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Relapse wrote:
If guy was right there in front of you like he was with this woman, your irresponsible actions would most likely result in your death along with that of the kids and a criminal having the gun. You seem to already think you're Rambo if you think you can get away with all of that followed with a one shot kill.

I agree with that completely. Warning shots are only appropriate in the movies. In this situation, all she would have done is reduced her ammunition by 16% when as it turned out, even 100% was not enough to kill the intruder.

djones520 wrote:
Personally I'm of the opinion that even if that were the case, he still should have been shot. Nothing gives a man the right to take my stuff. Nothing. Texas and other state with Castle doctrines have it right on those regards.

emphasis mine - that is now how a castle doctrine works; nor any other self-defense doctrine in this country - defense of property is not grounds for a lawful use of deadly force. Most localities have legislated that in order to argue you lawfully use deadly force to defend yourself, you felt you (or someone else) was in imminent threat of deadly harm and and you were unable to retreat; with the latter being the first lawful option. Castle Doctines laws simply remove the latter option in that you do not have to attempt to flee while in your home, but the former remains. "Stand you ground laws" expand that to any place you have the right to be, but again, the former remains - you have to reasonable feel that you or someone else is in imminent danger before employing deadly force.

@Howard: Then I missed your first post, apologies. I was going based on your third and fourth paragraph from the quote: leaving punishment to authorities and the cell phone theft example. This seems to suggest you felt she went OTT.

Also, here are two articles showing some of the limitations of self-defense claims. The latter one is particularly tragic IMO.

 Ouze wrote:
Also, here are two articles showing some of the limitations of self-defense claims. The latter one is particularly tragic IMO.

The guy shoots one kid and chased the other outside, then comes back inside and shoots the unconscious teenager several more times and kills him. I can't see how that's okay, or how people are calling him a 'real American hero'. Yeah, real heroic shooting someone dead on the floor. I don't see much difference between shooting an unconscious person four times to finish them off much different from cutting their throat. Would he still be a hero then? It's almost like the physical distance that a gun is used means that you're less culpable for your actions. Similarly the second case has the man drag the girl he's already shot several times into another room, and when he finds she's still barely alive, shoots her through the brain.

Anyone genuinely trying to defend their home can't carry out these actions accidentally, there's little for any reasonably minded person to fear. It's pretty clear they are well beyond defending themselves and just taking revenge and finishing wounded and unconscious people off.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
One less scumbag to deal with in the world, all is good

Just hope the woman and the kids are ok with the experience.

Edit: I also never get why people moan about the amount of bullets used, I mean really, why is 5 worse than 1, the guy still got shot.
Edit 2: More bullets means more chance of getting rid of people like that anyway.

Because you're supposed to defend yourself, not 'get rid of people'. If you use force against someone and they are disabled, it's not reasonable to take the opportunity to finish them off when they are prone.

Sure, someone breaks into a house to steal stuff, or maybe worse, you don't know. But their punishment should still fall to the authorities, and generally people don't get executed for burglary. You don't get to shoot them more times than necessary to kill them because the state won't.

Just over a month ago some kid tried to snatch my phone and I chased him down yelling at the top of my voice. I suppose though had security not been there, and him being a thieving scumbag, I should have take the opportunity to beat him almost senseless and put him in intensive care. Umm, no actually. I have the right to apprehend someone and prevent my stuff being stolen and defend myself, I still don't have the right to take the law into my own hands.

Your comments show just how little you know how to react in a situation. I used to work the graveyard shift at the Clarion hotel on Canal street in New Orleans and saw a lot of and had to participate in a couple of armed attack situations. If you chased someone who stole something from you, chances are you'd be severly injured or worse by the lookouts they had waiting down the street . You were lucky that didn't happen in your case because you gave up any awarness of your surroundings as you chased the guy and would have been easy pickings.
See how easy it is to armchair a situation like that?

Relapse wrote:
Your comments show just how little you know how to react in a situation. I used to work the graveyard shift at the Clarion hotel on Canal street in New Orleans and saw a lot of and had to participate in a couple of armed attack situations. If you chased someone who stole something from you, chances are you'd be severly injured or worse by the lookouts they had waiting down the street . You were lucky that didn't happen in your case because you gave up any awarness of your surroundings as you chased the guy and would have been easy pickings.
See how easy it is to armchair a situation like that?

Not sure why you're demonstrating 'armchairing' to me, I don't have a problem with what the women did to defend herself. I'm saying that it's not right to support using a high level of force to get rid of scumbags.

As for my case, it wasn't in the street, is was in a open, well lit shopping centre with only a few shoppers around. I just kept up with him shouting to draw attention and the security in the place intercepted him ahead of me. If it had been in the street he would have disappeared.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Also, here are two articles showing some of the limitations of self-defense claims. The latter one is particularly tragic IMO.

