redstategunnut said:
From the video, it appears he executed a defenseless man who no longer posed a threat. The sentence is just.
First response of the thread and it said it all.
People in this thread are trying to attribute this verdict to this vast culture war. "They want us not to defend ourselves!" is the clarion cry. I believe one poster said "If the first shot was just, so were the next five!" Understandable emotions. I believe in the ability of the businessman to defend himself, his customers, and his business...however...as for the justice of the shots...
That is not true. That is not how the law, or a reasonable human being (reasonableness here not my subjective term, but in the legal sense), behaves or processes. If I am threatened by a man with a knife and shoot the suspect, this is just. If I find out where he lives and drive to his house and shoot him there because the first shot failed to kill him, it doesn't matter that the first shot was just, at all, in either common sense terms nor in the letter of the law. At that point, I become the aggressor.
Tens of thousands every year defend themselves with force, and tens of thousands of times courts find in their favor or no charges are pressed at all. Why? Because law-abiding folks retaliate until the threat is neutralized. They have no desire to seek trouble, only to repel it. Once the trouble is repelled, what is the need for the violence?
Being a gun owner in no moral, legal, or rational sense makes an individual judge, jury, and executioner. On the contrary, the gun owner, possessing a lethal tool and knowledge of how to use it, assumes greater responsibility for self control and reasonable behavior.
When the victim disabled the attack capability of his aggressors, the proper response was to remain on-guard, reload and contact the authorities. Had the young man resumed a threatening capacity or had accomplices entered the pharmacy, the need for lethal force would resume, along with Mr. Ersland's legal protections.
Instead, based on my viewing of the video, and based on a jury of peers reviewing the available evidence, Ersland methodically reloaded, paced about, and then shot a boy lying on the floor. He murdered him. First degree, second degree, semantics and a difference in sentencing. I personally believe the sentence was just, and that the period reloading and pacing offered time for reflection and calming, making the murder a deliberated act.
Americans, contrary to the pessimism often expressed by those of us on the wrong side of political correctness, are a rational people by and large, and rarely will punish a man for behaving in a reasonable, civilized fashion, even if it means defending himself with lethal force. However, even the most ardent pro-gunner, as I see myself, for instance, draws the line and steps back when the citizen, armed in self-defense or defense of others, becomes an active aggressor.
I believe Ersland's actions have harmed all law-abiding gun owners by presenting for the public viewing a gun owner that turned defense into attack. I believe that the jury knows better than we do exactly what degree of murder this case fits into. I also believe that Ersland has at least some chance on appeal.
To me, from my humble standpoint, knowing the limited things I do, understanding the law as I do (which is admittedly still very fledgling), and understanding morality and reasonable behavior to the best of my ability, this case was justly resolved.