Friday, July 09, 2010

Prepare to vaporlock in anger.

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Words simply fail me. H/T to This Ain't Hell.


1 comment:

Gr8mochas said...

I want to preface my response by saying that this is indeed a tragedy of the highest caliber. I certainly understand the outrage when you hear about this kind of thing, but right now, this is a case of a gun owner not understanding the laws regarding deadly force. Deadly force cannot be used to protect property and that is what the reporter says this man was doing. Deadly force is only able to be used when the IMMEDIATE and OTHERWISE UNAVOIDABLE danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent is present, as well as the ability to kill or cripple, opportunity to do the same and JEOPARDY - which is the belief that the aggressor intends to kill or cripple. Unfortunately this elderly man did not have all of these situations present which is why he is being prosecuted. Tragic, yes absolutely. I hope with all my heart that his defense attorney is able to get these charges against him dropped.

This is the same reason why a battered wife can be charged with murder for killing her husband after he has beaten her severely. When the husband stops beating her and walks away, the threat is over. If she uses deadly force against him at that point, it is murder the way our laws read now. Admittedly laws are not the same from state to state, but this is the generalized understanding. If we want to correct this kind of injustice, we need to work to change the gun laws to include the ability to protect property with deadly force. Obviously, that is what we as human beings instinctively want to do and that is why we are so outraged when we see this kind of thing. In our hearts, we know what this man did was right, but our laws do not reflect that at this point. To me, that is a tragedy as well.