In Texas, you’d technically be crossing the legal line if you shot them in the back, even if the burglars had stolen property and were running off with it.
And in our CHL classes, it was made abundantly clear that if they’re clearly running away from you, it is no longer legally defensible to shoot them, even if they have property. The Castle Doctrine, as interpreted in Texas, is meant to preserve human life, not property. The same reasoning makes lethal mantraps illegal. If you’re not present on the property, there’s no immediate danger to your well-being (even if you might get robbed).
But you still might get away with it.
There’s the case of Joe Horn in a suburb of Houston. Wasn’t even defending his own home but a neighbor’s who was being robbed while out of town. Horn decided to arm himself, go outside, confront the robbers, and shoot them, while the 911 dispatcher was trying to dissuade him from doing so (“ain’t no property worth shooting somebody over”). What’s worse is that he clearly shot one of them in the back and may have gotten both in the back.
The grand jury cleared him. Naturally, there’s some controversy over it, with people taking both sides.
I personally thought the grand jury was a travesty. There are debates about activist judges, but this grand jury completely ignored written Texas law to enforce mob justice. Maybe Horn didn’t need to be charged with murder (and I can see maybe giving him a slap on the wrist or maybe, possibly acquitting him), but he should have gone to trial for his actions.
Yeah, this issue can be very confused with stuff about shooting people who are fleeing, the obvious racial overtones of the Joe Horn case, etc, but the core issue should not be forgotten: breaking into an *occupied *home is a serious aggression against persons, not a property crime, and should be subject to self-defense doctrine regardless of what you think about the use of force to protect property.
Sure. I’ll agree with this. And I don’t have any major problems with the Castle Doctrine.
My problem is mainly practical. There are too many idiots who shoot their own friends or family members thinking there’s a home invasion. And there were more cases of that in Houston last year than burglars hurting people.
[QUOTE=Great Antibob]
My problem is mainly practical. There are too many idiots who shoot their own friends or family members thinking there’s a home invasion. And there were more cases of that in Houston last year than burglars hurting people.
[/QUOTE]
Are there, though? How often does this actually happen? What’s the real extent of the threat here? How many people in the US are killed or wounded a year due to some idiot shooting their own friends and family members by accident, thinking it’s a home invasion? A 1000? 10,000? 100,000? 5? How many cases were there in Huston, since you brought that up?
My WAG is that the ‘threat’ (of home invasion) AND the purported ‘problem’ (of idiots shooting family members or friends thinking there is a home invasion) is probably being vastly overblown, and if you were to compare it to, say the number of people who are killed or injured just putting up Christmas lights that it would be the Christmas lights that would come out as the more serious threat. Just a WAG on my part, but knowing how poor people are at risk assessment I’d bet my WAG is closer to the truth.
It was indeed a travesty. I’m going from memory from what I read at the time, but I remember that HE DIDN’T KNOW THE PEOPLE who lived in the house he was “defending.” So for all he knew, the guys he shot were friends of the people who lived there, and had been asked by the homeowners to get the laptop or insulin or something that they had forgotten when they went on vacation, and FedEx it to them. Turns out that they actually were burglars, but Horn didn’t know that — he was clearly determined to shoot them, long before he left his house.
This latest case smells funny, too. This woman is on all the ET-type shows acting like she just won a prize on a game show, posing with her shotgun, etc. I have no problem with her shooting someone who broke into her home, and I’m glad she’s not traumatized, but she doesn’t have to be so fucking happy about it.
Why shouldn’t she be happy about it? Leaving aside the fact that this is her shot at 15 minutes of fame, she defended her child from someone who was obviously both deranged AND an idiot…and having done so, she has obviously struck a cord with a lot of people who are congratulating her and telling her she did the right thing, that she is a hero and such. What should she be feeling?
Soldiers who kill the enemy in wartime often feel traumatized by the knowledge that they killed someone, justified or not. I think “happy” is inappropriate.
Soldiers who kill someone in war time generally are doing so for obscure reasons…it’s not personal, at least not at first, and maybe not ever. This guy was trying to break into this ladies house with a knife in his hand, and her alone with no husband and a new born baby. Sorry, but I’d be pretty ‘happy’ with that outcome…it WAS personal. VERY personal. Trying to toss in a bunch of guilt into the situation or comparing this to soldiers in wartime is pretty silly, IMHO.
Oh, I’ve seen the card played enough, yeah. Sorry, but if that’s what you think this is all about your need to check your premises…and perhaps stop trying to project your own prejudices and empathy to others. Assuming the story is being conveyed as is, the fact that this lady isn’t wallowing in guilt and remorse LIKE YOU WOULD BE is militantly unsurprising to me.
Where did guilt and remorse come from? All I said was that “happy” was inappropriate; if you think I meant she must rend her garments, I think it is you with the issues. Project much, yourself…
Then again, I ask, what emotion SHOULD she be feeling, in your obviously opinionated opinion? Why is ‘happy’ inappropriate? I’m not projecting at all, actually…I asked a question and got jumped about being an internet tough guy. Just answer the question, ehe?
Why should she express any emotion? I am not questioning her action in killing the intruder, so you can stow the liberal guilt card. “Happy” is inappropriate.
Why should killing someone and the subsequent events NOT elicit some emotion?? Again, what IS the appropriate emotion? It’s really a simple question. What SHOULD she be feeling? What SHOULD she be displaying?
ETA: If you don’t want me to play the ‘liberal guilt card’ (ironic after the tough guy thingy, ehe?), then just answer the question and tell me what she should be feeling and displaying, and why ‘happy’ is inappropriate and something she shouldn’t be feeling.
A person can feel “happy” in a sense of relief that 1) they know they faced the grim reaper and now get a second chance, and 2) they have seen that they themselves rose to the occasion and did the right thing. Those two things are what I get from her attitude while describing the attack on her.
When you successfully defend yourself from an attack you do feel a sense of elation for those two reasons. Some of us know that feeling.
Even if she is a somehow a sociopath who was happy she could shoot the criminal…well, I don’t agree with that on a moral sense, but in a practical sense I can’t help but coming back to “that’s just a Goddamn shame then that these criminal assgoblins decided to try to make this woman a victim. Boo fucking hoo.”
I note no one on the anti-gun side wants to touch with a ten-foot pole the fact that this woman was on the phone with 911 for 21 fucking minutes and no cop managed to waddle their way to her property. A damn lot can happen in 5 minutes; in 21 minutes they both could have raped her, killed her and her kid, sat down to have some microwave popcorn, flossed the hulls out of their teeth, and moseyed on their way. :smack:
Considering that she pulled off what is practically the Platonic Ideal of a justified shooting, it seems perfectly reasonable to me she’d be happy about it.
