|
Post by Doug on Aug 21, 2014 14:05:01 GMT -5
I've stayed out of this. I see it as no different than the person who back out of the drive and runs over their kid.
|
|
|
Post by Russell Letson on Aug 21, 2014 15:51:52 GMT -5
Well, maybe . . . . if the driver thinks, "Did I hear somebody behind me? Should I check the mirror? Nah, probably just a squirrel. Hell with it, I'm backing out."
|
|
|
Post by Lonnie on Aug 21, 2014 16:42:02 GMT -5
Peter, perhaps your parenting was as perfect as you seem to believe and resulted in kids that are as perfect as you believe, but the odds are strongly against it. All of us try to raise our kids well. Yet, sadly, we and they make mistakes. They probably never snuck out because they knew you'd shoot them, Dad. Nobody's parenting skills are at issue here. That's just typical ad hominem douche baggery to try to mock me and change the subject. The facts are pretty straight forward. A sheriff's deputy shot someone breaking into his home at night. Turned out it was his daughter who was someplace she shouldn't have been. Tough way to learn that lesson but there it is. Y'all are more than welcome to whatever self-satisfied sanctimonious judgments you want to make, but he didn't do anything wrong, illegitimate, or illegal. I think anyone who shoots their own child on their own property has pretty questionable judgement, and anyone who defends them has equally poor judgement... whether that translates to poor parenting skills I can't say, so I apologize for the attempt at humor.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Aug 21, 2014 16:45:03 GMT -5
In both cases, the shooter fired without being certain of the nature and identity of his target. The excuse is "I was protecting my home and family," and in the case of the grandpa, he was "more paranoid than usual."* This is precisely why self-defense laws need to apply not only the "reasonable person" and "proportional force" tests but refuse to over-emphasize the sincerity or subjective fear of the defender. Firing at an undefined target, from a distance, in the dark, without warning strikes me as irresponsible. Defending such an act by invoking some absolutist version of the castle doctrine means that petty trespass (or teenage curfew-breaking) become capital offenses, with any old gun-owner (which now means anybody who has not actually been found crazy or criminal) empowered to carry out execution, based on his own subjective evaluation of a situation, no matter how deluded or ignorant or foolish. * Not necessarily his own language, and in any case both emotive and imprecise--unless he's actually mentally ill, he was "more fearful or anxious than usual." Not that there's anything particularly exculpatory about that. What exactly is "petty trespass"? "Well your honor, it's not a B&E. It's a petty trespass. I only wanted to go pee. Hell, I couldn't even get close to the big screen TV before the Doberman found me." And it's no more of a capital crime than crossing the yellow line into an on coming Peterbilt makes a minor traffic ticket a capital crime. It's a fatal mistake. Pure and simple. Just don't do it. Period.
|
|
|
Post by Russell Letson on Aug 21, 2014 17:05:34 GMT -5
If "it" means "break into a house not your own at night," just maybe. If "it" means "go out for a smoke without telling grandpa," then no. Jesus, Peter, read what the prosecutor said again. . . . he says it's a case of a legal gun owner who admitted pulling the trigger without knowing his target.
"He says he didn't have his glasses on. He says he didn't know who was there. It could have been law enforcement back there," explained Ostrem. "It could have been anybody back there, and he intentionally discharged his firearm." That's not a simple mistake, it's panic, incompetence, and negligence on the part of someone who (given the outcome) had no business having a gun in his hand.
|
|
|
Post by dradtke on Aug 21, 2014 17:15:53 GMT -5
Russell, you're not listening. Everybody has business having a gun in their hand. It's their God-given right, and it makes everybody safer.
|
|
|
Post by billhammond on Aug 21, 2014 17:18:18 GMT -5
Russell, you're not listening. Everybody has business having a gun in their hand. It's their God-given right, and it makes everybody safer. Someone needs to take Russell out behind the barn and shoot him, methinks.
|
|
|
Post by Russell Letson on Aug 21, 2014 17:32:00 GMT -5
See the closing sequence of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."
