How he gonna get his money?

[bilby]

If it was a case of bad luck, him exiting and running at her without knowing she was there, too bad. She walks. With the shot being in the chest I find it very unlikely he was trying to get away at that point.

One would think before anyone interested in making a relatively disinterested assessment of a likelihood, one would want to know
1) how far away the victim was from the shooter,
2) was the victim approaching the shooter or not, and
3) did the shooter entice the victim to turn around.

#3 is simply throwing out something for which there is no evidence to try to muddy the waters.

It's all nonsense. It is plain unreasonable to expect anyone to perform some ridiculous in-depth analysis of a situation before making a decision to defend themselves against someone they have sufficient reason to believe will cause them harm.

Look at how long it's taken us. And we still don't have a coherent answer or a clear picture of what happened.

Exactly.

Which is why people shouldn't have easy access to lethal force for home defence - it's far too final for a snap decision made with only a tiny percentage of the facts available.

"We don't have enough information, so let's just kill him now, and work out the details later" is NOT a reasonable response in any situation.

Its for personal defense.

And the alternative is that the big, tough guy can do pretty much what he wants with impunity.

Well you would certainly have a point, if it wasn't for the fact that real world evidence shows that this is NOT what happens in jurisdictions where 'personal defence' is prohibited as a reason for firearms ownership.

In the civilised world, most big, tough guys do NOT do pretty much what they want with impunity - despite the presence of lots of unarmed wimps. And in the USA, there is no evidence at all that bullying is less common than it is elsewhere - which rather suggests that your entire philosophy is based on a very plausible sounding, but observably completely FALSE premise.

When your hypothesis is contradicted by observation, it's not reality that is making an error.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And we have some evidence she didn't?

It appears that the target was someone in the act of committing burglary who headed towards her, apparently knowing she was there. Target properly IDed.

The round hit him, obviously what's behind him is the house. Backstop identified. (Admittedly, a non-brick house isn't a perfect backstop unless you're firing frangible ammunition but if you don't accept that as a backstop then self defense in suburban location becomes basically impossible.

...and if it is basically impossible to do without endangering the lives of those not involved, it should be prohibited for their protection.

Finished your train of logic there for you Loren.

But no care for the lives of crime victims. They're just supposed to die.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Course not. I empathize with the innocent people who are every day assaulted and robbed, who have the essence of their security in this world ripped from beneath them in an instant while the people who perform these disgusting acts are idolized on crap NPR talkshows for the 'tough life' they had to lead when they 'turned to crime'.

I empathize with the real victims - no the people who victimize them.

The dead young man neither assaulted her nor robbed her. He did break into her house when she was not there. He was not armed and he did not take anything. She killed him.

I don't think she is necessarily "the real victim" here, and in any case the end result was disproportionate to the crime...

but you have zero empathy.

The shot was in the chest. He very well might have been trying to assault her.

 

[JonA]

Good thing no one is advocating for that to be legal.

You don't need to - it already IS in the USA.

No. It is not. In no place in the U.S. are you 'entitled to kill someone without sanction, just because you are scared of them'.

And it is EXACTLY what you are arguing for when you say:

... I am strongly in favor of the right for people to defend themselves, and that goes along with a general belief that people shouldn't have to perform in-depth analyses of people breaking into their homes to determine if they are really 'just a burglar' or are there for more violent purposes: they should rightly assume the worst and be entitled to act accordingly.

Defending yourself isn't the same as killing someone just because you're scared of them.

You are saying that it is OK to kill someone based on your assumption that they mean you harm. This is indistinguishable from saying that it is OK to kill someone who is in your home because you are scared of them.

