and keep in mind that this is houston which has gone democratic in the past two presidential elections and which is 44% hispanic/28% white/21% african-american. you wouldn’t think this would have worked out this way but texas has been purging the voter registration rolls of blacks, hispanics, and poor people at a frightening rate and juror lists come from lists of registered voters.
without some successful lawsuits i doubt the 2024 election results will be as favorable for democrats.
Nicely put, and I agree 100% with your post there. I do have a CCW and carry daily and the way you said it is exactly the right way to think of it. I think idiots like the subject of this article should really be convicted. For me, if I’m not actively being stabbed or shot, it’s probably not a time for using a gun.
This is very true and that’s what’s so wrong about this article, this guy’s actions were totally irresponsible and wild and he faces nothing more than a civil suit, and if I had to guess, he has little in the way of assets or insurance.
Many other countries in the world actually do allow CCW but they tend to have far more serious consequences for “mistakes” or stupid decisions. The US is far out there in how unserious we are about it.
If you are actively being stabbed or shot, then it’s almost certainly too late to use a gun.
It’s almost like everyone going around armed all the time is a broken non-solution to the wrong problem.
Police are praising him because he spared them from the embarrassment of showing up and proving themselves completely worthless.
Is anyone clearer than I on how the justified deadly force thing works when the suspect is actively fleeing(and this fact is both known to the shooter and not in dispute for legal purposes)?
I know that state laws cover the spectrum from ‘make my day’ to ‘you need to show some plausible attempt to retreat first’; but I was not aware of any that extended to ‘waste him, he’s getting away!’; so I’m not sure how this would have been justified even if he had identified the target correctly. Am I just uninformed in this area and some jurisdictions do allow this?
Also, does anyone know how the standards for things like reckless endagerment/various forms of culpable negligence interact with self/property defense provisions? Implicitly some level of risk is endorsed as acceptable, since humans attempting deadly force in haste and under stress are known to be a bit unreliable; but I’d have to imagine that the mere fact that there is a person you can legitimately defend yourself against isn’t a blank check for unlimited amounts of harm to bystanders and damage to property; and (one would hope) the tolerance for inadvertent damage would decline in proportion to the immediacy of the threat.
That’s what puzzles me about this: it’s distasteful, but would not surprise me for the jurisdiction, if just executing someone for attempting a property crime is OK; it’s more surprising that continuing to attempt to execute someone who did a property crime after they finish and are running away would be OK; and it seems downright surprising, even for Texas, that the mere intention to shoot the guy who was running away from doing a property crime would be exculpatory if you end up shooting an unrelated bystander.
Originally published at: No charges for man who killed 9-year-old girl while trying to kill robber | Boing Boing
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Reboing, I’m afraid.
so how’s that “good guy with a gun” thing working out?
But there are also policy implications, too. It’s not just about this individual guy. It’s also about George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse and everyone else who has killed people with firearms due to irresponsible/erroneous/malicious use. I’m not a fan of letting just any rando buy a gun, but if that’s our policy (and let’s admit it, that is the policy in the US), then any use of that gun has to have accountability. Because that’s what we’re saying when we let anyone buy almost any firearm they can afford: that every rando is a responsible gun owner. With responsibility comes accountability. That’s completely incompatible with Stand Your Ground and property defense laws. Pick one or the other; you can’t have both.
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