The guy shoots one kid and chased the other outside, then comes back inside and shoots the unconscious teenager several more times and kills him. I can't see how that's okay, or how people are calling him a 'real American hero'. Yeah, real heroic shooting someone dead on the floor. I don't see much difference between shooting an unconscious person four times to finish them off much different from cutting their throat. Would he still be a hero then? It's almost like the physical distance that a gun is used means that you're less culpable for your actions. Similarly the second case has the man drag the girl he's already shot several times into another room, and when he finds she's still barely alive, shoots her through the brain.

Anyone genuinely trying to defend their home can't carry out these actions accidentally, there's little for any reasonably minded person to fear. It's pretty clear they are well beyond defending themselves and just taking revenge and finishing wounded and unconscious people off.

Those two examples are both horrible, and go way beyond defense. They also show how different they are from this woman and her actions. I agree, the guy who shot an unconscious intruder is by no means a hero, and deserves jail for murder. A woman who acts in self defense and runs as quickly as possible after incapacitating her intruder is in the right.

I don't mean to pick on you Howard, just that you happened to post this and I felt like responding.

How did he get past the claymores and sentry turrets?

djones520 wrote:

 chaos girl wrote:
If the intruder had broke into the house and just stole stuff and not went looking for the woman he wouldn't have gotten shot. Who knows his motives on breaking into the house. If he broke in purely for stuff then why did he seek out the family. He should have just stole stuff and got out. I don't feel bad for him though.

Personally I'm of the opinion that even if that were the case, he still should have been shot. Nothing gives a man the right to take my stuff. Nothing. Texas and other state with Castle doctrines have it right on those regards.

Oh I would have shot him too don't get me wrong. I would have shot him as soon as he walk through the threshold. But what I am saying is that if he broke in just for stuff why seek out the family hiding why not just steal the stuff and be gone.

Palindrome wrote:
Actually I think its quite indicative of poor, or even non existent, firearms training.After all if you fire of the entire mag in a fit of panic your aim will be poor and you will be vulnerable while you reload, I have been trained to take deliberate shots and it is easy to see why.

In a similar situation I would give a verbal warning, then a warning shot and then I would go for an aimed body shot. I would not transform into Rambo.

Sure sure, but how do we know she didn't have similar training? Adrenaline is a helluva drug, and I hope you're never in a situation where you have to find out if your training works or not.

Let me tell you about the pharmacist, because anybody who thinks he is a victim of self defense laws is a fething idiot:

1) guy works at a pharmacy and gets robbed. 3 kids try to rob the place and one of them has a gun. Ersland pulls out a gun and starts shooting, drops one of the guys with a shot to the head and the other two run out of the store.

At this point thread is removed, everybody is safe, guy would have gotten an "atta boy" from the DA.

Here is everything that happened after that:

1) Ersland leaves the store to chase after the two othe guys and fires his gun down a crowded street, missing the kids and potentially hurting everybody else.

2) he goes back to the store, steps over the body of the guy he dropped who is still breathing and according to all evidence in the trial is not moving an inch. He gets a second gun, goes back to the body, stands over it, and empties a second gun from point blank range into his back.

3) he claims the body was still a thread and moving despite leaving the "bad guy" alone in the pharmacy with other staff while chasing the other guys, security camera footage of the body showing it laying still the entire time, and blood showing that he never moved.

4) he claimed they shot first, despite the fact that the footage showed otherwise and no bullets being recovered other than his.

5) he claimed PTSD from being deployed in the first gulf war as an excuse for his actions. Despite the fact that he was only deployed to a base in Oklahoma when he was in the military.

6) he went to a doctor to have a bullet removed from the attack, which was a tiny metal fragment that was superficial and that he pulled out himself in her office. He then asked her not to document that he did that when it was clear that he faked that.

7) since being sentenced his son was caught smuggling him fentanyl patches into prison that he accepted.

And people still think he is the victim here...

 d-usa wrote:
Let me tell you about the pharmacist, because anybody who thinks he is a victim of self defense laws is a fething idiot:

1) guy works at a pharmacy and gets robbed. 3 kids try to rob the place and one of them has a gun. Ersland pulls out a gun and starts shooting, drops one of the guys with a shot to the head and the other two run out of the store.

At this point thread is removed, everybody is safe, guy would have gotten an "atta boy" from the DA.

Here is everything that happened after that:

1) Ersland leaves the store to chase after the two othe guys and fires his gun down a crowded street, missing the kids and potentially hurting everybody else.

2) he goes back to the store, steps over the body of the guy he dropped who is still breathing and according to all evidence in the trial is not moving an inch. He gets a second gun, goes back to the body, stands over it, and empties a second gun from point blank range into his back.