It is not the same at all - once you add the 'in your home' it becomes entirely different. It is not okay to kill someone just because you are scared of them. But if they come into your home not only is it justifiable to kill them if you're scared of them, but being scared of them should be the default stance. I mean, who the hell wouldn't be? It is unreasonable - unconscionable - to say to someone who has just been a victim of such a crime 'well, you should have known he wasn't dangerous and was just there for a TV'. How the fuck should anyone know that and why the fuck should anyone be expected to make that their default assumption when it is their life at stake because someone has broken into their home to do only God (and apparently bilby) knows what?

I could not live with myself to ever ask such of another person. I find it so callous to dismiss someone's fear for their life as unreasonable in a situation where I think every fucking person in the world would easily feel the same fear.

Anywhere else in the developed world, that situation would not have resulted in anyone dying.

You don't know that.

OK, fair enough - Anywhere else in the developed world, that situation would almost certainly not have resulted in anyone dying.

And again; that's just something you don't know. And no one at the time it was happening knew either.

And the rest of the developed world does not have a burglary rate so far above that in the USA as to justify the death as a deterrent

That is false; and this is the second time I've called you on it. Time to present some evidence.

OK; Stats on burglary are not easy to find

I just googled: "burglary rates by country". It led me to this list:

Countries Compared by Crime > Burglaries. International Statistics at NationMaster.com

Seems the U.S. is about average as far as developed Western nations go.

That's a VERY long way short of obligating me to be bludgeoned to death in my own home. That you can't see the difference suggests that you are letting your emotions rule your intellect on this issue.

Bullshit. If someone is beating me to fuck and there's a legal system that makes it a crime for me to defend myself by the only means I might have available to me, then that is exactly what the law is requiring.

The law elsewhere in the OECD does NOT makes it a crime for you to defend yourself by any means you might have available to you. The law DOES make it a crime to purchase a firearm for the purpose of having that means available for personal defence. This has the effect of dramatically reducing the likelihood that either the home-owner OR the intruder will be armed with a gun.

You just said that the law obligates you, re guns, 'not use them in defence of my person'. If that is the only item available to someone for their defense, then the laws you propose are by all measures laws that obligate people to be bludgeoned to death in their own home.

But that is NOT an item that is available for their defence. The law doesn't prohibit the use of a gun, it prohibits it from being available in the first place.

Worse yet; by outlawing the one thing that I could have used to defend myself, the law is sealing my fate.

You cannot completely remove guns from society and reap only positives regardless of the trend - you know that. In those cases where a homeowner is dead for the lack of a gun to defend themselves, then it is an unavoidable conclusion that the law banning gun ownership served as a law that obligated them to die, especially if they were someone who would have otherwise had a gun.

Only an American would be so unimaginative as to imagine that the ONLY way to defend oneself is with a gun.

What's this about? Hell, what is any of this gun stuff about?

Are you just bitching 'cause the homeowner used a gun as opposed to something else?

It seems she had a right to own her gun, so the issue of whether she was justified in using it the way she did - the topic of this thread - will not hinge on whether she was justified in owning it in the first place. Whatever you think of gun ownership the fact that Jenrette had one is not one of the problems of this case.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Course not. I empathize with the innocent people who are every day assaulted and robbed, who have the essence of their security in this world ripped from beneath them in an instant while the people who perform these disgusting acts are idolized on crap NPR talkshows for the 'tough life' they had to lead when they 'turned to crime'.

I empathize with the real victims - no the people who victimize them.

- - - Updated - - -



I really can't respond to you. At some point - now - the logic trails end and we're left arguing over moral values.

Some moral values say the law shouldn't obligate you to be bludgeoned to death in your own home by a crook.

Other moral values disagree.

It is what it is. I suppose the only other thing to point out is that in the real world one system works and the other doesn't.

Indeed; and the one where you are entitled to kill someone without sanction, just because you are scared of them, is the one that doesn't - as the OP clearly demonstrates. Anywhere else in the developed world, that situation would not have resulted in anyone dying. And the rest of the developed world does not have a burglary rate so far above that in the USA as to justify the death as a deterrent - even if you value deterring burglars very highly, and their lives very little.

