A does. But since the whole situation was provoked by a criminal act by A - and thus could easily have been prevented by him just paying the damn cab fare - this is not remotely a “positive gun use” and you’re really stretching to characterize it as such.
Seems quite simple to me. The cabbie should have called the cops about the theft. It was a very poor decision to chase a thief/robber into a building. Let the cops arrest the guy.
Sure he does. But if he gets arrested, it is a much tougher battle to convince a prosecutor and jury that it was done in self defense.
And that’s why I think it is a positive gun use.
Stiffing the cabbie, then burning the bodies are both crimes. But defending himself is not.
DGU, two dead.
Really? That’s slicing it very fine. By that argument, if someone’s mugging me and I pull out my gun to shoot them, it’s a “positive gun use” if they then shoot me to defend themselves against me. I mean, if we’re going to remove all context from the incident, it makes perfect sense.
As with everything, the fact pattern is critical. There are two issues here.
The actions of the cab driver, and the actions of the shooter. The fact that money is owed to the cab driver is indeed irrelevant to the breaking and entering. But that is from the perspective of the cab driver.
From the perspective of the shooter, according to the article he is invoking stand your ground. The fact that he owes the cab driver money is entirely relevant to that scenario in that not paying for a cab fare is theft. The Stand your Ground statutes in South Carolina are covered in South Carolina Code SECTION 16-11-440:
(my bold)
The law in South Carolina contemplated a scenario like this, where someone engaged in an unlawful activity seeks shelter in a residence.
In other words, the shooter was not simply an innocent. Defending oneself is fine, it’s what the thread is mostly about after all. What is not fine is being an aggressor, or initiator. It would not be appropriate at all if a criminal or someone engaged in unlawful acts has a magic shield by hiding in their house immediately after committing a crime.
Based on the fact pattern, the Stand Your Ground law in South Carolina would not apply. That being said, the presumption of reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury is not present.
In other news, Father rushes to help daughter after men break into Pulaski Co. home
DGU with no injuries. So a person that was arrested for home invasion in the month prior was released and did the same thing. Setting fire to a house to keep warm is not a sign of a great thinker. Hopefully the person is not released and convicted after this.
Not at all the same. If they break into your house, they have no basis to claim self defense.
And as Bone pointed out, if you’re hiding in your house to facilitate your crime (as this guy was), you have no basis to claim self-defense either.
No where in the law does it equate staying your house with facilitating a crime.
He hid in his house to escape paying his cabfare.
But fine - you’ve got an entire thread of examples of normal law-abiding people defending themselves with guns against legitimate threats but if this is the hill you want to die on, go ahead and have this one.
And the next time there’s a conversation about DGU on this board I’ll remember how many straws were grasped just to add one dubious example to the total and wonder how many others like it are out there.
This is why there will be a trial. 
The law doesn’t state this specifically, but it does say that the presumption of fear that would justify self defense doesn’t apply if the person who uses deadly force is either engaged in unlawful activity OR is using the residence to further an unlawful activity. Theft is an unlawful activity, therefore the presumption does not apply.
In the case where that presumption does not apply, the standard to evaluate whether self defense is a valid affirmative defense contains 4 elements. Those elements are:
First, the defendant must be without fault in bringing on the difficulty.
Second, the defendant must have actually believed he was in
imminent danger of losing his life or sustaining serious bodily injury,
or he actually was in such imminent danger. Third, if his defense is
based upon his belief of imminent danger, a reasonably prudent man
of ordinary firmness and courage would have entertained the same
belief. If the defendant actually was in imminent danger, the
circumstances were such as would warrant a man of ordinary
prudence, firmness and courage to strike the fatal blow in order to
save himself from serious bodily harm or losing his own life. Fourth,
the defendant had no other probable means of avoiding the danger of
losing his own life or sustaining serious bodily injury than to act as he
did in this particular instance.
Based on the fact pattern, I do not believe the first element is satisfied. Because there is no presumption of imminent danger, the fact pattern will control whether this belief was held, and if so, was reasonably held. I think these elements fail too. Self defense is not established if any one of the four elements can be disproven. See South Carolina Court of Appeals Opinion No. 4769.
Do you contend that each of the four elements exist?
In other news, Homeowner Fatally Shoots Would-Be Burglar in Ontario: Police
DGU with one death. If a person breaks in at 5 in the morning I have to think they expect people to be home.
Canadians have guns?
That would be the question that comes to the mind of most Americans outside SoCal from that headline…
That’s an interesting interpretation of the law, and it might even hold up if the cab driver and his friend were shot while in pursuit of the gun owner outside. The problem comes when they break into his house. With the commission of a crime of their own, the gun owner is no longer furthering his theft of cab fare, but defending himself from criminals invading his home. One’s domicile holds a special status in the law. While the police have latitude to enter when in hot pursuit, theft victims do not. At the time of the home invasion, the gun owner was not engaged in unlawful activity (the theft of cab fare having occured prior to the home invasion), and he wasn’t using his home in the furtherance of of unlawful activity, since the cab driver had no legal right to enter the home. So neither condition is met, and the presumption of fear is valid.
I think your interpretation is without basis. You have concluded that the shooter was not engaged in unlawful activity, and you have come to this conclusion because the theft had occurred prior to the cab driver entering the home. This is an absurd reading of the statute - a person could commit a crime on their porch and then step inside and your contention is that the person who just committed a crime was not engaged in unlawful activity. There would need to be some shield that once crossed acts as a cuttoff. This is nonsense and is not consistent with the law in South Carolina.
Even if your idea that the presumption of fear exists, that presumption only modifies the 3rd element of the 4 element test for self defense. Both the 1st, 2nd, and 4th elements must still exist. Do you think they do? Would you say that the shooter is without fault? Do you think the person was in actual fear? Even then, the presumption is rebuttable. Evidence can be presented that refute the shooter’s claims, even if someone was unlawfully and forcibly entering the residence.
A jury will decide as the trier of fact.
I would think that the presumption on innocence would be of importance here.
This will be a good one to follow. If the shooter is exonerated then I may suspect he had a $uperbly $killed attorney who$e office had excellent $taff.
He is still guilty of the crime on the porch. He is not furthering that crime when he enters the house, because there are no additional charges that could be added to the crime that occurred on the porch.
The unlawful activity occurred when the gun owner left the cab without paying. He is not furthering that unlawful activity by entering his house; he is not guilty of any additional charges than if he had stayed outside. The cab driver has one appropriate response, and that is to call the police.