Using a weapon to stop a crime?

You are without a doubt right that an armed citizenry would stop this nonsense. A bullet right between the eyes the second he threatens someone would have stopped it. Its that simple.

 

I am saying that a person who used deadly force to prevent an intrusion into their home might be charged with homicide.

 

When they should be congratulated for protecting their family.

 

I'd rather take that chance than to see harm done to my family.

 

To quote an old redneck:


Better to be tried by twelve, than carried by six.


I wonder what would bother the conscience of the man of any family more?

1. To live with killing someone who illegaly broke into the home with unknown intentions in a day and age when violence is held back by little restraint.

OR:

2. To live with the death of a wife and child because he was to coward to act upon someone who illegally broke into his house with unknown intentions in a day and age when violence is held back by little restraint.

Personally I choose to live with number 1 (one) Yep I could live with that.

 

I have some experience I can relate to this. Back in the 1980s when my husband was away camping for the weekend, I woke up to an intruder in my bedroom rifling through the nightstand. In retrospect I think he had probably seen us packing my husband's car and assumed we were both gone. He could not have seen me in bed. Anyway, I screamed at the top of my lungs and chased him through the house and out the kitchen window where he had broke in. I don't know what I would have done if I had a gun. At any rate, this was in Poughkeepsie, New York, where there is gun control, so I could not legally have had a gun.

The police asked me what was missing, and all I could come up with was the little bit of cash in my wallet. They said that if I noticed anything else at all missing I should call them right away, no matter how insignificant it seemed. Next day I did notice the kitchen towel was missing, so I gave them a call. They said that was the answer they had been expecting, and that he had been gagging women with kitchen towel and raping them. He had no gun (and with gun control a gun was difficult for him to obtain).

Assuming I had a gun and shot him, I would have been charged. If not, I might have been raped. Thank God screaming bloody murder was the right thing to do in this instance, but looking back on it I am not sure I would not have shot him if I had a gun. The gun would have had to have been right there by me in order to use it, though. He could have wrestled it away from me, potentially. If I screamed and he ran away, as he did, and I shot him in the back I would definitely have gone to prison.

Another time I was walking down the street near a hospital and someone jumped out from behind a dumpster and grabbed me. I not really screamed, but roared I think would be a better description and flashed an ugly and grotesque face at him and that sent him running, too. I suspect this was a robbery.

Another time someone grabbed me and spun me around and I fell onto the grass. I wet all over myself and vomited and he ran! I guess I am pretty good at scaring men off! I think this was probably an attempted rape.

Glad I didn't kill any of them. Hope they are reformed or behind bars, but not dead. So on the whole, I think I am in favor of gun control. In that case, without a gun the worst that would have happened is rape. With a gun, I might have been dead.

 

You seem to attract this kind of guy. Maybe you should change your perfume.:laugh:

(I am absloutely just kidding)

 

Yeah, well I am 52 years old, and over a lifetime I think the average woman might expect to have that many or even more "incidents" to deal with. I live alone now and something else will probably happen at some point, so I am interested in this subject, and have thought about getting a gun. I now live in Texas where guns are very prevalent, and so an intruder here likely would have a gun.

 

3-page warning: This thread will be closed no sooner than 2:15 a.m. ET by one of the moderators.

LE

 

I've lived it Texas for over 50 years and, while I'm no lawyer, I am pretty sure you would not have been charged with any crime here in Texas. We have the right to use whatever force is needed to protect ourselves, our family, or our property.

 

Amity, if you are so prone to have so many attacks.....get a gun and learn how to shoot!

 

Actually I imagine your case is as rare as they come.

 

I wish, but no statistically it is not.

And I think there have been cases over the limits of "self-defense" right here in Texas. I don't think you can use deadly force for simple breaking and entering.

 

There is nothing simple about someone breaking into your house illegally fro unknown purposes. It can reasonably be assumed that the intruder has come top do physical harm. and I would like to see the example of this in texas.

 

Do you have a source?

 

Will try to find one for you. And you know there have been Supreme Court cases about people shooting trespassers who broke into their property. Spring guns and whatnot. Will try to find out more since I am interested myself.

 

Yes, you can.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17820464/

 

Closed per previous notice. LE