Armed Citizen: Teen Shot by Homeowner

[OuTcAsT]

I would never shoot someone over property...I would never shoot someone over property...

OK, Got it.

but I would shoot someone if they threatened me with potentially deadly violence while I was preventing them access to my property.

OK, that brings us to this:

But when is it needless?

Lets see if we can complete the circle, and answer your question at the same time.

Your car is parked in your driveway, or your lawnmower is sitting in your front lawn, or, you have left your gold brick lying about on the picnic table in the back yard, makes no difference which, they are all property
(now stay with me here)

Someone comes into your yard, and attempts to take your property, You see this about to happen, yell out the door for him to stop and leave, at this point you have some pivotal decisions to make;

A. Call 911, give a description of the thief, your property, and the situation, and keep feeding information as available until he leaves (with or without your property)
or until the police arrive.

B. Cover your concealed weapon, go outside, confront the thief, and tell him you are not just going to stand Idly by while he steals your property.

The decision you make from either A. or B. is going to have consequences.

Choice A. Your property may or may not get taken, if not all is well, if it does, you are able to give police a description of the thief and the property stolen, call your insurance agent, and either get back your property, or a replacement, and you are still safe.

Choice B. Your property may or may not get taken, but that is going to depend on several variables, thief may get scared and leave, good!
thief may want to get physical, and will either be settled by a scuffle, you are beaten or killed, or you will feel threatened enough to shoot him.

Choice A. You are still alive, you still have property, you have not taken a life.

Choice B. You may be still alive, you may still have property, or, you have injured or taken a life.


If you have chosen B. and have had to kill someone, guess what? You just broke your own word; How? You killed someone over property.


You may choose to say, "no I killed him because he threatened me while I was protecting my property"


There is NO difference. You had a choice, A. or B. when you chose B. you put yourself in the position of being threatened. Needlessly.

And in the position to kill someone over property, and justify it with self defense.

I would never shoot someone over property...but I would shoot someone if they threatened me with potentially deadly violence while I was preventing them access to my property.

^^ See the "circle" ? ^^

Understand the term "needless" ?

Should they just let someone take or destroy it, causing great financial and other harm to themselves,

That is what property insurance is for. If you own a gun, it is Life insurance, not property insurance.

 

[Zilmo]

I also suggest that a person has no duty to NOT do what they would do if they didn't have a gun just because they DO have a gun.

I'm sorry, but I don't have enough bread crumbs to find my way back from that.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

I'm sorry, but I don't have enough bread crumbs to find my way back from that.

Simple. If you would confront the person if you didn't have the gun then you have every right to confront that person when you do have a gun. You have the right to boot someone off your property. You have the right to have a gun present to defend yourself if the person becomes violent. That use of force depends on the same rules as if you were out on the street, such as disparity of force, reasonable belief, etc.

 

[KLRANGL]

Outcast, sorry I don't buy your argument. Not fully anyway. You can confront someone without having forced them into attacking you. If they do attack you, it isn't because you made them. Sure going outside increases the risk of them attacking you, but it doesn't cause it. Girls that wear short skirts in public don't cause guys to rape them...

The risk should be accounted for when you are making the decision on what to do. Me personally, I'd probably just stay inside because to me its not worth the risk. But I wouldn't fault someone for going out.

 

[OuTcAsT]

You can confront someone without having forced them into attacking you.

Yes, you can, I will concede part of that.
But how is a confrontation going to go? The guy will either leave, or the situation is going to escalate. this is, at best, a 50/50 bet, and you can either play those odds, or choose to not bet.

And I never said "Don't confront" My point is, if you are gonna confront someone over a property issue, and the situation escalates, you may end up on the legal high ground by claiming "self defense" was the reason for the shooting, but the honest truth is, it was over property, if it were not, you would have no reason to confront.

 

[KLRANGL]

But how is a confrontation going to go? The guy will either leave, or the situation is going to escalate. this is, at best, a 50/50 bet, and you can either play those odds, or choose to not bet.

I wouldn't quite put it at 50/50, depending on the situation. But yeah, I agree you either play the odds or you dont. I just cant agree that if it does escalate, it means you just defended property with lethal force. I advise against confrontation from a tactical standpoint, not from a legal or moral standpoint.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I care about my own life, and don't care the least for the guy stealing from me... I never bought into the whole "every life is sacred" theory. (Dangit, now I got the Monty Python "Every Sperm is Sacred" song stuck in my head )
But if someone is stealing something, you go out and tell them to leave, they attack you and you kill them... well to me it doesn't make sense that it is your fault in the least. I dunno. I guess I don't really have to worry, cuz I don't plan on confronting someone anytime soon. Maybe its the bit of french blood in me

 

[Playboypenguin]

Your car is parked in your driveway, or your lawnmower is sitting in your front lawn, or, you have left your gold brick lying about on the picnic table in the back yard, makes no difference which, they are all property

You scenario falls apart from the very first sentence. There is a great deal of difference between types of property. If you rely on a car or a lawn mower for your living and they are destroyed or stolen you have not just lost a material item. You have also lost a means of supporting yourself and your family...and insurance only covers so much and often nothing at all. You also go on to present odds that make no sense. If someone is in the act of destroying or stealing my property the odds are 100% that I am going to suffer an immediate loss. Then there is also the odds of said thief returning to the easy prey later. In such a situation you have to consider the odds of successfully defending your property against the odds of things going wrong. You also have to understand that as long as you do not escalate the issue you are not in the wrong if the criminal chooses to do some themselves.