The law does not obligate me to be bludgeoned to death in my own home by a crook; It obligates me to obtain a licence and to appropriately secure any firearms I might own, and it obligates me to not use them in defence of my person or my property, but only for the lawful purposes for which my licence was issued.

That's a VERY long way short of obligating me to be bludgeoned to death in my own home. That you can't see the difference suggests that you are letting your emotions rule your intellect on this issue.

You want him to have free reign to bludgeon her to death in her yard.

Or be a good crime victim and do nothing but cower when the bad guys come around.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The data at http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582041-rich-world-seeing-less-and-less-crime-even-face-high-unemployment-and-economic includes this graphic:

View attachment 6484

Indicating that the burglary rate for 2010 is about 7 per 1,000 population in the USA, and about 4.5 per 1,000 in the UK - hardly a clear cut illustration that the UK gun laws are giving burglars free rein.

The rates in the USA were amongst the lowest in the OECD in the last couple of decades of the 20th Century; but the declines elsewhere have been sufficient for most countries (other than Australia and New Zealand) to overtake the USA as the least likely places to be burgled in the past decade and a half.

That's a VERY long way short of obligating me to be bludgeoned to death in my own home. That you can't see the difference suggests that you are letting your emotions rule your intellect on this issue.

Bullshit. If someone is beating me to fuck and there's a legal system that makes it a crime for me to defend myself by the only means I might have available to me, then that is exactly what the law is requiring.

The law elsewhere in the OECD does NOT makes it a crime for you to defend yourself by any means you might have available to you. The law DOES make it a crime to purchase a firearm for the purpose of having that means available for personal defence. This has the effect of dramatically reducing the likelihood that either the home-owner OR the intruder will be armed with a gun.

You just said that the law obligates you, re guns, 'not use them in defence of my person'. If that is the only item available to someone for their defense, then the laws you propose are by all measures laws that obligate people to be bludgeoned to death in their own home.

But that is NOT an item that is available for their defence. The law doesn't prohibit the use of a gun, it prohibits it from being available in the first place.

Only an American would be so unimaginative as to imagine that the ONLY way to defend oneself is with a gun.

Note the much lower robbery rate in your data--our criminals try to avoid confrontations, your criminals don't care because they know they'll just stomp anyone who happens to get in their way. And that data doesn't show the number of serious injuries in such encounters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Some of us do not consider the perpetrator a victim even if it goes badly.

Yeah, that's pretty vile.

I would not consider the perpetrator a victim if it goes badly and he winds up under arrest and going to jail for breaking and entering. I most assuredly would consider him a victim of an unjust system if he was to be arrested and then executed for such a minor offence; and that consideration goes double if he is summarily executed by the home-owner, as is clearly the case here.

I see no reason to consider this a summary execution.

The initial description was a confrontation followed by the shooting. Furthermore, the shot was to the chest. If it was an execution then there wouldn't have been a confrontation, she simply would have fired. If there had been a confrontation and he ran the shot wouldn't be in the front.

Thus I'm left with the conclusion that the most likely sequence of events is that he went towards her. At that point he's a criminal and a threat--she did the right thing in shooting.

- - - Updated - - -

Well you would certainly have a point, if it wasn't for the fact that real world evidence shows that this is NOT what happens in jurisdictions where 'personal defence' is prohibited as a reason for firearms ownership.

In the civilised world, most big, tough guys do NOT do pretty much what they want with impunity - despite the presence of lots of unarmed wimps. And in the USA, there is no evidence at all that bullying is less common than it is elsewhere - which rather suggests that your entire philosophy is based on a very plausible sounding, but observably completely FALSE premise.

When your hypothesis is contradicted by observation, it's not reality that is making an error.

You've already shown the robbery rate in England is 5x ours. It's not unusual for people to be seriously hurt in robberies.

 

[bilby]

...and if it is basically impossible to do without endangering the lives of those not involved, it should be prohibited for their protection.

