Rash of Burglaries Neighbors ask can we shoot them??

[oneshooter]

Here in Texas the law says that if your car is stolen during the day you cannot shoot. However the same is not true at night! This means that your only real problems whether to shoot or not are at night. As for me I live in a rural area,behind a locked gate and 100yds from the main (dirt)road. If you are stealing my car you have already commited felony trespass,day or night!

Tallpine, In Texas it is still legal to shoot a man for stealing cattle, horses, or pigs,or if you catch them cutting your fence! However sheep don't count!!!


Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

 

[benewton]

" However sheep don't count!!! "

Sounds fair to me....

 

[dustind]

How is it ok to lock someone up for years in a horrible prison with people that may rape or kill them, but not okay to just kill the person?

I would put long prison sentances in the same category as murder.

 

[Richard.Howe]

Quote: "I believe that property is the same thing as life"

Good Lord.

In that event, I'll trade my Suburban for your firstborn. Sure will be convenient to have an extra set of hands around here.

 

[Monkeyleg]

From the article: "There's just not enough bodies."

Well, start shooting them, then!

 

[Mikul]

a human life, no matter how degraded, is worth more than a piece of property.

I've got to disagree with this one. There are pleny of people on this earth who do far more harm than they are worth. I can name a good dozen people who could only make the world better by leaving it. Many of them I have known since they were children and nothing has changed since they were five years old. The world would be better off without a scumbag, but it would certainly be worse off without my lawn mower.

The more I think on this, the harder it is for me to find a moral or logical reason why lethal force should not be justified in cases of theft. Everyone has a right to their own property. A thief is someone who is taking that right away from somebody. There is no gray area. Tresspassing has huge gray areas. A person can easily walk from property they are legally allowed on to property they are not without knowing it. Machinegunning anyone walking over your property line is murder. When you see someone you don't know loading your drill press into a pickup truck, there is no question what they're doing. It is not an action that can be done by mistake when that object is on private property. Dropping your pen on the street and decapitating the first person who picks it up would not be right. Furthermore, if using lethal force to protect property were a common occurance, it would serve as a great deterrant to anyone thinking of doing it. Right now, petty theft is impossible to stop: the neighbor's kid thinks that stealing your lawn chairs every year is funny because, really, what are you going to do about it. He may feel differently if he knows that if you ever do catch him, even once, it's all over, and it he does decide to do it anyway, he does it with the knowledge that he's taking his life in his hands.

This is a somewhat disturbing conclusion, but I can't find anything wrong with it either.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Too bad I'm not a mindreader. Then I could know for sure that the person who wandered a half mile down an uninviting one-lane dirt road to my driveway, got over or through my electric fences, bypassed the dogs, escaped the notice of my neighbors, then broke into my house while I was home was really only after my teevee and didn't intend me or my wife any personal physical harm.

But since I am not a mindreader, I cannot know that in advance. And any felon who attempts B&E here while we are home is going to get challenged loudly, and if they fail to respond appropriately and quickly to the challenge are apt to get shot if they persist in the effort to gain entry. Would hate to have to do it, would hate to be involved in it at all, have tried to make sure it isn't likely to happen. But Murphy is always out there, and he seems to run with the local rock monsters (community term for crackheads).

After one got caught kicking in the door at our pastor's SIL and daughter's house next door to his house a few months ago, the local SO wanted to know why he hadn't blown the rock monster away out of hand and saved them trouble. Pastor said, "I told him to lay down on the ground and be still or I'd shoot him with this shotgun, and he believed me." Pastor did a tour behind a pig gun in Nam, is big enough to have liked shooting it offhand with just a teaser belt, and if he told me he was gonna shoot me _I'D_ believe him too. Brother Pastor sets a good example, how can I not follow it if possible?

lpl/nc

 

[LoneStranger]

Those material possessions that I have have mostly come from me trading my life for them. Admittedly I chose to trade it in eight hour increments and not always fun and enjoyable increments.

To make the claim that the thief has a greater claim on my material possessions than I do is to make the claim that the life of the thief is of more value than my life.

I wonder about those who value the life of the thief more than they value mine. I wonder about living in close proximity to such.

 

[LoneStranger]

Double Tap Sorry

 

[mbs357]

Calhoun, thanks. =D
And I agree, no object is more valuable than a life.
However, when a person breaks into my home in the middle of the night, I refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Oh, he's just hungry and wants some junk to sell for food." Maybe that's going too far. "He's a burglar, he just wants objects."
The thing is, I don't know. He could be coming in here planning to fry my liver, make a necklace out of my ears and steal my very valuables (computer, guns, stuffed animals...).
I refuse to take a chance because the burglar, who broke into my home and started this whole thing, might be a good person who just wants to 'earn' a few bucks. When someone breaks into my house, I'm going to assume the worst.
Better safe than sorry right?

 

[DevilDog]

"If you are confronted, do not resist," she said. "Comply with whatever he asks. You don't know if someone will hurt you. Nothing you own is worth more than your life."

The value of property is not relevant here! What is it with this "lets give up and be a victim" syndrome?

To comply, to not resist anyone attempting to commit a crime against you is only setting someone else up to be the criminal's next victim.

To comply is to put your life, and the life of your loved ones in the criminal's hands. How smart is that? This person is in the process of demonstrating how little regard he has for others and for the law so now you are going to trust him to leave once he takes a possession or two?

Never comply. I don't care if he only wants the single penny in your pocket - resist him not because your life is worth that penny but resist him because you cannot trust if or when he will stop, with you or his next victim.

 

[cracked butt]

I agree with other posters' ideas that possesions in the home is not worth shooting and killing someone over. But it is worth shooting their arse full of rock salt over.