more about fire or earthquakes, or drunk drivers. But there are limited ways in dealing with such threats as well.

So tell me. With all your weapons, do you feel safe?

Avatar for merlins_own
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 1:57pm
I agree. You have to be much closer to use Tasers or mace, also, don't you? If you see an attacker coming at you it would seem to me the last thing you'd want to do is be closer to the lowlife in order to use these tools... No thanks! As in using martial arts, you have to be close and could therefore be overpowered. Stop or I'll shoot. They keep coming, BANG! They are invading my home and threatening us. I certainly don't have to put myself at further risk by getting closer to the creep! :=O

Merlins_Own

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW!

Avatar for papparic
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:01pm
Mark, Mark, Mark. >A firearm is just a tool<???? No, a hammer is a tool, a saw is a tool.

No one is surprised and it certainly doesn't make the front page or evening news when someone hits a nail with a hammer. It doesn't even make the news when someone shoots a deer with a rifle (a firearm could be a tool in such a case) But it would make the news if someone sprayed a deer with 200 bullets in less than a minute from an automatic firearm. Then the firearm is no longer a tool, it is a weapon of destruction. (Can you imagine sitting down for a dinner of venison steak and breaking your teeth with each new bullet discovered burried in the flesh?)

I can buy handgrenades on the internet. Explain to me how a handgrenade is a "tool". But I could use the same reasoning you have employed, that handgrenades don't kill, people kill.

Hopefully people in the United States will become aware of why the rest of the world laughs at the US reasoning, or lack of the same. The US ambivalence towards weapons, the propaganda spread by the self interests of weapons makers, has created a society more un-safe than any other nation on this earth that is not enagaged in war within its own territory.

Or maybe you are at war and you just don't know it.

Avatar for merlins_own
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:15pm
LOL! Time-out chair, huh?! :]] My little .38, having gradiose ideas of being a big .45, likes to chase cars and shoot their tires... "Bad, bad gun!" (As I spank it on its grips -- unloaded of course!) :P

Merlins_Own

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW!

Avatar for merlins_own
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:38pm
Just a side comment here --- Just because someone uses a gun for self or home defense diesn't necessarily mean they will kill their attacker. The object, for us, anyway, is to down the attacker and disarm the creep while calling/waiting for police to show up. That's why we practice multiple times a week, to train ourselves so the bullet goes where we want it to and disables the invader rather than killing him. However, if they keep coming, that's their choice. They had their verbal warning AND a non-fatal injury. I would hope not to have to kill anyone, but I will not willingly put myself or my family in lethal jeopardy. All our police & fire have reduced budgets which means less personnel which means longer response times in many communities in our area.

Merlins_Own

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW!

Avatar for merlins_own
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Fri, 07-23-2004 - 2:48pm
Yes! Security boxes/small gun safes. We keep only one gun loaded and ready to go for home defense. We can access that gun very quickly. The rest are stored, also locked, unloaded in a separate place. Ammunition is locked up in a separate location, also.

Merlins_Own

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW!

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