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The dead boy was screaming "someone's tryin' to kill me." Does that sound like he was breaking in to "get the family?" No, of course not. It sounds like he was in some kind of distress and the shooter over-reacted.
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
Mike, did you hear the part about him swinging on a neighbors porch swing before he went to other houses? So even though someone was trying to kill him, he saw that swing, he thought it look rather inviting and a little swing time would take the edge off when someone is trying to kill you,
ReplyDeleteOnce again, you ignore the parts that don't fit your narrative. Are you calling for the boy's arrest? A boy is dead. Why hasn't he been arrested yet? Why hadn't the mom been arrested for allowing a 17year old access to a gun? A boy is dead- that all that matters, so someone needs to pay. Right?
I saw that part. The kid was out of his mind on drugs, hallucinating maybe. He was desperately trying to escape some imagined threat. He was not a danger to the family in the sense that a home invader intent on rape and murder is. He didn't need to be killed.
DeleteYou know this how? The facts are that he was in the process of breaking into a home and was out of his mind. Do you really imagine that he was not likely to cause serious harm to the occupants of that house?
DeleteHow is the family supposed to tell the difference between someone intent on rape and murder, harmlessly hallucinating, and violently hallucinating? What if after they let him in the house and offer him milk and cookies, the mother turns into the three-headed pig-dog that has been trying to kill him which can only be slain by driving a screwdriver through each neck?
DeleteSo what do you want? Manslaughter for the son and accessory to manslaughter for the mom?
Part of the responsibility that comes with owning a gun for self defense is exactly that dilemma you described.
DeleteYes, manslaughter is the right charge and that's why the castle doctrine and the SYG nonsense is bad. It makes it too easy to use the gun unnecessarily.
This is why we need strong self-defense laws. There are people like you out there who would ruin this kid's life. Your proof that he wasn't a danger was because the family stopped him before they got hurt or killed. How is that supposed to work?
DeleteCan't say it better than you TS. Excellent comments.
DeleteThanks, Tennessean. I value your opinion.
DeleteThe would-be home invader broke the door and was trying to force his way inside. Was he high? Who cares? That's not the business of the people inside the house. They were rightly concerned only with protecting themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis was an unnecessary killing. The home owners probably read gun blogs which continually encourage them to stand their ground and shoot first. It's their right.
DeleteProbably? You don't know that. In fact, the only things about this case any of us know say that the residents of the home did the right thing. Someone who is far enough out on drugs to wander around breaking in doors is an immediate danger.
Delete"Someone who is far enough out on drugs to wander around breaking in doors is an immediate danger." and deserves death? Is that you position?
DeleteDon't bother to answer, I know it is. That's why you're more dangerous than the violent criminals out there.
Mikeb, it's not about deserving death. The person who broke into the home posed an immediate threat of killing or seriously injuring the residents. Sane and safe people don't wander around breaking into homes not theirs. Why can't you understand this?
DeleteWhy can't you understand that everybody who breaks into a home is not a lethal threat. Some of them are lost, drunk, drugged, insane, but not all of them are a serious danger.
DeleteThe post about the baseball bat guy, did you see that one? The store owner held him at gunpoint WITHOUT murdering him. Now, that was a good example of the restraint that truly responsible gun owners exercise. But you, you don't believe in that shit. You believe in your right to blow the fucker away - if he didn't want to get dead then why was he doing what he was doing, right?
If you want to play silly games with someone who breaks into your home, go ahead. But people who are lost don't break down a door, and people who are drugged enough to do so are a lethal threat.
DeleteThat's because he put the bat down. If he was whacked out of drugs and came swinging at him, you'd be talking about the gun owner's blood thirsty lack of restraint.
DeleteAlso it sounds like he had ample opportunity to stop what he was doing. The report says they pushed him back but he kept coming and that's when he fired the shot. The mother also talked about getting consoling for her son, but you are trying to paint him as trigger happy.
DeleteIf this guy is high out of his mind and having hallucinations that someone is trying to kill him, it's foolish to think that he is going to be sober/sane enough to recognize a gun and to also realize that the gun is there to tell him to stop and calm down and not there because the homeowner is out to get him too.
DeleteWell, T., we'll never know, will we?
DeleteMikeb, you're one of the few people who would wonder.
DeleteNo, Mike, we won't. But we can guess based on what TS said--that the family repeatedly pushed him out and he kept pushing back in--that he was not in a state of mind to take a hint. Also, did they have the gun out when they were pushing him out--maybe he already saw it and ignored it.
DeleteFinally, even if they pointed it at him and tried to hold him at gun point, we'd only have their word for it, so their attempt to do EVERYTHING you want them to do to avoid bloodshed still wouldn't satisfy you.
Good citizens don't kill people unnecessarily. Frightened gun owners who panic do that. I still don't hate them, but I object to their claims of legitimate DGUs when they should be charged with manslaughter.
DeleteAnd unless the person received a nasty injury--a life threatening one--you don't consider it a legitimate DGU.
DeleteExcept, you have two exceptions:
1. If you're hispanic and your attacker is black, there's no way that your injury can be severe enough.
2. If you only point your gun at the bad guy, it's a legitimate DGU--nevermind that the laws requires that the same conditions that would justify a shooting be present to justify holding the person at gunpoint--just because a shooting is justified doesn't mean it's a legitimate DGU.
Mikeb, given the circumstances of this case, what would you have done?
