Kevin Monahan, 65, shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after a car she was riding in with friends made a wrong turn on his property
A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove up his rural driveway in upstate New York.
A jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house.
The group’s caravan of two cars and a motorcycle began leaving once they realized their mistake. Authorities said Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend.
Good. What kind of a fucking psychopath sees a car of lost young people and decides, instead of offering directions or at worst leaving them the fuck alone, that they deserve assault with a deadly weapon?
Goddamn deranged.
An old, sweet lady was once talking to my wife about the blackout curtains in our bedroom. She says she bought some like it so “antifa couldn’t see inside” her house.
It makes me so angry that Fox News convinced her to be scared of a boogyman.
I think we need to be mindful that we can’t point at one media organization or “political aisle” for this type of rhetoric. @Microw@lemm.ee above encapsulates it beautifully.
Some areas simply have no-good groups of people like neonazis that will go into houses and try to take them over
The fear mongering isn’t subject to particular ideologies and anyone is susceptible. These tactics are being used by nearly(edit) everyone in the political realm.
edit: just gotta say I love the downvotes with no replies. There is a middle-ground nuanced objectivity where neither “both parties are the same” or “my political side is holier than thou” apply. Go touch some grass or learn how to have an actual conversation with those you disagree with online.
Oh it’s worse than that, they were already leaving when he came out and shot them.
oh and this bullshit excuse:
He said he tripped over nails sticking up from the deck, lost his balance and the shotgun struck the deck. That, he said, accidentally caused his gun to fire at the Ford Explorer carrying Gillis.
The first shot was an accident. Obviously the second shot was to prove to them that the first one was an accident cuz if he were trying to shoot them, then he’d just shoot them. He probably tried shouting those words, but realized they were too far so he just had to show them what a great shot he was when he was trying by actually shooting one of them.
Totally innocent miscommunication.
The only thing about this I can somewhat understand is that it wasnt one car, it was two cars and a motorcycle. I would probably be a bit scared if such a big group of people suddenly show up to my rural house.
But 1. shooting them, and 2. while they were already driving away, is what makes this so deranged.
WTF is going on in your life that cars coming up your driveway would scare you? Really?!
You think that some death squad has your number and they sent the whole gang?
Some areas simply have no-good groups of people like neonazis that will go into houses and try to take them over
I would probably be a bit scared if such a big group of people suddenly show up to my rural house.
And won’t go out even with a gun if you’re so scared, right?
This is the nature of widespread gun ownership. Owning a gun turns every argument, every perceived wrong, every bruised ego into a potentially deadly situation. Buying a gun, “for protection,” is the dumbest fucking statement I’ve ever heard. Increasing the number of guns laying around ALWAYS creates a more dangerous environment.
I’m going to start by determining whether or not said “threats” are actually threats to begin with.
Because most of them aren’t. Most gun nuts (disclaimer: I could probably be defined by some standards as a gun nut myself) have this nutty pathological notion that every single person, shadow, and tiny thing that goes bump in the night is personally out to get them. Given the overwhelming majority of non-gun-nut people who do not, in fact, get got on a daily basis despite not even having a gun to defend themselves we can actually conclude that this is just unfounded paranoia.
Just saying.
I’m an instacart driver and at least a few times a week I get the wrong driveway but then figure it out very quickly. This shit goes through my mind every single time.
That’s just the country I live in. I pulled into the wrong driveway and I instantly wonder idly if this is going to lead to my fucking death.
Okay, sure, but have you ever even considered uparmoring your car and mounting an automatic weapon to it? It’s like people never even played Car Wars. With some armor and a SAW they could have practiced their rights, and with a .50 they probably could have cut his house in half.
I mean, gas costs will go up with the additional weight and you need additional crew members to serve the weapons, but that’s the price of freedom.
Alternatively, you could try delivering the groceries by trebuchet from the back of a flatbed truck, but the automatic weapon thing is less likely to result in them cancelling the tip.
Bro, I hate to go all American but if i could drive some twisted metal shit I would in a fucking hearbeat. And I probably wouldn’t kill that many people. Most would deserve it. Pinky promise.
ok but where? I don’t think about this where I used to live in the US, but last summer we were in rural north carolina and I did a three point turn off someones driveway and I was not relaxed
The point is that it’s scary to be a delivery driver. It’s more dangerous than being a cop.
I delivered pizzas for 3 different pizzarias and flowers also… I know the statistics show more delivery drivers run into trouble than cops get shot, but I think thats down to numbers- when I was slinging pies there were easily 5 pizza places with 5-6 drivers each on trip after trip all day 7 days a week and I would guess 10 cops on duty mostly sitting on their ass in a cop car busting white high school kids for weed at bullshit traffic stops… anyway yeah I hear you, but I think this is VERY tightly linked with the area you deliver in. my white bread ass area never not once made me feel the sliiiightest bit afraid
I wrote a post on Nextdoor.com about this sort of situation. “Use of force” laws in my state, with a few easy-to-digest links and quotes.