People are severely misusing the term "escalate" in regards to someone meeting a threat with appropriate force. If you are simply responding justifiably to a threat and not using more force than necessary you are not escalating the event. If the person on the other end alters their tactics to override your appropriately gauged defensive measures they are the ones escalating the event.

But how is a confrontation going to go? The guy will either leave, or the situation is going to escalate. this is, at best, a 50/50 bet, and you can either play those odds, or choose to not bet.

I can go downtown and feel relatively certain I will not be attacked, but I cannot know that for sure since it does happen every day. If I follow your line of thinking I am invoking an attack by going downtown since I cannot be certain it will not go horribly wrong and should therefore just stay home. I definitely should never go downtown with a concealed weapon because there is a thousand different ways that could go wrong.

I know we all want to be PC and present a good face for the pro-gun movement but that does not entail becoming sheep...or worse yet perpetual victims. There is no need to try and classify someone as barbaric because they will defend their home (keep in mind "defending their home" can range anywhere from a verbal warning to a helping hand off the property). There is no reason to try and assign blame to them if doing so causes another free willed person to decide to harm them for daring to defend themselves.

 

[Hank15]

Guys, don't look at everything from a legal perspective.

If this was your old stubborn grandfather, I am sure you'd support him rather than give him all the legal BS.

 

[Wildalaska]

Guys, don't look at everything from a legal perspective.

If this was your old stubborn grandfather, I am sure you'd support him rather than give him all the legal BS.

And if the decedent was your son?

How come no one responded to my mailbox soundbite, infra, somewhere?

WildsomebodyisomebodyelsesfamilyAlaska TM

 

[Hank15]

What's the mailbox soundbite infra thing about? I don't think I read it.

And to answer your question, if I have a son in the future, I don't see him pulling off any stunts like that, not if I raise him right.

WildAlaska, I told people to think of the old man as their grandfather with your response in mind.

I don't see myself correcting my 82 year old grandfather, but I do see myself raising my son correctly so that he doesn't do the stuff mentioned in the article.

That's why I only told people to imagine that the old man was their grandfather, but mentioned nothing about the decedent.

 

[OuTcAsT]

Deleted, due to weariness of trying to persuade closed minds.

 

[Beentown71]

The perps choices are not my responsibility. If someone is trying to take my property on my property (just an I.E.) I will confront him (probably yell at them) while or after calling 911. I will then try and secure my property. If he chooses to escalate the situation that is his bad choice. The only instance where my weapon would be drawn is if I felt myself or loved ones life was in danger.

Life is full of many risks. It is not in me to LET someone do my family harm (finances or bodily). I am not looking for a confrontation at all. All they have to do is make the correct secondary choice and leave.

Beentown

 

[Donn_N]

Sorry, but if you voluntarily go into a confrontation with a thief carrying a weapon, you are demonstrating the willingness to kill or get killed over property.
That you could get killed is the dirty little fact that no one likes to address. There is no guarantee the good guy (you, presumably) will prevail. The assumption is always, "If he makes a threatening move, I'll just plug 'em." Yeah, well, it doesn't always work out so neatly. So by entering into the confrontation, you not only express a willingness to kill to protect property, but also the willingness to die for it, which is even worse.

Whether or not the the property is used to make a living is immaterial. That's what insurance is for. If you don't have insurance on valuable items that enable you to make a living and feed your family, you're a fool.

 

[easyG]

I'm rather surprised that so many here claim that they would never shoot someone over mere "property".

In the right circumstances, I certainly would.

 

[Texas Rifleman]

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Don't be a pacifist. Standing for your life and freedoms are never free. What if our boys in WWII said, "Well gee. We should just avoid Germany because we could get killed if we went over there and tried to stop them."

 

[supergas452M]

This good man is not going to do nothing.

What's this criminal gonna do? Tell his lawyer "I was minding my own business, taking this guys stereo out of his car, not harming anyone, and the owner walks up tells me to get out of the car and leave. I laughed at him and said "yeah right!". "Next thing I know the owner pulls his .45 and caps me in the knee cap!"

"I wanna sue."

I'm sure there are some no account lawyers out there that will take his case, if his family has money.

I have to shake my head at people that are so scared of being sued that they will lay down and take it from the dredge of the earth. I will risk being tried by 12 or 6 to fight wrong. The perp is the one that makes the call when he decides to commit a crime.

Bobby Knight, I believe is the moron that was quoted as saying...

"If rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy it."

If not he, than my apologies to him.

If you want to accept rape and choose to enjoy it, fine. Just, please, don't try to sway me to your way of thinking.

You people that think that killing to protect property from those that would take it criminally is reprehensible, are reprehensible to me.

I will now back out of this one, my opinion is on record.

Feel free to flame away, starting with you WildAlaska, even though your comments will be wasted upon me, as I have chosen to ignore your incessant drivel.

 

[Wildalaska]

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

WildbattelofthequotesAlaska TM

 

[Wildalaska]

Feel free to flame away, starting with you WildAlaska, even though your comments will be wasted upon me, as I have chosen to ignore your incessant drivel.

Cool. Then I can say thumpthump without fear of hateful verbal retaliation that makes me sob brokenly.

What an easy world some folks live in.... as someone who reveled in violence once said....Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.

WildoldiosipdhzugashvilismostfamousquoteAlaska TM

 

[Capt. Charlie]

Ya know, I've pondered about reasons to close this, but hell, I can't find one to keep it open, and quite frankly, I'm tempted to flip the selector switch on my ban button to full auto. .

Closed.