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The man had no business out there. He had nothing to protect. His neighbor never gave him permission to watch over his property. How about letting the police do their jobs?
Why did he shoot to kill? Is killing the correct response to theft?
he didnt hunt them down and kill them he detained them and then defended himself.
why did he shoot to kill??? sorry that is funny. not trying to be mean though
you dont shoot to make peoples inner child feel loved. especially with a shotgun. once you are commited to using a firearm (which he did everything right) it is a tool that will cause death or serious bodily injury and you dont get to choose.
shooting to wound or scare...it doesnt work that way. if you pull that trigger it is to take a life
The man had no business out there. He had nothing to protect. His neighbor never gave him permission to watch over his property. How about letting the police do their jobs?
Look...we're having to make several assumptions as we read about this...
Assumptions here are:
1) These people were making some sort of forced entry indicative of criminal behavior obvious to the average reasonable person, and
2) The man had at least a reasonable cause to believe that they were in the commission of a felony crime of burglary ("robbery" is actually taking property from someone by means of force or fear, i.e. "bank robber" versus "burglary" which is entering a four-sided structure with the intent to commit a theft).
If we're working from these two very critical assumptions, then I for one don't think he needed an invitation from his neighbor to defend his neighbor's property. He was simply attempting to make a lawful detention (the proper term) of two suspects for the police. It was THEIR choice to escalate the incident, as had they complied with his directives they would be alive and able to have due process of law and their state-appointed defense attorney.
MrSykes...I don't know where you live, but I can assure you that around our ranching community here in North Idaho (and most of the rest of Idaho I would guess) we look out for each other, and if I was checking out a neighbor's place due to observing some suspicious activity, I'd be armed with either my 12ga shotgun or AK-47 (which, by the way, you can buy at a swap meet here with no paperwork required...yet gun crime is still low....hmmmm)
Of course, around here, I'd choose the shotgun to go check out a disturbance most likely, since if it's a bear or cougar, the shotgun will do more spread damage at close range...it's what I take outside at night when our livestock makes a fuss that gives me cause for alarm...
The man had no business out there. He had nothing to protect. His neighbor never gave him permission to watch over his property. How about letting the police do their jobs?
he did give them (police) the opportunity to do there job, guess what they couldnt get there in time.
not trying to be insulting but that is a victim mentality bigger then anything. he tried to stop a commision of a crime. that is what responsible citizens do.
I'm a gun owner. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, think the use of force to defend oneself is more than justified, and have zero sympathy for criminals of any kind. With that being said, I think the man in question was flat wrong to do what he did.
It is clear from the transcript of the 911 call that his life was not in imminent danger. He was not being threatened in any way. The crime was not being committed against him but rather his neighbor's property. He was told repeatedly by the 911 operator to stay in his home but he refused. The last exchange between the caller and the 911 operator before the burglars were shot was this:
911: "You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with the gun."
Caller: "You wanna make a bet? I'm going to kill them."
I'm sorry, but how can any reasonable person say that this man's actions were justified? He didn't have to go outside and confront these criminals, but he chose to. He created a possible "self defense/deadly force" situation that would not have existed had he simply stayed in his home and let the police handle it. I realize that Texas law may be on his side in this matter, which I guess is fine. But to my mind it doesn't make what he did right.
It is incidents like this that involve questionable judgment in using a weapon that anti-gun advocates jump all over. How long do you think it will be before it's used to promote some half-baked gun control law somewhere?
Maybe some see this man as a hero. All I see is a man that tossed reason out the window and did a very stupid thing that just makes the vast majority of his fellow gun owners look bad.
I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in murder, no matter what.
Pacifists endorse murder by standing by and letting it happen rather than intervening to stop it. It only takes one aggressor to rule a world of pacifists. That's not a world most people will tolerate living in, and "pacifists" can feign moral superiority while counting on that fact.
That said, I'm going to break with the majority here in this case. TonyT above me has this one covered.
I'm a gun owner. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, think the use of force to defend oneself is more than justified, and have zero sympathy for criminals of any kind. With that being said, I think the man in question was flat wrong to do what he did.
It is clear from the transcript of the 911 call that his life was not in imminent danger. He was not being threatened in any way. The crime was not being committed against him but rather his neighbor's property. He was told repeatedly by the 911 operator to stay in his home but he refused. The last exchange between the caller and the 911 operator before the burglars were shot was this:
911: "You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with the gun."
Caller: "You wanna make a bet? I'm going to kill them."
I'm sorry, but how can any reasonable person say that this man's actions were justified? He didn't have to go outside and confront these criminals, but he chose to. He created a possible "self defense/deadly force" situation that would not have existed had he simply stayed in his home and let the police handle it. I realize that Texas law may be on his side in this matter, which I guess is fine. But to my mind it doesn't make what he did right.
It is incidents like this that involve questionable judgment in using a weapon that anti-gun advocates jump all over. How long do you think it will be before it's used to promote some half-baked gun control law somewhere?
Maybe some see this man as a hero. All I see is a man that tossed reason out the window and did a very stupid thing that just makes the vast majority of his fellow gun owners look bad.
If the bold is true, a good lawyer is going to eat him alive. Whether he was "morally" right in shooting the robbers or not.
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