* Considering it is Pasadena, the chances that they would have gotten away and continue to burglarize for a while is average at least, low at best. Quite a number of cases regarding theft and breaking & entering are reported but few rarely end with the thief being caught. Those sneaky thieves.

Furthermore, since this is Pasadena, the Police force is mostly volunteer. They may not be officially official cops but they aren't going to go vigilante and just blast some stupid Mexicans for stealing worthless crap. If they had to at the most "extreme" they would just disable the two in the event they will stupid enough to try to point a weapon at an officer; they aren't going to fire so many times until they die unless they're some nutso cop.

*None of this is really relevant to what you dudes are going on about, I'm just stating what would have most likely happened due to having uncles that are part of the police force, both in Houston and Pasadena. Also no, they aren't taught to aim at the "center mass", you aim for the arm carrying the weapon to disable if they are armed while not hitting any vital points. They train them to be precise shooters (even the volunteers! we don't want someone who can't aim to be toting a gun), not run-of-the-mill "hope I get you in the right ballpark" shooters. In the event that they decide to fire back then you may shoot to kill. Then again, most cops around here aren't just carrying some 9mm pistol. Some have to carry semi-automatics since most criminals are better armed than the police force themselves, so usually only the daring try to go against the cops. Again, that doesn't really relate to what is being discussed.

In any case, Grandpa Shoot 'Em Up disregarded the words of an officer and decided to take the law into his own hands. The only way I could see him not being charged with anything is if Dr. Phil decided to be his judge. Or if the "It's Texas" effect decides to occur. Even though the odds logically are stacked against him, in Texas the legal system can be just backwards retarded.

Sass you look at that entirely the wrong way. They are taught to shoot center mass because under life threating situations the average accuracy of a police officer is less than 30%. It is the easiest point to aim for and the place you are most likely to actually hit the target. The point of shooting someone is to stop their ability to harm others by means of deadly force. Tazers, stun guns, and bean bag rounds from a shotgun are designed to subdue a person but without deadly force. These methods are not always feasible (ie when the other guy has a gun too) or effective (I've seen people get maced and shocked with no effect). Sometimes a gun is the only reasonable tool to stop someone with.

Anytime anyone shoots at another person it is to kill regardless of their intent. That was my point earlier, you NEVER shoot to wound (ie the legs, knees, arms, etc) that defeats the entire purpose of pulling the trigger.


I'm calling Bull Shit. I want to see proof of this because it is completely opposite to everything I have ever been taught or known to be taught to the police (both civilian and military police).

There are other tools at the officers disposal if deadly force is not warranted or necessary.

Semi-automatic what? Semi-automatic just means that it reloads another round after you pull the trigger... most police pistols are semi-automatic.

This is like apologizing and then saying, "but." It negets everything else, completely. Just to humor you though, I'll go ahead and rip apart the rest of your post.

Nobody is defending the actions taken by the robbers. Indeed, they deserved to be punished for their actions. However, they did not deserve to die for them. You're comparing a situation where my use of deadly force would not only be applicable, but reccomended, to a situation that no force whatsoever by Mr. Horn was warranted.Also, the Congressional Medal of Honor is only for military, wheras the Presidential Medal of Freedom is for civilians.

What the fuck is that argument? You're really trying to argue that two people getting caught, tried, arrested and sentenced would somehow encourage people to commit the same crime in the neighboorhood? Not only that, if you are going to argue that, then how the fuck would people spending money on non-deadly forms of home defense be a bad thing? They'd get a deductable from their homeowner's insurance, peace of mind, and a leg up on any new robbery attempts. Go brush your teeth, your breath smells like bullshit.

"The ends justify the means." You're an idiot.

Additional Spam:
That may be the norm, but in this instance officers were on the scene within a minute of the shootings. I do not believe they would have allowed the suspects to escape given their proximity. Indeed, the evidence suggests just the opposite.

Rifles.

Most of the crime in Houston are from the various gangs with fully automatics.

Then again, the Mara Salvatrucha never did get along with the Norteños nor the Sureños.

Still not sure how they can sneak all that shit without someone noticing, then again the borders have a few holes that are never guarded. Then again, most of it is crap that hasn't seen use in quite some time. Maybe they thought it was broken. :rolleyes:

I like you too Frank. <3

My main hang up has been that it came down to a binary decision in that guy's head, pretty sure, that he stop them himself or let them get away. Ignore methods for a second. Also I don't think with the knowledge he had, it was all that clear that the suspects would have been apprehended.

