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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
I don't really know what the point to Charles post was though. To inform? To make fun of gun owners? To point out how silly someone being charged with manslaughter when defending their self and property is?
And I'm not even a gun nut. Imagine that.
No, this situation was not self defense. That is Charles' point. You cannot shoot a fleeing person in the back. You have to be in imminent danger. This is the same as Texas.
Seems reasonable... but I want to know.. WHEN can I shoot a fleeing intruder in the back who no longer poses a threat? Just askin'
Mess with the bull....
How often do we hear about cops doing the exact same thing? I am sure the professional lefties of Slog think that is because every cop is a sociopath, but it just might be that even with pretty exhaustive training there are certain reactions that a human being cannot be trained out of. And to condemn a man WITHOUT training for acting as he did is just knee-jerk anti-gun bullshit.
There is exactly one person responsible for the death of the intruder: the intruder.
What to do? Shoot around the suspect if necessary. The crack of gunfire will instill the fear of their god (and their bladder), especially if they hear ammunition whizzing nearby their ear. Striking their body, under these states' laws (i.e., WA and TX), would only be permitted if they are still facing the victim(s).
I do believe that if the initial details as reported are roughly correct, then this will advance to criminal trial.
@13 "I strongly disagree with the sentiment that a 72yo living alone has a responsibility to make a calm, rational decision when waking up and finding an adult male intruder in his home"
@17 "I doubt if I could stop myself shooting at a fleeing intruder, were I all jacked up on adrenalin."
This is exactly why it is a bad idea to allow every private citizen to have a gun. It is also why it is wrong to "go for your gun" when dealing with an emergency- you don't know wtf you are going to do with it. If you can't control yourself from shooting someone who poses no threat to you because you are jacked on adrenaline, then you should not pull a gun. period. I've been burgled before, and I'm damn glad I called the cops instead of going and shooting some kid in the back.
The penalty for burglary is not death.
I have absolutely zero empathy or tolerance for home intruders, especially as a woman. Chances are this scumbag broke into that man's home because he knew the guy was old and probably harmless. He didn't know the 72 year old was packing heat. Good on the old guy for shooting that fuck. As a neighbor, I'd bake him a pie.
I hope the guy doesn't get in too much trouble for this, and I don't think he will, but if he had chosen to defend his home with an alarm system, a taser, or (gods forbid) a pit bull then we, as a society with a legal system, would have a chance to make a calm rational decision about what to do with the intruder other than bury him.
With any luck we can get that changed.
Another scumbag burglar gone? Good. Give the old man a medal and move on.
How does this sentence say everything Charles..? Because the guy happened to keel over into an apartment building face first? He could do that no matter where he was shot, if he passed out from blood loss. I see little relevance to the position of the body, especially since he managed to get far enough away that it took several hours to find him.
This man used his gun to scare off an intruder, that is reasonable.
He shot him in the back because he is pathetic and violent.
And I'm a woman too, so that's no excuse.
if he is not young enough to make calm, rational decisions, then he shouldn't own a gun.
when folks get too old to be able to make calm, rational decisions while driving, guess what happens? their licenses are taken away.
age isn't an excuse here.
@19, you'd be lucky to get a magazine or paperback book to your hypothetical neighbor in the hoosegow, let alone a pie. I understand your fears and outrage about intrusions, but you'd be in the slammer too if you shoot JUST BECAUSE a stranger broke in and then tried to run away.
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/05/06/12…
Even my Kenny G greatest hits CD. Especially my Kenny G greatest hits CD.
If I find someone in my house, I have thought ahead and have decided to err on the side of most harm because there is no real way for me to determine why they are there, whether or not they have help or weapons. I am going to assume they are they to harm me and would do so if I did not have a gun or some means of fighting back. And if they freak out and try to run away, I'm still going to shoot because even if they don't suffer a fatal wound they will be injured and caught, or be so scared they won't break into another person's home again. I'm not just running through the street waving my gun at folks. This is my home, my place of safety, and by violating it I believe I have every right to react in an incredibly forceful manner. You do not get to just come in and they say "Oh! So sorry! I'm leaving now!" when you find out I've got a gun.
(Also, I'd bake a file into that pie and hope the old guy finds a way out of the slammer.)
I guess my knee had been jerking as it so often does, asleep or awake.
It's not a question of valuing my stuff more than I value human life...that's a total straw man bullshit argument, @24. It's a question of boundaries and personal safety. If I catch a stranger in my home in the dark at 3am, I have no way of knowing what his intentions are, if he's armed, or what. He might be robbing me; he might be planning on some prolonged home invasion, he might want to harm my wife.
I understand these people have problems...they're disadvantaged, they're hooked on meth, blah blah blah. But if some sorry fucker is going to break into my house, he's lost the benefit of the doubt, you know?
Which leads me to several questions not answered in the article:
How is it that the 72 year old was stronger than the young man?
If that is the case, why did the 72 year old feel the need to use his gun after the struggle had ended, after the young man was running away from the house?
If the 72 year really felt threatened, why didn't he shoot the young man inside his house?
I hope these questions are answered in the trial and that it is covered by the media.
Was it in a holster? Was the 72 year old carrying it? What kind of gun was it?
What kind of struggle was it? It seems weird that the old man could struggle with a young man while holding a gun in one hand and still push the young man out the door.
The article leaves out a lot of important information.
@35- It is not a straw man argument. I have been burgled, and I am very glad that I did not bust in and shoot those burglers dead. Because then I would have killed somebody, and I don't know how I would live with myself after that. You know what the burglers took? A few bottles of wine and CD's. That's really not worth killing someone over. You can't use "I assume the worst about every situation" to treat people in the worst way possible and have that be ok.
What sounds more likely?