Finished your train of logic there for you Loren.

But no care for the lives of crime victims. They're just supposed to die.

Who said anything about crime victims DYING? This is a thread about a BURGLARY.

Homicide is much, much, less common than burglary. Oh, wait - EXCEPT in the USA, where they occur at comparatively similar rates. I wonder what could cause that?

The lives of crime victims are very important. But as they are not typically at risk at all during a burglary, it seems pointless to introduce lethal force into a situation where it would otherwise not be present - and no matter how little you care for the lives of the perpetrators of crime, there is no such excuse when it comes to the lives of innocent bystanders.

Self defence does NOT need to mean 'use of a gun'; and when use of a gun is "basically impossible" without endangering innocent third-parties, a person who is being assaulted needs to find an alternative means of defence.

Having guns does not appear to make people safer from burglars. Take a look at the graph I presented earlier:

View attachment 6484

The burglary rate shows no significant difference between the 'gun' and 'no-gun' jurisdictions here. But there is one other notable difference between the two countries - in the UK, robbery is far more common; while in the USA, those robberies are substituted with homicides.

I am not at all sure how you can consider it to be better for someone to kill you, than it is for him to merely steal your wallet; But I have every faith that you can come up with some kind of apologetic for this - or with a bullshit reason why we should disregard the actual data in favour of your wild imaginings.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, that's pretty vile.

I would not consider the perpetrator a victim if it goes badly and he winds up under arrest and going to jail for breaking and entering. I most assuredly would consider him a victim of an unjust system if he was to be arrested and then executed for such a minor offence; and that consideration goes double if he is summarily executed by the home-owner, as is clearly the case here.

I see no reason to consider this a summary execution.

I know; but that's only because you really, really don't want to.

The initial description was a confrontation followed by the shooting. Furthermore, the shot was to the chest. If it was an execution then there wouldn't have been a confrontation, she simply would have fired. If there had been a confrontation and he ran the shot wouldn't be in the front.

Thus I'm left with the conclusion that the most likely sequence of events is that he went towards her. At that point he's a criminal and a threat--she did the right thing in shooting.

No. Just NO.

Being a burglar is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS TO KILL. Burglary is NOT a capital crime.

Being perceived as a threat is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS TO KILL. Inspiring fear is NOT a capital crime.

Being BOTH is STILL NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS TO KILL.

Killing people is a last resort, to be taken only when there is immediate and clear threat to life. The idea that this situation could not possibly have been resolved any other way than by shooting the burglar is literally insane.

Had the home-owner not been armed, there is no reason whatsoever to imagine that anyone would have ended up dead in this scenario, all other things being equal.

So you are basically arguing that it is OK to kill someone JUST BECAUSE THEY SCARE YOU.

That's fucking psychopathic. Seriously.

- - - Updated - - -

Well you would certainly have a point, if it wasn't for the fact that real world evidence shows that this is NOT what happens in jurisdictions where 'personal defence' is prohibited as a reason for firearms ownership.

In the civilised world, most big, tough guys do NOT do pretty much what they want with impunity - despite the presence of lots of unarmed wimps. And in the USA, there is no evidence at all that bullying is less common than it is elsewhere - which rather suggests that your entire philosophy is based on a very plausible sounding, but observably completely FALSE premise.

When your hypothesis is contradicted by observation, it's not reality that is making an error.

You've already shown the robbery rate in England is 5x ours. It's not unusual for people to be seriously hurt in robberies.

Indeed. But in the US, robberies are rare - they are replaced by HOMICIDES.

 

[Axulus]

Bilby, your logic and phrasing of these sitations as "paranoid" is just flat out ignorant.

26% of burglaries result in a member of the household being violently victimized when a member of the household is present.