In that case, I'm glad he acted. Not jumping for joy that he killed two guys, not feeling sorry for the two guys, but glad he did something to stop it.

However, talking with a buddy of mine about it, and he mentioned that he'd had to break into his own place a few times. Once he locked himself out of his mom's house, and had to crawl through a window. I've broken into my own house before also.

It's extremely unlikely, but I'm just thinking now that, you know, they could have been some incredibly stupid cousins of the neighbor who couldn't find the key under the mat, and they'd been asked to go pick up the guy's laundry or something. Ridiculous yes, but all of sudden that whole presumption of innocence thing pops up, which I kind of like, and it makes it difficult to support a guy who created a situation where the justice of the thing couldn't have been properly investigated.

edit: On the train home I'd tried to sketch out a kind of di-graph of points and ideas that illustrated the argument, but it was too hard, because there were these over-arching cultural paradigms that had to be included too, and I didn't know how to draw a three dimensional di-graph on a piece of paper. =(

Ok, my beef with the guy is he shot two men THREE times. I'm pretty sure there are only three reasons why someone would do that.

1. He shot a warning shot, given that he shot 3 rounds in rapid succession I'm pretty sure this isn't it. If it was a warning shot it would have been "Bang, Move you're dead", not Boom, click, boom, click, boom.

2. He missed. Yeah.... Standing 10-12 feet away from a target with a very big gun. Don't think so.

3. He shot to kill. Probably it. Shot a guy once, he fell on the ground and didn't move anymore. Shot the second guy, he yells many obscenities (I would supposed). By now, I would accept that he shot the two men based on self defense. I mean he probably accidently killed the first guy. But he fired that third shot and killed the third guy who's obviously not a threat seeing as how he just got shot with a shotgun.

He's a trigger happy murderer.

You don't know where they were shot. One could have taken a shot to the face and the other took two in the gut/leg/arm/choose random body part. We don't know.

As I stated before at that range there would be little to no dispersion of the buckshot. That means you have better be aiming correctly to hit the target. There is also no information on how he fired the shotgun (hip or shoulder) or whether he had to back up while making the second and third shot.


There is a lot of missing information regarding what happened those final few seconds. I think you are jumping the gun on labeling this man as a murder.

Basically there are two kinds of people in this world:

There are those that think that it was right to kill Saddam Husain for what he did, and his crimes against humanity, even though he was a dictator, and his word was law.

And then there are others who think that behind the mass murder, uptight prick, there was a big fluffy bunny that just needed a hug and not a noose around his neck.

Bottom line: If you are doing something you know is morally wrong, you better fully prepare for the worst if you are caught.

In before "What if the robbers were mentally handicap and didn't know better?!"

As long as you continue to compare rape, sexual extortion, genocide, mass murder, and "crimes against humanity" to a couple guys casing a house, you're not going to get anywhere. These men were no dictators. They were not mass murderers. They did not have any blood on their hands whatsoever. Give it up already.

Hell, you might as well compare me to Hitler, it's make about as much sense as the rest of your drivel.

mur·der The killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).

Deliberation AND Premeditation were both present here, as he went outside to confront them. It wasn't in self-defense as he provoked them. Strikes me as meeting the definition of murder.

Still don't understand where people are getting "The guy with the gun provoked the other people into a situation where he had to kill them." Now, I'm no lawyer or anything, so I have no idea if there's a precedent here, but it seems to me that you can separate, in this instance, the deliberate and premeditated act of going outside to stop them, and the actual act of killing them.

This provoke thing is really giving me issues. I mean, it's a transitive verb right? So it takes an object. One provokes something else. That something else is then being acted upon by the subject.

There's also this idea that a person in the stronger position doesn't need to provoke anyone in order to act.

The only way I can see the guy with the shotgun provoking the poor "victims" is if you want to say he created a situation where they had to act a certain way, which would necessitate the use of force. That's taking all responsibility away from the thieves. I think that's stupid.

Guy stabbed his ex-girlfriend up at the mall near my apartment. There was a conversation after the fact with a bunch of friends, consensus being that we'd like to think we would have stepped in to help the lady if we had been there. Of course, we might have injured the guy doing the stabbing. And that means we provoked the assailant?

The logic seems all twisty and wrong.

Also, Devo, it occurred to me this morning that this isn't a useless discussion. It's a nice ethical question, and it's always good to hash out tough ethical questions with yourself, you know, if you're open-minded about it. Builds character.