1)72YO man sees a guy in your living room and aims his gun at him, the intruder charges him, struggles with him and the 72YO beats him and throws him out the door then the guy has time to get up and start running away before the guy shoots him in the back as he flees.
2)72YO man sees a guy in the living room and the guy sees that he's armed. The guy runs out the door and the 72YO man shoots him in the back in cold blood then makes up a story that will sound better in court.
As I said, it seems like all of the "shooting a fleeing criminal in the back" stories always include the "struggled with the intruder for the weapon" part. So, either a large percentage of gun owners are hopeless pussies who can't pull the trigger when they're being attacked but are happy to do it when someone's got their back to them...or...they're uncontrollable sociopaths who are just looking for an excuse to shoot someone, even if that someone's running away.
Either way it makes me reluctant to let people own guns.
From a criminal standpoint, there are risks to their actions and one of them is the possibility the home owner may be armed. I assume they have wieghed that risk and still break in. Don't tell me to factor in my civility when I've got someone in my living room that didn't give a damn about me, my property, or my family.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/may/0…
Thanks for posting that. It certainly raises questions. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Aim for the legs next time, old man.
"i like wakeboarding, snowboarding, ride quads, i dont know i guess anything that will give me a rush. i like doing crazy stuff that their is a possibility that i could get in trouble but i dont get CAUGHT!"
he was just a stupid kid. really, really stupid. most of us live to outgrow that.
according to the article the old man aimed in a premeditated manner. seems more like murder than manslaughter to me.
any hunter knows that when you take a shot you must follow up to see if you got a hit. it's cruel to let an animal bleed out.
that said, i believe people have a right to own guns and defend themselves. that is not what happened here. he could have hit anybody.
I hope the shooter gets out soon. A few years ago, someone shot a thirteen year old burgler in the ass & killed him, too, there were no charges filed! Why here? How about the cop who ran the innocent Christopher Harris' head into the Cinerama. No charges filed! Now that was murder! (You are not forgotten CH!) BTW whatever happened to him, did he die?
I'm all for saving the life of everyone, society forced the criminal to become a criminal cause there's no jobs anymore, blah blah blah, but if you're going to be a dick don't expect society to treat you like a king. This intruder deserves nothing, and hindsight being 20/20 it might be that justice was really served. How many more homes was this guy going to break into? How many did he already try? Why was he stupid enough to break into the home of someone who owns a gun? If he had any brains about his chosen line of profession he should have thought about these things before doing something desperate. Maybe his line wasn't "chosen" but I don't see anything wrong with shooting a home invader. Threatening or not, letting him run away is no different than asking him to try again, and plan better next time. You show no remorse, you're going to get none.
Our legal system (by centuries-old precendant, no less) insists that an appropriate use of force is one that's proportionate to the threat. Sorry, you don't get carte blanche, not even in your home at 3am. Unfair? Try to consider what society would be like if every fear, any fear, could be answered by deadly force. Right. If you are prone to react violently when scared, don't own a gun. Maybe making this poor dead fool into some kind of monster who deserved his fate, as some of the posts above do, is comforting, but without real evidence of an imminent threat against yourself or someone else, actually acting on your fantasy of endangerment endangers everyone.
Anyway, off to jail with this shooter.
Period. End of story. This is a news report about an irresponsible, dangerous old man with a gun. Responsible gun owners know the rules and how to use their weapons. This old man did not.
Or a family member. This "it's a dark, menacing shadow; better git mah gun!" mentality is exactly why you're more likely to kill a family member than a burgler/rapist/etc.
And btw, if you shoot someone in your house then you can make the claim of self defense but if you're shooting at someone as they're running away then you're just a trigger happy asshole with a sever case Bronson-itis; too much of a fucking sissy to join the police force but you still want to shoot the "bad guys."
Guns, right to defend my house, EVIL burgler.....blah blah blah blah blah blah
@53: The fact that you talk about killing and shoot-em-up shit so much demonstrates that you obviously don't have the slightest bit of killer instinct. Please, stop trying to compensate for your little wiener.
The victim was woken up, so was this at night? Was it dark in the part of the house where they "struggled"? Day or night a person isn't going to be fully aware of everything if they've just been woken up and thrown into a fight. Which leads to the last part, the 'fired shots at the intruder's fleeing form'. Imagine you've just been awakened, prepared yourself with a remote control that only has a pause and stop function, came face to face with a giant spider (say somewhere between 5 and 7 feet tall, a HUGE spider) and fought with it. The fight momentarily (as far as you know) stops, you're just relieved to not be currently fighting it, but then you see it's 'form' and being exhausted, scared and probably still disoriented all you want is to not have to fight it again so you point the remote at it and hit the 'stop' button and hope the batteries are fresh.
I'd think a reasonable person (or twelve) could easily agree that the victim feared for his life (it's a giant friggin spider afterall! That kind of thing only happens in the movies! Kind of like violent crime until it happens to you). The whole 'illegal to shoot a person in the back' garbage is just that, garbage spouted by people who don't know any better. A person trying to harm you can turn their back to you for countless reasons. Moving for cover to better fight you from (assuming they are armed)? Retrieving a weapon or alerting others that might be nearby to help finish you? If an attacker is nearby (a doorway/thresh-hold in this case?) they can still be a threat. If the intruder had made it well away from the victim and the victim still shot him, I could see that as excessive, even criminal. If the intruder had ran faster he'd probably still be alive. If he hadn't been a burglarizing and who knows what other types of crime jackass, he would also still be alive.
Venomlash,
With your statement, you just demonstrated that you are among those that should not own a gun. If you knew anything about responsible gun ownership/handling, you would know that firing into the air, aka "a warning shot" is very dangerous and against the law.