Of those cases, 9% result in serious injury and 3% result in rape.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pigPc-tjZb5xeRipg&sig2=vYZ5UAAAG4yPbfyCEbNRSg

How you call someone in that sitation to be paranoid and in a barbaric country and criticizing them for assuming the worst and therefore nutralizing that serious threat, given those statistics, is just bonkers.

If you want to gamble with yours and your families lives in that kind of situation and hope that the burgler is actually a nice guy when you confront each other, go right ahead, but don't force the rest of us to take that risk.

 

[laughing dog]

From the OP - "Homeowner Shoots, Kills Teen Burglary Suspect". That means there is a shooting victim. Whether the victim merits sympathy is a different issue.

Some of us do not consider the perpetrator a victim even if it goes badly.

And some of you can not consider that 2+2 = 4. But that doesn't make it right.

 

[bilby]

Bilby, your logic and phrasing of these sitations as "paranoid" is just flat out ignorant.

26% of burglaries result in a member of the household being violently victimized when a member of the household is present.

Of those cases, 9% result in serious injury and 3% result in rape.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pigPc-tjZb5xeRipg&sig2=vYZ5UAAAG4yPbfyCEbNRSg

How you call someone in that sitation to be paranoid and in a barbaric country and criticizing them for assuming the worst and therefore nutralizing theat serious threat, given those statistics, is just bonkers.

Not at all. For a start, those stats are seriously twisted - Most burglaries don't even result in a confrontation of any kind, because the only person in the building is the perpetrator. And many of the burglaries that include confrontations involve a burglar who knows his victims - I am prepared to bet that the incidence of rape is massively skewed towards such situations, so if a stranger is in your home, you are really not likely to be raped by him.

It is dangerously paranoid to KILL a person based on a less than 10% chance that he might injure you. And of course that chance is massively greater in a jurisdiction where guns are likely to be present.

'Neutralizing the threat' sounds like a good idea; but 'killing a person' sounds considerably less desirable; and it is this idea that the only defence is a lethal defence that is the one that I am saying is deeply paranoid and slightly deranged.

There is a MASSIVE world of possible responses to an intruder that lie between 'Let him do whatever he pleases' and 'Shoot him dead'. But apparently, Americans simply cannot imagine a single one.

 

[laughing dog]

Bilby, your logic and phrasing of these sitations as "paranoid" is just flat out ignorant.

26% of burglaries result in a member of the household being violently victimized when a member of the household is present.

Of those cases, 9% result in serious injury and 3% result in rape.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pigPc-tjZb5xeRipg&sig2=vYZ5UAAAG4yPbfyCEbNRSg

How you call someone in that sitation to be paranoid and in a barbaric country and criticizing them for assuming the worst and therefore nutralizing that serious threat, given those statistics, is just bonkers.

If you want to gamble with yours and your families lives in that kind of situation and hope that the burgler is actually a nice guy when you confront each other, go right ahead, but don't force the rest of us to take that risk.

What risk are you talking about? In this case, the homeowner was not home. She came back because there was a burglary. The alleged burglar was outside of the home.

 

[bilby]

Bilby, your logic and phrasing of these sitations as "paranoid" is just flat out ignorant.

26% of burglaries result in a member of the household being violently victimized when a member of the household is present.

Of those cases, 9% result in serious injury and 3% result in rape.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pigPc-tjZb5xeRipg&sig2=vYZ5UAAAG4yPbfyCEbNRSg

How you call someone in that sitation to be paranoid and in a barbaric country and criticizing them for assuming the worst and therefore nutralizing that serious threat, given those statistics, is just bonkers.

If you want to gamble with yours and your families lives in that kind of situation and hope that the burgler is actually a nice guy when you confront each other, go right ahead, but don't force the rest of us to take that risk.

What risk are you talking about? In this case, the homeowner was not home. She came back because there was a burglary. The alleged burglar was outside of the home.

Ah, yes; but if she hadn't shot him dead, she would have had no option but to strip off her clothes, spread her legs, and wait for him to finish raping her. Because those are the only two possible outcomes.

