It's a shame that common sense doesn't
figure into the mix at all
By what standard is shooting through a wall at an unidentified person who was looking through the window “common sense”?
After a cursory investigation, the matter
would be dropped completely and not
brought up again, and no civil suits would
be allowed
What’s a cursory investigation? Something you saw in a B Western: “I saw it all sheriff, the stranger drew first it was self defense.” “If you say you saw it Clem, that’s good enough for me, boys get this body over to the undertakers, bartender the next round is on me, set em up!”
Everytime I read a story like this I think of Paul S who lived in the town where I worked as a police officer. Paul was an engineer. Then he had a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident. He was barely able to care for himself after the accident. Sometimes he slipped away from his caregiver and wandered around town. Fortunately everyone in town knew him and if they found him in the yard they’d call his caregiver, call us or help him get home himself.
We know nothing about the man she shot through her wall. For all we know he was a harmless person with a traumatic brain injury who didn’t know what he was doing and meant no one any harm.
Yes there are evil people in the world, I’ve met some up close and personal. But there are also drunks who are trying to get into what they think is their home, I’ve met some of them too. And there are a lot of people who aren’t in possession of their faculties who wander the streets because back in the early 1980s our society decided it was more humane to let them wander the streets then to institutionalize them. Yes many of them are dangerous, but the majority are harmless. I’ve dealt with both types.
Everytime we discuss one of these situations here we can count on a percentage of the membership to celebrate a killing before they know the details.