Delete"And unless the person received a nasty injury--a life threatening one--you don't consider it a legitimate DGU."
DeleteT., I'm restraining myself right now in an attempt to keep it civil. What you said about me is not true and it fucking pisses me off. I've posted stories of legitimate DGUs in which no one was injured but lethal threat was operative. Reasonable threat of death or serious injury is what's required, even in my book. You should know that because you've been around here long enough.
Mike,
DeleteMy issue in understanding your position is that it seems to bounce around. I can think of only two posts where you've called a DGU legitimate in the time I've been reading here, which is not enough to draw a solid conclusion from. In one, the guy was getting beat on in his home, I can't remember the details, but the perp died. We'll chalk that up against my comment since I don't remember the guy getting any permanent injuries, but he did get beat up, which seems to be required.
On the other hand, we have the one you posted a few days after this post--the gun shop where the perp lived. My questions in that post, regarding whether the guy would have been justified to shoot the robber had the robber advanced on him with the bat, were asked, in part, to figure out where you thought the line was and how much you were willing to believe the shop owner's testimony that he tried to hold the guy at gunpoint rather than shooting him first thing.
The reason I made the comment regarding serious injury is because of the Zimmerman case. Zimmerman said that he had lacerations on the back of his head from it impacting the ground. For the longest time, the media and those against Zimmerman questioned whether he had any injuries from the fight. Eventually, a month or so before I started coming here, the photos taken by the police or paramedics came out showing lacerations and a broken nose.
I don't know if you denied the injuries before the photo, but you have kept claiming that the defense somehow photoshopped the prosecution's photo, and alternately claiming that the lacerations don't look that bad. You've tried to minimize the nature of those injuries, even though the only ways we've come up with to explain them are that they came from either Trayvon repeatedly slamming George's head down, or from George falling and from his head repeatedly rebounding off the ground as he was punched in the face hard enough to break his nose.
Perhaps my interpretation is wrong, but it seems to me that your minimization of GZ's injuries (which could have been fatal if he had a thinner skull) are an attempt to say that they don't rise to the level that they could possibly justify a reasonable fear for his life. Of course, as I discussed in a longer thread, just because he feared for his life doesn't mean that he was justified--the case would still turn on who started the fight and who escalated to what force when.
This minimization of a broken nose and evidence of multiple blunt or sharp traumas to the back of the skull was why my comment estimated your line as being so far in the direction of requiring serious injury before lethal force could be used. I went too far, but perhaps you see why I would see a contradiction in the old DGU you mentioned and your treatment of Zimmerman.
DeletePerhaps you could explain, in detail, your conception of self defense and what the rules are, either here or in a new post. Tell us how you would draft the statutes and give examples of where the line is drawn. It would give me and others a better idea of where you're coming from.
E.g. When you insert a duty of retreat, give us some hypothetical case law to tell us what that duty is and where the bounds are--e.g. if someone is telling you to get out of their favorite booth, you do it to avoid a confrontation? What about if someone pulls a knife on you? Do you have to try to outrun them and only use lethal force if they're gaining on you with the knife? What if it's a gun? Do you have to run and only shoot if they shoot first, hoping that those first shots miss you, or if they hit you they don't kill you?
And don't forget that lethal self defense doesn't require a gun. If Someone tries to rob me with a knife outside a liquor store, he has to close to within range of my clubbing him with a wine bottle before he can stab me. If he has a gun, he does not, so if I have to run, I have to hope to succeed in running away, because if he starts shooting, I no longer have the opportunity to use my wine bottle in self defense. However, if I saw the gun pointed at me and clubbed him, whether he survived or not, would I be in violation of the duty to retreat?
This is not me trying to drag you down into legal technicalities and out-lawyer you. Instead, this is me trying to raise actual questions that would be raised under the law and ask where you think the line should be.
I've got a better idea. You keep reading and eventually you'll figure me out. It's not all that difficult.
DeleteMike B and others of his ilk don't understand how SYG laws are supposed to work. They seem to think SYG is a hunting license when in fact, it is simply a law to protect a defendant from prosecutors and juries second guessing whether or not the defendant could have "possibly" had an avenue of retreat.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that if you have a legal right to be in a particular place and someone with ill intentions suddenly decides you're their next victim, you have the lawful right to protect yourself, your family members and friends.
Prosecutors and juries don't second-guess. They look at the facts and consider the evidence. If there's a way to diffuse the situation but because you're a macho, arrogant, stubborn idiot who's too proud to take it and someone ends up dead, a human person, then you should be charged with manslaughter.
DeleteBut the laws in many places have been distorted with the SYG to effectively give you a license to kill in situations that could be avoided.
You say they don't second-guess, and you go on to describe how you want them to follow your biases. That's so much better--not. Your hatred of good citizens is a good example of why Stand Your Ground laws are needed.
DeleteMike,
DeleteThanks for providing us with a perfect picture of the second guessing Mr. G was talking about.
Your comment assumed that the only reason a way out would not be taken is because of machismo. However, a jury that's looking at the evidence could also put themselves into the defendant's shoes and say, "Yes, in hind sight X could have been done and Might have defused the situation, but it's conceivable that the defendant wouldn't have seen that possibility since he was focused on the attacker's knife/gun/other and was able to think as clearly as I can now.
Unfortunately, we've seen cases where prosecutors and juries made your assumption--hence our backing of SYG laws. If you have a better solution, I'm all ears, but I'm guessing you won't be offering any solutions since you don't see a problem.