Post basically said, “Your rights may not be what you think they are, and if you fuck up, you may find yourself in a concrete and steel box for life.”
Nothing combative, controversial, derogatory, political or non-factual. Shot down within 30-minutes for being “insulting”. Yeah. LOL, I even quoted Masad Ayoob, a world-class expert on the subject, and quite conservative if you read between the lines. Not good enough around here.
I’m a LiberalGunNut™ who studies these things. I have guns at the ready, in my home, and sometimes on my person. It behooves me to know the law.
Part of the reason I wrote that post:
A man had been seen on another man’s lot fucking about, trying to get in an empty trailer. A lot next door, not the shooter’s domicile.
Next night, the shooter setup a chair just inside the tree line and hunted. When the other man came back, he popped 5-rounds of 5.56 at him (AR-15). Hit him a time or two, guy lived.
Next day the cops question the shooter. He lies, gets his story mixed up, gets arrested for 2nd-degree attempted murder. Well, fucking obviously!
About 40% of the Nextdoor.com comments defended the shooter. To sum: The homeowner saw a man trying to break into an empty trailer, on the homeowner’s land, hid himself the next evening and decided to execute this man for trespass when he came back. Think on that. Death for breaking into an empty trailer.
I’ll tell you what my conceal-carry instructor told us, a very conservative gun nut. “If you pull your weapon, you’re shooting to kill. Whatever situation you’re trying to stop, be aware, think, is it worth 20-years, maybe life, behind bars? Because that may well be the outcome, not matter how justified you think you are in the moment.”
Honestly I think my biggest frustration with guns in America is the culture around them. When I was a kid learning about guns in scouts you didn’t get to touch one till you’d learned what felt like 12 different times what the rules are and how to be a responsible gun owner and it feels like so many people really needed that handling.
Sorry to hear you live in an area where people’s perspective on guns is that they’re entitled to attempting murder with a deadly weapon if anyone interacts with them in a way they don’t like. That wouldn’t exactly make me very comfortable with the folks I live around
I’ve often said, America doesn’t have a gun problem, America has a culture problem.
I’m 53 for reference. When I was a kid there were guns everywhere, and they were hilariously easier to get. FFS, one of my vintage shotguns was rebranded by Mossberg to be sold in Western Auto Stores. No one would bat at eye at some dude in his pickup with a rack full of long guns in the rear window.
And we didn’t have these problems.
seems like some folks just get really excited about guns and they want a situation to use them in so bad
If the problem for you is that you could go to jail, rather than that someone else dies - I don’t know what to tell you.
Deliberately misunderstanding my post? Point being, even in obvious self-defense, it can be a tricky thing. But yeah, there are very certain circumstances where I would take a life. Namely: Home invasion (while someone is home) and attacking myself or my family. I would defend a stranger, but it would have to be a clear case of “stop this or that person dies”.
In no case does property damage of theft justify a shooting.
As another Liberal gunowner with a carry permit, what nearly everyone with a defensive firearm seldom understands, is even IF it’s a “righteous shoot”, it’s going to cost well north of a $100,000 dollars to prove it in court. If nothing else, it would be financial ruin for the overwhelming majority of those people who are most vocal about self-defense that want to mentally play Rambo.
Question from someone outside the US who’s genuinely curious about why law-abiding citizens feel the need to carry guns to begin with:
If you’re aware of this, how often are you carrying a gun in the first place? When/Why?
Following what you say, there’s obviously the scenario where you have to defend your life (not your property).
On the other hand, as I see it, the victim in the article would not have benefited from a gun in the car and the odds of a shell-shocked BF turning the whole thing into an actual shootout would’ve been >0.
I’m not trying to argue crime statistics or morals here, I’m genuinely interested in a gun owner’s perspective.
I carry, (when I do carry), because I live in a very rural area of my state where cell service is poor to non-extant in most areas and law enforcement can be an hour away even IF you can call or text. And in order to buy and carry a handgun outside of a legal hunting season, you need a carry permit.
So the reason I have a carry permit is to carry outside of a hunting season, (when it is legal to carry for any hunter), because I spend a good amount of time being out and about in 10,000s of thousands of acres of forest land. And it isn’t the idealistic vision of forest you might have. There be wild critters out there that will eat you if hungry enough or attack you if you bump into them and they feel threatened. The wolves and bears and even bumping into Bambi can go south quickly if you are very unlucky, but I don’t mind any of those critters too much. Because they are mostly afraid of humans and will try very hard to avoid them if at all possible. And that might not always be possible. But what is becoming more of an issue for me is the number of cougar sightings, (and not just the ones at the local bar), and despite our local fish and game department’s years long flat statement that there are no cougars here, there is now too much photographic evidence and reports otherwise. And I personally have bumped into one of them 3 times in the last 4 years in the forest and my wife nearly hit one with her car going to work.