|
|
|
Post by Chesapeake on Aug 21, 2014 18:26:02 GMT -5
Russell, you're not listening. Everybody has business having a gun in their hand. It's their God-given right, and it makes everybody safer. Someone needs to take Russell out behind the barn and shoot him, methinks. Shooting is too good for Russell. They need to strap him into a chair, prop his eyelids open with toothpicks, and make him watch Sean Hannity for an hour.
|
|
|
Post by Rob Hanesworth on Aug 21, 2014 18:27:31 GMT -5
See the closing sequence of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Sorry, I'm retired. I don't do homework.
|
|
|
Post by brucemacneill on Aug 21, 2014 18:29:47 GMT -5
Someone needs to take Russell out behind the barn and shoot him, methinks. Shooting is too good for Russell. They need to strap him into a chair, prop his eyelids open with toothpicks, and make him watch Sean Hannity for an hour. Oh, come on, even I would consider that torture. Water-boarding, maybe OK but Hannity? No, no, a thousand times no!!!
|
|
|
Post by Cosmic Wonder on Aug 21, 2014 18:44:32 GMT -5
Russell, you're not listening. Everybody has business having a gun in their hand. It's their God-given right, and it makes everybody safer. Someone needs to take Russell out behind the barn and shoot him, methinks. It would have to be his parents barn, where he was illegally smoking a dubie, for his parents to get away with blowing him away. Mike
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Aug 21, 2014 19:09:25 GMT -5
Jesus Russell, didn't you you read what the prosecutor did? Pled it down to a misdemeanor slap on the wrist. Didn't figure he could make the felony count stick.
And what about the sheriff's deputy? No charges. No evidence of anything criminal. He believed his daughter was still in bed. Opened the garage door and saw someone coming at him a couple feet away and fired. Tragic but not stupid, careless, or criminal.
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Aug 21, 2014 19:35:27 GMT -5
I was raised hunting and I was taught that you must always be sure of the identity of your target before you fire. Years back, I was hunting with a good friend who was a Nam vet. He commented that during that war, if there had been a noise off in the jungle, they would have fired first and asked questions later. He had to modify his reaction when hunting. I suppose it is different if you think there's someone out there who means you harm.
So what do you do if there's an unidentified person in your home? I don't know what I'd do because I haven't been in that situation. My rational side tells me that very few intruders mean to do bodily harm to the residents, and that it would be better to let them steal something and leave. There's too much risk that if you fire, a tragedy of the sort discussed here would occur. Besides, there's nothing in my home I'd kill someone for stealing.
But I don't know if my fear and protective instincts would trump my rational side in such a situation. That's mostly why, even though I own guns, I don't keep one anywhere near me at night.
|
|
|
Post by TKennedy on Aug 21, 2014 20:18:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by millring on Aug 21, 2014 20:29:26 GMT -5
I keep a bow and arrow by my bed. It's the kind with the rubber plunger-tip arrows. Somebody breaks into my house, boy are they gonna feel stupid with a plunger-tip arrow stuck to their forehead.
|
|
|
Post by Russell Letson on Aug 21, 2014 20:43:35 GMT -5
I just keep one of those Steve Martin joke arrows in the bedside table. Imagine having to explain to your burglar friends how you came to be wearing a fake arrow-through-the-head. O the humiliation!
|
|
|
Post by dradtke on Aug 21, 2014 20:46:09 GMT -5
Tragic but not stupid, careless, or criminal. Tragic, stupid, and careless, but not criminal.
|
|
|
Post by Cosmic Wonder on Aug 21, 2014 21:07:14 GMT -5
I wonder if the cop would be charged if he wasn't a cop?
Mike
|
|
|
Post by Doug on Aug 21, 2014 21:10:28 GMT -5
We have instincts because they are good for the species. But the fact is that when a person is in fear for their life there isn't much that they won't and don't do. Once you get to that point there is no rational side, you react with instinct and training. Training is the difference. The Grandmother most likely had no training so pure instinct. You as a hunter with no keep alive training, instinct has you bringing your gun up and training brings you to identify (which might or might not be a good thing). Person trained in keep alive manner see possible threat and instinct moves you to react and training has you eliminating the threat. And of course there are all sorts of levels between.
But no matter which place a person is fear for life first brings up instinct not rational thought.
|
|