When someone we care for dies a tragic and preventable death, those of us left behind are bound to spend countless hours pondering the “whys” and the “what-ifs.”
Eight years ago, when my sister-in-law was murdered in front of her two children, we as her family were nearly crushed under the weight of the burden of such questions.
What if we had been more insistent that she seek help from a domestic violence shelter? What if we had called more often to see how things were going for her? What if we had tried harder to intervene in a marriage that had clearly turned sour? Why didn’t we see how clearly volatile her marriage had become?
And we also asked ourselves why her estranged husband still remained armed with guns when a judge had issued a protection from abuse order against him.
While the “what-ifs” probably will simmer forever with no satisfactory or concrete answers, the answer to the last question became clear the moment we set foot on Florida soil and were summoned to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to meet with Sheriff Phil Williams.
The reason her husband was armed with guns was wishy-washy laws and shoddy police work, and the sheriff said so.
A deputy involved in the case was immediately fired but ultimately reinstated when a civil service board found that the wording on the court injunction was confusing, leaving the deputy believing he had no legal right to seize the guns, when he actually did.
At the time, Florida’s law mandated that a person subject to a protection from abuse order not possess firearms — the same law in effect in Maine.
In Florida, as in Maine, the guns are not confiscated by police.
My sister-in-law’s husband, who had several firearms, turned his guns over to a friend for safekeeping while the protection from abuse order was in effect.
That was all well and good until one day he decided he wanted his guns back. The friend called my sister-in-law, who called the sheriff’s department, who sent a deputy to her home.
When she told him that her estranged husband had his guns back, the deputy, a 12-year veteran of the department, looked over the order and told her there was nothing he could do for her. He never spoke to her husband or to any of the neighbors. He never filed a report.
Six weeks later, our 9-year-old niece was walking across the street with her mother when her father raced up behind them and shot my sister-in-law four times.
Two hours before the shooting, a civil process server served papers on the father, who told the server “he had had enough and was going to end it now.” The process server never notified the authorities of the threat.
There are a whole lot of “what-ifs” and “whys” tangled up in that tragedy.
The husband, Aaron Stimus, is now serving a life sentence in a Florida prison. During his two trials he and his lawyers have argued that the murder was not premeditated, that it was just a spur-of-the-moment event — he was enraged, under the influence, and oh yes, had easy access to his guns.
This week members of the Maine Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee voted to allow a bill to be considered that would require police to seize all guns in the possession of a person charged with a domestic violence offense.
The judge at the person’s bail hearing would decide the disposition of the guns as part of the process. A bail hearing must occur within 48 hours of an arrest.
The bill is surely going to be hotly debated, as is any bill that seeks to restrict any sort of gun possession.
Police are generally not called to domestic violence situations if there is not some level of anger and volatility involved. Sometimes there is also some level of intoxication on the part of one or both parties.
Under Maine law now, police can seize a firearm only if it in fact has been used in a case of domestic violence.
I’m thinking that’s probably a little too late.
I wonder sometimes whether Aaron Stimus sits in his prison cell with some “what-ifs” of his own.
What if he had not had a gun at his side that evening?
What if the law was such that rather than his handing his guns over to a friend, the police had stored them until the domestic situation and the threats were resolved?
Sure, critics can argue that if he was that determined he would have found a gun somewhere or perhaps he would have used his fists, or a hammer or a knife.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
We’ll never know the answer to that.
Domestic homicides account for more than 50 percent of the homicides in Maine. Many of those homicides are committed with guns.
Allowing police the ability to assess a domestic violence situation and remove guns from the house temporarily, and a judge to assess the real risk and make a finding within 48 hours, is not an outrageous infringement.
Wishy-washy laws get adopted when lawmakers try to compromise too much, when they try to satisfy those who fight each day on behalf of victims of domestic violence while not enraging gun lobbyists.
The issue of guns and domestic violence is an issue of life and death. Legislators should see that and take their stand clearly on one side or the other.
So what if?
If Aaron Stimus had not had a gun that hot July evening he might have watched his beautiful daughter graduate from high school last June, a sight her mother, too, would have witnessed. He might have taught his daughter to drive instead of me. He also could have had a hand in helping his son navigate the turbulent waters of his teenage years, something the boy’s mother would be doing now if she were here.