Why explore "possibilities" that you admit are inconsistent with the evidence?
I dunno, It just seems to me that "I put him out of his misery" might not have looked to good in writing. Again, I don't believe thats what happened, but, I wasn't there. Were any of you?
You are NOT trying to kill someone, you ARE trying to STOP THEIR ACTIONS.
In a case I recall reading on this board, a cop got into a gunfight with a BG. After said BG fell in front of him, Officer Jared Reston pulled him in close put his pistol to his head and shot him 3 times. In my super humble and honest opinion, I believe shooting someone 3 times in the head in rapid succession is saying die! Die! DIE! I know intelligences above mine will probably disagree. But Reston had been shot what, 6 - 7 times? He had every right to think "damned if im going to let this kid put one more hole in me". I believe he did the right thing. I also believe he intentionally KILLED the suspect.
Back to the topic. I do find it complicated. Very complicated. As do a huge population of gun owners. But thats because we can't allow the written law to be our morality compass. A criminal scumbag is someone again, in my very low and humble opinion, who goes looking for a looking for someone to victimize.
It is called self control.
Bingo. This is what I think actually happened. He lost self control. Maybe out of fear, more likely out of anger. And thats why we find it complicated.
Ersland was put in a situation where he lost self control by criminals. Had he never been put in this situation, I believe he would have lived out the rest of his loony life, without committing a felony.
But because the criminals chose to victimize him, one is dead, he is behind bars, and alot of other ones are probably going to be rich.
I know what he did was wrong. I know why he was convicted. I also know that there are several people in AZ who legally carry a concealed firearm who have never taken a CCW class (because we no longer have to) that would probably do something similar if they were put in a similar circumstance. I don't call these people evil.
What Antwun Parker had originally planned to do was evil. Forcibly take money from someone who had worked hard for it. Kill him if he did not comply. I believe he got what he had coming, just as Jerome Ersland did. But now he is a martyr for the criminal society, and Jerome Ersland is a martyr for many in the gun owning society. It is a complicated situation. Legally, no. Not a bit. Morally and ethically, quite a bit. To me anyway.