This Elderly Man Was Arrested After Shooting a Burglar in Self-Defense—for Carrying the Gun Without a License
Vincent Yakaitis is unfortunately not the first such defendant. He will also not be the last.
Dennis Powanda and Vincent Yakaitis are bound together by a common experience: They were both criminally charged in connection with an attempted burglary. Powanda was the burglar, and Yakaitis was the property owner.
Ah, justice.
Indeed, that's not a misprint, parody, or a bad joke (although I wish it were the latter). Powanda was arrested and charged with criminal trespass and burglary, along with other related offenses, for executing the botched raid a little before 2:00 a.m. in February 2023 at Yakaitis' property in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. The government charged Yakaitis, who is in his mid-70s, with using a firearm without a license after he shot Powanda, despite that it appears prosecutors agree Yakaitis justifiably used that same firearm in self-defense.
Whatever your vantage point—whether you care about criminal justice reform and a fair legal system, or gun rights, or all of the above—it is difficult to make sense of arresting and potentially imprisoning someone over what essentially amounts to a paperwork violation. That injustice is even more glaring when considering that Powanda, 40, allegedly charged at Yakaitis, who happens to be about three and a half decades older than Powanda.
Pennsylvania's permitting regime does carve out a couple of exceptions, one of which would seem to highly favor Yakaitis. Someone does not need a license to carry, according to the law, "in his place of abode or fixed place of business." Yakaitis owned the home Powanda attempted to burglarize. The catch: He didn't live there—it reportedly had no tenants at the time of the crime—opening a window for law enforcement to charge him essentially on a technicality.
If convicted, Yakaitis faces up to five years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Quite the price to pay for protecting your life on your own property. The misdemeanor charge also implies that Yakaitis has no history of using his weapon inappropriately, or any criminal record at all, as Pennsylvania law classifies his particular crime—carrying a firearm without a license—as a felony if the defendant has prior criminal convictions and would be disqualified from obtaining such a license. In other words, we can deduce that Yakaitis was a law-abiding citizen and eligible for a permit, which means he is staring down five years in a cell for not turning in a form and paying a fee to local law enforcement. OK.
Yakaitis is not the first such case. In June, law enforcement in New York charged Charles Foehner with so many gun possession crimes that if convicted on all of them he would face life in prison. Police came to be aware of his unlicensed firearms when Foehner defended himself against an attempted mugger—the surveillance footage is here—after which they searched Foehner's home and found that only some of his weapons were licensed with the state.
Prosecutors classified it as a justified shooting. And then they hit Foehner with an avalanche of criminal charges that would have resulted in a longer prison sentence than his assailant would have received, had he survived.
There's also LaShawn Craig, another New York City man whose case I covered in December. He, too, shot someone in self-defense and he, too, was arrested for doing so without a license. Like Foehner, he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a violent felony in New York. For a paperwork violation.
New York is a particularly relevant case study on the subject, as its highly restrictive concealed carry framework was the subject of a landmark Supreme Court case—New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen—which the majority disemboweled. It wasn't just conservative gun rights advocates who wanted that ruling, although you'd be forgiven for thinking so based on how polarized this debate tends to be. That Supreme Court decision also attracted support from progressive public defenders with The Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, The Bronx Defenders, and Brooklyn Defender Services. As I wrote in June about the amicus brief they submitted to the Court:
[The public defenders] offered several case studies centered around people whose lives were similarly upended. Among them were Benjamin Prosser and Sam Little, who had both been victims of violent crimes and who are now considered "violent felons" in the eyes of the state simply for carrying a firearm without the mandated government approval. Little, a single father who had previously been slashed in the face, was separated from his family while he served his sentence at the Vernon C. Bain Center, a notorious jail that floats on the East River. The conviction destroyed his nascent career, with the Department of Education rescinding its offer of employment.
In many jurisdictions, including New York, it can be expensive and time-consuming to get the required license, which in turn makes the Second Amendment available only to people of a certain class.