3) he claims the body was still a thread and moving despite leaving the "bad guy" alone in the pharmacy with other staff while chasing the other guys, security camera footage of the body showing it laying still the entire time, and blood showing that he never moved.

4) he claimed they shot first, despite the fact that the footage showed otherwise and no bullets being recovered other than his.

5) he claimed PTSD from being deployed in the first gulf war as an excuse for his actions. Despite the fact that he was only deployed to a base in Oklahoma when he was in the military.

6) he went to a doctor to have a bullet removed from the attack, which was a tiny metal fragment that was superficial and that he pulled out himself in her office. He then asked her not to document that he did that when it was clear that he faked that.

7) since being sentenced his son was caught smuggling him fentanyl patches into prison that he accepted.

And people still think he is the victim here...

Heard about that...

feth'ed up. You don't go after the bad guys like that after the threat has been averted.

Plus, he's a junkie...

My favourite part of that is how many complete idiots actually support him executing the unconscious robber on the ground.

 d-usa wrote:
deployed to a base in Oklahoma

That explains the PTSD

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/06/georgia-mom-home-alone-with-kids-shoots-ex-con-intruder/

Major media coverage.

CNN.com didn't have anything on it as far as I could tell, but they did certainly have something about a criminal shooting someone. MSNBC was the same exact thing. They just used bigger letters.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
One less scumbag to deal with in the world, all is good

Just hope the woman and the kids are ok with the experience.

Edit: I also never get why people moan about the amount of bullets used, I mean really, why is 5 worse than 1, the guy still got shot.
Edit 2: More bullets means more chance of getting rid of people like that anyway.

Because you're supposed to defend yourself, not 'get rid of people'. If you use force against someone and they are disabled, it's not reasonable to take the opportunity to finish them off when they are prone.

Sure, someone breaks into a house to steal stuff, or maybe worse, you don't know. But their punishment should still fall to the authorities, and generally people don't get executed for burglary. You don't get to shoot them more times than necessary to kill them because the state won't.

Just over a month ago some kid tried to snatch my phone and I chased him down yelling at the top of my voice. I suppose though had security not been there, and him being a thieving scumbag, I should have take the opportunity to beat him almost senseless and put him in intensive care. Umm, no actually. I have the right to apprehend someone and prevent my stuff being stolen and defend myself, I still don't have the right to take the law into my own hands.

The man can no longer commit burglaries and cause emotional/psychological harm as well as potential physical harm had the woman shot him once and his adrenaline kept him going so really, I see no loss. I have no sympathy for people who are willing to hurt innocents for their own selfish needs, sorry. No one is above the law.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although it should have been the authorities job to deal with the situation as the woman shouldnt have to deal wth the experience herself (luckily she did though) but of course as we all know this is not possible all the time.

Edit: Oh haha just read the part which said the man had many offences under his belt, more and more people shouldnt have to defend themselves against this criminal.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

djones520 wrote:
Our system is ineffective. If it worked, the vast majority of our crime wouldn't be from repeat offenders.

Japan's prison system is horrible, flat out horrible. Their crime rate is so much lower then are's. I for one think they have something to do with each other.

Norway's crime rate is low despite their almost luxurious prison system.

Thats because there are four people spread over 5Billion square miles, and three of them are running from Nazi zombies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Palindrome wrote:

Relapse wrote:

If guy was right there in front of you like he was with this woman, your irresponsible actions would most likely result in your death along with that of the kids and a criminal having the gun. You seem to already think you're Rambo if you think you can get away with all of that followed with a one shot kill.
I'm just going to put your comments down to trolling because no one can be that ignorant of what can happen in the real world.

Do you honestly believe that? if you do you are either delusional or you live in a lawless state.

The threat of force in such situations is frequently all that is required and if more is required then you are ready to respond appropriately. Thats far better than just letting rip as soon as someone opens the door.

Anything can happen in the real world, it is what is likely to happen that you need to be concerned about.

You really have no idea do you....

I feel this women's actions are justifiable considering the circumstances.

 Cheesecat wrote:
I feel this women's actions are justifiable considering the circumstances.

Your increasing number of reasonable comments has me worried. Are you feeling alright?

That seems to be going around a lot...

 chaos girl wrote:

Nothing gives a man the right to take my stuff. Nothing.

What if they are no man?

 dogma wrote:

 chaos girl wrote:

Nothing gives a man the right to take my stuff. Nothing.

What if they are no man?

Lien

 d-usa wrote:

7) since being sentenced his son was caught smuggling him fentanyl patches into prison that he accepted.

For context, fentanyl is a pain killer that is strong enough to be used as a chemical weapon.