Apparently.

 

[Axulus]

Bilby, your logic and phrasing of these sitations as "paranoid" is just flat out ignorant.

26% of burglaries result in a member of the household being violently victimized when a member of the household is present.

Of those cases, 9% result in serious injury and 3% result in rape.

Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...pigPc-tjZb5xeRipg&sig2=vYZ5UAAAG4yPbfyCEbNRSg

How you call someone in that sitation to be paranoid and in a barbaric country and criticizing them for assuming the worst and therefore nutralizing that serious threat, given those statistics, is just bonkers.

If you want to gamble with yours and your families lives in that kind of situation and hope that the burgler is actually a nice guy when you confront each other, go right ahead, but don't force the rest of us to take that risk.

What risk are you talking about? In this case, the homeowner was not home. She came back because there was a burglary. The alleged burglar was outside of the home.

Once the confrontation happens, why does any of that matter. Are you alleging the homeowner rushed home for the purpose of killing him? Based on what evidence?

 

[Axulus]

What risk are you talking about? In this case, the homeowner was not home. She came back because there was a burglary. The alleged burglar was outside of the home.

Ah, yes; but if she hadn't shot him dead, she would have had no option but to strip off her clothes, spread her legs, and wait for him to finish raping her. Because those are the only two possible outcomes.

Apparently.

WTF are you going on about? You sound completely incoherent and unable to comprenend the various risks.

No its not "10% chance that she might be injured", whatever the fuck that means, it is 26% chance of an injury, and 9% chance that, when injured, it will be life threatening. And these are obviously situations where the household member FAILED to defend themselves. How many more would've been seriously injuried had they not stopped the threat? Why the hell should a person have to take that risk anyway? If you want to slit your own wrists so that a burgler may go free of injury, go right ahead.

By the way, the homeowner in this sitation shot the gun ONCE. If she wanted to kill him she would've kept shooting. One shot usually doesn't kill someone, so your notion that we are saying they have to be shot dead is a complete figment of your imagination.

 

[laughing dog]

Once the confrontation happens, why does any of that matter.

Because the homeowner was in no danger until the homeowner instigated the alleged confrontation outside the home. Duh.

Are you alleging the homeowner rushed home for the purpose of killing him? Based on what evidence?

What are you babbling about?

- - - Updated - - -

WTF are you going on about? You sound completely incoherent and unable to comprenend the various risks.

No its not "10% chance that she might be injured", whatever the fuck that means, it is 26% chance of an injury, and 3% chance that it will be life threatening.

Wrong, because the homeowner was not home when the burglary occurred. So your statistics are inapplicable.

 

[Axulus]

Because the homeowner was in no danger until the homeowner instigated the alleged confrontation outside the home. Duh.

Are you alleging the homeowner rushed home for the purpose of killing him? Based on what evidence?

What are you babbling about?

- - - Updated - - -

WTF are you going on about? You sound completely incoherent and unable to comprenend the various risks.

No its not "10% chance that she might be injured", whatever the fuck that means, it is 26% chance of an injury, and 3% chance that it will be life threatening.

Wrong, because the homeowner was not home when the burglary occurred. So your statistics are inapplicable.

The burglery was still in progress when she returned home.

Your notion that she instigated the confrontation despite that not being in evidence really exposes your bias here.

 

[laughing dog]

The burglery was still in progress when she returned home.

No, it was not. There was no burglary, and the suspect was leaving the house.

Your notion that she instigated the confrontation despite that not being in evidence really exposes your bias here.

He was leaving - according to her. There are no reports at this time that she said she was attacked or that she feared an attack. It is your biases that are exposed here, not mine.

 

[Axulus]

Gunshot mortality rate: ~28%, meaning a majority, 78%, survive.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/news_releases/2014/01/band/

The notion that the homeowner in this situation was handing him a death sentence, akin to a summary execution, by firing the weapon, ex-ante, is completely void of fact.