So where do we go from here? Those skeptical of rolling back concealed carry restrictions may take comfort in the fact that this doesn't have to be black and white. Governments, for example, can "give eligible persons a 30-day grace period to seek and obtain a permit after being charged, then automatically drop charges and expunge record once obtained," offers Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, or "remove the criminal penalty entirely" and perhaps "make it a fineable infraction," like driving without a license.
Whatever the case, it should be—it is—possible to balance public safety with the right to bear arms, and, as an extension, the right to self-defense. To argue otherwise is to embolden a legal system that incentivizes elderly men like Yakaitis to sit down and take it when someone threatens their life.
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So tell me Billy, do you have a license to publish this article?
…
Wait a minute! If he owned it to rent it out, then it is a fixed place of business, is it not?
Yeah. This seems pretty obviously within the intent of the law.
Prosecutor should be charged with a civil rights violation.
That would be my view as well. When Trump wins he should use the civil rights laws to go after these guys. He is never going to get the anti-gun nuts in his camp so no loss there. Wouldn’t hurt to have these a-holes looking over their shoulders for once.
You mean Donald “Take The Guns First” Trump? That should work out well.
Probably a Soros man or aching to become one.
I live in Pennsylvania. There’s more to this than what Billy is saying. There is NO license required to own a pistol. You can OPEN carry in PA without a CCP. I could see this happening in Philly or Pittsburgh but Port Carbon isn’t even near there. If this is a municipal law, then it’s void. Local gun laws cannot be stricter than State law. Philly and Pittsburgh keep trying end arounds on that and keep getting slapped down. I have pulled my weapon in Pittsburgh and once things were straightened out I had no problem. I have to ask if Billy is distorting this to justify his point. It wouldn’t be the first I’ve seen it done on Reason. They seem to follow the “by any means necessary” bit quite well.
But if it’s not currently being rented then it’s not currently a business ergo it’s just a random building! :^^^^^)
The folks who make these laws expect you to die with a smile on your face, knowing that you’re all legal.
Never, ever, ever, turn yourself in.
Shoot your attacker and walk away. Go home and dispose of your politically incorrect tools. Let the detective try to find you. If found, say you were scared of the dead guy’s possible gang affiliations. When asked about the gun, plead the 5th.
They’re gonna try to give you life, what do you have to lose?
It isn’t hard even in NYC to get a firearms permit if you go through the hoops. I know many people who have them. There are numerous classes of permit and the only one that is difficult to obtain is a concealed carry permit.
You’re either on drugs or so well-connected that you don’t even realize how out of touch you are. There have been multiple articles (including several here) documenting how very, very hard it is to get a firearms permit in NYC.
Obvious alternative: he’s lying. This is the web.
Permit = permission. I’m not asking permission to exercise something that “shall not be infringed”.
Nothing better than being on a list that could fall into the wrong hands.
They’re gonna try to give you life, what do you have to lose?
At 75, I’d probably just pen a note on a $100 Bill that says something to the effect of “Someone broke into my house, so I shot them. I’m going to be charged either way so I might as well get two crooks for the price of my one life.” and then go figure out how to kill James Clapper or Jonathan Gruber or Anthony Fauci or Harry Reid or something.
Whoops!
Harry ReidAha!
You’re gonna need a commercial woodchipper to get that done.
with a “Commercial Woodchipper” license as well. Don’t forget that part!
Cops generally side with whoever called them first. Makes it easier for them. So if you brandish a weapon to scare off a robber, the robber can and might call the cops and accuse you of threatening them. Cops roll in keyed up because they’re confronting an aggressive person with an gun. If they don’t shoot you you go to jail. If they do then you go to the hospital or morgue, and then to jail.
Go to jail after the morgue?
I have to agree with you. It’s also amazing how the self-defense laws can change in an instant. If I pull a weapon on someone and they run away, I can’t shoot as soon as they start running no matter what they did. If I chase them and they shoot and kill me, they can legally claim self-defense because I’m now the aggressor.
If I shot or killed any attacker in a public place I would just walk away.