The only time I will have my pistol on me in town is if I’m passing through on my way to go foraging in the forest or during a hunting season. If I’m just going to town to shop or do other business, I have no need of it.
And to answer your next question - No, the sight of an openly carried handgun doesn’t bother anyone here. The knowledge of guns, and more importantly gun safety, are a part of everyday life. Children often start deer hunting and bird hunting, (under direct adult supervision), at age 11 or 12 and this includes the girls too. So firearms are viewed as tools and NOT weapons of destruction for killing other people. And oddly enough, we just don’t shoot each other out here despite there being at least one firearm in virtually every household and often multiples. Perhaps “city people” are just mentally incapable of being trusted them. Who knows…
I made a post, as a lawyer, about some of the common law rules for self defense, five months ago, and I still get replies from people who don’t like the truth:
Deadly force is never authorized to protect property.
An intruder standing in your living room with no weapon or other outward sign of aggression is not a deadly threat and you will be charged with murder if you kill him.
People cannot handle this.
I had quoted this in my post:
“In the anti-gun Spokane newspaper, internet comments indicated that many people had the clueless idea that Gerlach had shot the man – in the back – to stop the thief from stealing his car. One idiot wrote in defense of doing such, “That ‘inert property’ as you call it represents a significant part of a man’s life. Stealing it is the same as stealing a part of his life. Part of my life is far more important than all of a thief’s life.”
Analyze that statement. The world revolves around this speaker so much that a bit of his life spent earning an expensive object is worth “all of (another man’s) life.” Never forget that, in this country, human life is seen by the courts as having a higher value than what those courts call “mere property,” even if you’re shooting the most incorrigible lifelong thief to keep him from stealing the Hope Diamond. A principle of our law is also that the evil man has the same rights as a good man. Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.”
As a rule of thumb, American law does not justify the use of deadly force to protect what the courts have called “mere property.” In the rare jurisdiction that does appear to allow this, ask yourself how the following words would resonate with a jury when uttered by plaintiff’s counsel in closing argument: “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant has admitted that he killed the deceased over property. How much difference is there in your hearts between the man who kills another to steal that man’s property, and one who kills another to maintain possession of his own? Either way, he ended a human life for mere property!”
― Massad Ayoob, Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense"
Yeah, that about sums it up. Think about the optics in front of a jury, your family, and probably your local community newspaper when you have to take the stand and tell the prosecutor and the rest of the court, “yes, I shot that man 7 times in the back, but he was running off with my laptop.”
Deadly force is never authorized to protect property.
Never say never. In Texas there are some specific instances where it is, but they are narrow enough that most people probably can’t cite them offhand and they’re certainly narrower conditions than what those people think.
Texas penal code 9.42:
https://txpenalcode.com/sec-9-42/
Make what you will of “criminal mischief in the nighttime.”
When people have the wrong idea in their head it’s so exhausting to change their mind. You need to treat them like delicate children. Like I believe you should debate respectfully and not be condescending, but most people are so sensitive you need to bend over backwards to bring up facts in a ridiculously delicate way. Meanwhile they’ll bring up absolute bullshit in the most rude and condescending way possible, often just leaving arguments out completely and just cussing you out. Discourse is completely broken.
I can’t believe in 2023 we are still in the position of having the only convenient capable way of incapacitating someone from a distance being to destroy their body.
I’m not trying to sound super anti-gun, it just seems like it’s not the right tool for the job most of the time, and it sucks that that is the choice we have to make.
I was really hoping we’d have the phasers from star trek by now, and we could just use the ‘stun’ setting for defense. Though, I’m sure conservative gun nuts would make a little club dedicated to only using the ‘kill’ setting on their phasers, because it’s their God given right to murder someone over inanimate objects.
If only those kids had had enough of their own guns, this tragedy could have been avoided. Somehow. I guess. That’s how it works, right? More guns?
Yeah, everyone knows you should just shoot up the front door every time you go to visit someone, just in case you went to the wrong house
Since the late 1800s, 494 MILLION firearms have been produced and sold in the US. That’s way more than one per person, including babies and toddlers.
when’s it gonna be enough I wonder?
Maybe it really isn’t about more guns, just more profits for the arms dealers? Maybe we could skip the middle-men and dead children murdered in their schools if we just pay off the arms dealers?
So guy claims he felt threatened, didn’t call cops, grabbed gun instead and expects people aren’t just going to assume he’s being a gun nut when he acts exactly like one?
Felt threatened in the time it took them to turn around. Jesus tapdancing christ on a cracker what a fucking snowflake with a hair trigger.
How does somebody like this make it through the day without meds?!?