At the very least, I'll know exactly who to rob if it ever became necessary, because you know, they'll think I have rights. <3

You've already condemned the man before he has even set foot in a court room. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Obviously my point earlier was missed upon you. He has neither been charged with nor convicted of any crime yet but quite a few of you are so eager to label this man a murder when you have incomplete information on the situation.

By that logic he was still wrong in shooting on the men, because as they hadn't been proven guilty in a court of law they were innocent of robbing that house.

Pu-leez. If I shoot someone I'm guilty of the applicable crime, whether or not it's proven in a court of law is immaterial. It's like arguing OJ didn't kill his wife because 12 people were too thick to understand the evidence.

Convicted and Guilty are seperate things. Just look at the fucking transcript:

"You want to make a bet?" Horn answered."I'm going to kill them."

And that was before he even left the house.

This really isn't about what anyone's personal idea of right and wrong is or how the dictionary/common law defines murder. What matters here is how Texas law applies in this case. Here's the law that Horn is relying on:

In order to be justified under this law, Horn has to not only meet the elements of 9.43, but also the elements of 9.41 or 9.42. However, 9.41 only covers force; 9.42 covers deadly force which clearly is what was used here. Therefore, in order to be lawful, Horn needs to meet the elements of 9.43 AND 9.42.

Notice the section under 9.42 that I highlighted. While Horn certainly meets some of the elements under the statute, 9.42 requires that this have happened during the nighttime, and this case happened at 2 PM, which is about as far away from the nighttime as one can get. Granted, innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz, but the law that he justifies his actions by is clearly against him on a critical point. The fact that a Texas state senator says that the law does not apply in this case only further demonstrates the law's intent.

All this probably explains why in the original article posted, it mentions that "His attorney says Horn just feared for his life." The attorney probably already realizes the law won't apply here and is hoping that he can get Horn off on some sort of self-defense theory. But Horn's conversation with the dispatcher is pretty damning to that defense, so that probably won't work either.

The lesson: wait until a nighttime burglary.

Jury nullification is a motherfucker, though.

Well, the jury can disagree with the statute if they want, but that just means it's a dead letter law, in which case the case defaults to the common law--and I'm pretty certain the jury can't override the common law murder rule.

"Go Joe Horn! Go Joe Horn! Go Joe Horn!"

YouTube Video

Looks like the people don't care 'bout them nigras, well not the black community at least. At first I thought I was just watching some NAACP publicity move, but it looks to be the black community there in Pasadena. Anyway, maybe Joe Horn won't be charged with any murder seeing how the [white] people got his back. I bet if he was even charged with murder, there would be such a huge backlash from the [white] people that they would have to overturn the ruling. Frankly, I support Horn and don't condemn his actions.

God... Why does EVERYTHING have to be a race issue? I'm actually with one of the protesters: This is a CRIMINAL issue. While I personally don't condone his straight-up vigilante actions, even if he IS charged with a crime I would hate to see this turn into a bitter race rivalry when it clearly is nowhere near that territory.

On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with their protest either so I kind of have to wonder why these people are claiming ever-so-matter-of-factly "we don't wanna hear anything he has to say!"... Maybe you should, lady. Perhaps he's NOT there to play the race card this time.

Then you're an idiot who either has no understanding of the legal system in the United States, or just doesn't support it. Either way, you're an idiot. ^5

Totally diggin all the trolling you're doing here, Franky boy.

Wasn't aware that differing opinion = idiot these days. On the other hand, I really do love how personally you're taking those who are pro-horn here. Serious business much?

To quote an old history professor, "Son, everyone has opinions. Some opinions are wrong." But hey, I'm sorry; I didn't realize that a fundamental ignorance of the law which governs the land suddenly became trivial when you talked about it on the internet. My apologies for not putting in more content supporting my position when the previous four pages are filled with it.

As he didn't post any kind of reasoning behind his inane support of this killer (albeit one with a good heart!) I didn't feel compelled to respond with any of the information that had already been posted. But I'll bite. Toss me an infraction for trolling, Moderation, I earned it.

Ashame blatant stupidity and ignorance don't incure infractions, but then we'd be missing so many wonderful posters.

And it's spelled Frankie, dickwad.

More of less this would give way to the path of logic that "I have nothing new to add to the discussion, thus I will opt out of replying", instead you went for "I have nothing new to add, so I'll just call him stupid and bait him a little".

Am I on course here?

Fuck you! ;_; I try to give someone a hard time and you RUIN IT. RUIN IT.

Taking you off my friends list.