I’m not sure how I feel about this because I haven’t been told the race of either Yakaitis or Powanda.
Both names sound like they’re furners.
Illegal guns are not paperwork violations. They are responsible for thousands of dead Americans every year.
There’s no such thing as an illegal gun. All gun laws are repugnant to the 2A.
PEOPLE are responsible for thousands of dead Americans each year.
I dunno, I like where this is headed. Maybe we should consider throwing the guilty gun in jail.
Ties in well with totally legal asset forfeiture. The money is the criminal. Why not a gun?
It is every Americans RIGHT not some government privilege.
It doesn’t say it was an illegal gun, just that he didn’t have a carry permit…on his own property…
If he used a rifle or shotgun, it wouldn’t have been a crime in PA.
It would if the burglar was an off-duty cop or informant. “Looters-by-law” is a fact of reality. It honestly the two largest vote-vacuuming gangs. All you have to do to be arrested for resisting crime is vote their way. Unanimity is important to them.
PA doesn’t require permits to own guns. There are no illegal guns, only people not permitted to have guns. Which this guy wasn’t.
It isn’t an illegal gun. It is undocumented.
If you are a landlord, how is the property that you’re renting not your “fixed place of business”? Renting is certainly taxed as a business. And rental properties are as “fixed” as any brick and mortar store. I’m not seeing the “window” for charging even “on a technicality”.
There were no tenants in the home at the time, ergo it *wasn’t* a place of business at the time. It was simply a property that he owned, but did not live in. Had there been tenants, it would’ve been his fixed place of business.
You’re saying that a new store only becomes a place of business when it opens, and ceases to be one while it’s closed for inventory. I don’t think so.
“Whatever the case, it should be—it is—possible to balance public safety with the right to bear arms, and, as an extension, the right to self-defense.”
Gun rights *are* the balance.
What is the actual charge? Because PA doesn’t require a permit to open carry. Only concealed carry, with some exceptions. Did he admit to concealing it before using it?
Really how hard is it to fillout some forms, I did and I was high as shit on crack!?
– Hunter Biden
I just let the secret service fill out forms. Unless they’re busy finding me hookers and blow.
Funny how in countries where smokable paste is legal, nobody is addicted to heroin and life goes on normally–except when the foreign DEA’s busy overthrowing elected government. So… whut did the sockpuppet see Hunter do?
The rules must be enforced . . . isn’t that what wingnuts have been insisting lately because students at strong universities object to Israel’s right-wing belligerence and war crimes?
I think the phrase that fell out of your ellipsis is “consistently and fairly.”
Tatsuya Ishida Der Stürmer fan detected…
Remember Weigel?
Peak Weigel has returned.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1785644029910126855?s=19
The UCLA story looks pretty clear, based on LAT/student reporting — pro-Israel counter-protests showed up and started swinging.
No, I don’t. Vaguely recall the name. Others mention it here.
What’s this about? What’s peak about it? I don’t twitter and clicking on his name leads me to years old posts and nothing else.
He was a not particularly libertarian, and particularly unpopular with the comment section, former Reason writer whose specialty was covering conservatives (if I recall correctly).
Only shoot to kill.
Have a boat.
“It was his gun”!
Both the Republican and Democrat markups of the Second Amendment say “MUST be infringed.” Ya gotta have SOME rools, right? The looters are the only ones with a clear path to getting elected, right? So when they do you without even so much as a reach-around, that’s WINNING! (Disclaimer: voting libertarian voids this generous offer.)
Balance? What the heck is balance? Sometimes, it is a little bit this way and then a little bit the other way? The balance between the collective’s safety and the “right” to bear arms is a balance? Oh dear, you are a bit off balance, dear author. Back to school with you, oh no, perhaps that is where your logic was taught.
“Whatever the case, it should be—it is—possible to balance public safety with the right to bear arms, and, as an extension, the right to self-defense.”
There you go again. Assuming good faith from hoplophobes. They don’t want us to defend ourselves. They want sheep.
I say eff’em. Be a sheepdog.
They don’t want Criminals of Color getting injured.