From WMUR.com, Ward Bird of Moultonborough, NH will serve 3-6 years in prison for waving a handgun at a stranger on his own property after the State Supreme court upheld his conviction.
The problem seems to be that Bird had confronted a woman who had accidentally wandered onto his property in search of directions, and he was in no mood for small talk. He brandished his sidearm when she did not leave at his request, for which he was charged and convicted of criminal threatening.
Seems to me that when a man waves a gun and asks you to leave his property, your only response should be “which way and how fast.” But not in Moultonborough.
Instead, we get to quantify Mr. Bird’s reaction in the absence of actual harm, which is apparently all you need in a state with the Motto “Live Free or Die” to do time at the gray bar hotel. And, as is often the case when dealing with fanciful degrees of interpretation construed by what could only be left-leaning translators, it is the palpitations of the woman who exited Mr. Wards’ private property (physically unharmed) that warrant removing a man from his family for up to six years of his life.
Was the fact that she was trespassing even a consideration?
I don’t know all the finer details, like his history or hers, but my takeaway is that while you have a constitutional right to self-defense, at the very least, on your own property, there is no middle ground. Unless you are actually attacked (and even then), your circumstances are of no merit, you are not entitled to intimidate trespassers in an effort to get them off your land. And any mishandling of the situation could result in imprisonment.
Seems to me that an honest apology should have sufficed. It also seems like we need to modify the law a bit to address this.