Wild West gets wilder: Sacramento goes to guns
The debate is on: which is okay–shoot to kill the guy in your home, or shoot to hinder the guy who is breaking into your car? Is either okay, morally? Is one okay in certain circumstances, and the other…not? I love the legal system. It’s the very questions like these that get all tangled up for the public to debate, and the law to decide.
For background, the Bee has an article here on the latest shootings in the area.
My own opinion on the first case (and it’s a strong one) is thus:
If a woman comes home, and comes across an attacker in her home and shoots to kill him…good for the woman. Bad for the attacker–he happened to choose a deputy officer’s home. Most of us civilians don’t carry a weapon, and couldn’t remain calm and cool enough to shoot a person in the head if they were trying to attack us. Word to the criminal: if you don’t do your research, you die. It’s Darwin and natural selection. And on another note–there will be one less sexual predator in prison (and we’re already overcrowded here in CA). I say give the Deputy Sheriff a medal.
On the second case…I have a lot of questions, as well as opinions.
If a person breaks into your car…pull out a weapon? I guess it depends on: how many times you’ve been ripped off, where you live, how the police have handled cases in your area, and where you are. I’d hate to see a person pull out a gun downtown and blow away someone who was jiggling the lock on the shooter’s car–because the gunfire might hit others nearby–and a car isn’t worth a ricochet death. Not even Arnold’s Hummer is worth a ricochet death.
But the guy whose property the alleged thieves were on and whose car was being jimmied might have a good reason to threaten the brazen ones with gunfire. Is it vigilante justice? Could be. Or it could be self-preservation. If you live in the Wild West (and certain parts of Sacramento could be labeled thusly), then you play by the rules of the Wild West. Would the group of young people have stopped breaking into the car if told to cease and desist, if yelled at, if the property owner ran at them with a baseball bat? What stops a crime more quickly than the introduction of gunfire?
Where do we draw the line between right and wrong here? If I was in the property owner’s gun-firing shoes, would I do the same? Whose rights trump the others? Do the thieves’ rights trump those of the property owner’s?
And finally…where were the PARENTS of the underage criminals? Shouldn’t they be called to answer for the lawlessness of their kids? What happened to responsibility for one’s offspring? It starts with the parents. If you’re not going to arrest the kids who were vandalizing / breaking into the guy’s car, then go after the parents. We are all ultimately responsible for the values (or lack thereof) of the youth in our communities. I’m getting sick and tired of the idea that the juvies who were breaking into the car just materialized out of nowhere and should carry all the blame on their underage shoulders. It starts at home. Turn off the TV and talk with your kids. Next time, the shooter might not miss, and you’ll be burying your baby. The one you ignored last night to watch your “shows.”
as the law professor quoted in the article says - the distinction here is easy to draw.
taking as fact what is presented in the article: if someone is coming at you to physically harm you, up to lethal action is justified. if someone is going after your honda, it isn’t.
had the father of four been sitting at the honda at the time, and kids were threatening HIS safety, then yes, he could have used his gun.
but no matter how wrong the kids were; no matter how many times they or someone else had attacked his property; the father was not justified in using lethal force to defend his car. period. he just wasn’t.
because no matter how ill-socialized those kids were, regardless of what kind of street punks they are, their lives are still worth more than a honda.
alternatively, the deputy officer, facing potential sexual assault which could’ve turned into worse and resulted in her death - someone facing a direct, physical assault, was protecting her own life at the cost of the attacker. we’re all equal. he didn’t have the right to make an attack on her life, but she doesn’t need to sacrifice her own either.
we don’t kill people in this country for property crimes. theives don’t face the death penalty. from the top down, the criminal justice system does not equate property with human life - and thank god for that.
painting the father out to be some kind of hero in the war on street crime is dangerous and speaks pretty badly of our collective humanity.
Ah, CD, that’s why you’ve got the law degree, and I have so many questions. ;-)
So you personally, are you in favour (of shooting someone over a Honda)? ;-))
I pretty much trust our system (here in Germany) and therefor don’t see the entire “allowed to carry guns”-deal at all. But I guess that comes with history.
Not “why” I have the law degree - it’s because I have the law degree that I provided my comment.
;)
Actually, the more I read about the guy who shot the kid breaking into his car…the more I think it was excessive. I still don’t think parents are doing their jobs, though. I still say “where were they?” As for deadly force to protect property, I guess it is a little much. We have to have some order in this disorderliness.
36 states in the US have some sort of concealed-carry laws, and a couple acknowledge the unrestricted right of concealed carry at the state constitution level, but California isn’t one of them. So, unless you’re someone who can talk the local police chief into giving you a concealed-carry permit (fat chance), concealed carry in CA isn’t legal.
I miss the days when you could drive to Isleton and the police chief would give a concealed-carry permit to whomever could pay the fee–until the state assembly passed a law stating that only the chief of the city where you live could authorize such a permit.
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What outrage! “Shooting someone over a Honda!”
Do you even realize what this attitude implies? That shooting someone is all right with you, just shooting over a car is not enough of a reason. All you need is a good reason, right? Give you a cause and you will kill…
Yeah! That’s what it sounds like!
And what would be a good reason?
To shoot over a house?…
A million dollars?…
A gun pointed at you or someone else?…
A perpetrator standing on your doorstep?…
What about one foot inside your house or a garage?…
Two feet inside…?…
In your kitchen?…
What if the intruder, once confronted inside of your residence, informs you outright that they don’t intend to hurt you, they only want your TV, PC or your wallet? When is it acceptable to shoot them? And if you are well trained with guns when is it acceptable to shoot them in the head?
How do you decide?
Or do you let the lawmakers determine your ethical stand for you?
It might seem that the whole debate is over the sacredness of life, but it isn’t. It appears you are just looking for a good reason to kill someone…
Hypocrisy at its best!
And what’s with the “police officer”, “father of four” and the “kid” bits in the reports? Aren’t those things in there for only one reason - to elicit a certain emotional response in the readers and predetermine their judgment? They’ve got no other informational value whatsoever…
How about this instead: A single woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted with little to no evidence to support it, and who was on the police force for only 3 years, killed a man in the apartment she was renting from another officer. The man who was pronounced dead on the scene appeared to have been repeatedly shot in the head, thus making the woman the only remaining witness to the alleged crime. The neighbor’s dogs that always bark when there is a stranger in the vicinity were suspiciously quiet. Although any clear connection between the victim and the killer has not been established the investigators continue to look into a possibility of a premeditated murder while the woman is taken into the county jail. Sounds fair? Why? Why not?
Blunter
I don’t even understand your larger point, Blunter.