Are you really so certain he isn't? Who's to say he hadn't been just waiting for an opportunity where he could likely have it called legally justifiable to off someone.

Because it doesn't make sense with what we know about the man, obviously.

Stop grasping at straws here. The simple fact of the matter is this: Joe Horn was found to have reasonably believed that his life was in danger when he shot these two men, therefore no charges were brought against him.

End of discussion really.

Oh, I'm sorry, he didn't kill them for no reason.

He killed them as an unfortunate and uncontrollable side effect of his crippling Texan Fuckwad Syndrome. Let us all pray that this poor individual may be cured of his affliction.

If you take the situation and remove the gun from the equation, it basically plays out like this:

Old man sees neighbor's house being robbed, calls police, stays in his house, watches thieves leave on foot. Police arrive, are told which way the thieves exited scene of crime, catch criminals and return stolen items. No one is shot and killed unless absolutely necessary, and if so, said shooting and killing is performed by the police who are legally entrusted with the judgment to know when to shoot and kill people.

Well, to be fair, Texas' Castle Doctrine means that individuals are legally entrusted to shoot and kill people that are on their property illegally.

So the question is really mainly ethical, as legally he really should have been indicted.

Based on what? The grand jury interpreted the law far differently than you and many of the other liberal anti-gun nuts in this thread have. Precedent has been set, so throw this 'should have' business out the window.

I just want to remind everyone that the gentleman calling people "nuts" is doing his best to defend the action of fatally shooting nonthreatening petty thieves in the back.

It's a problematic issue, no doubt. I guess, for me, I just don't see the point in keeping an AK under your pillow. I'm not saying take the guns, I'm just saying there are, you know, limits to what we should believe is actually going to be used for hunting and target practice.

If a kid gets caught with a playboy, we're not really going to believe he was reading the article on the best cigars north of Cuba, are we?

The action needs no defense; it's been defended and upheld.

The law isn't always correct, NP. I can't believe that someone with your belief system concerning keeping an armed militia just in case the government truly goes too far would be so upset about people daring to question the validity of a decision.

You can question it, but at the end of the day -- the grand jury determined that this guy didn't do anything worthy of prosecution, which in my book is just fine. If they had decided that he did in fact needed to be prosecuted, I would've been cool with that, too.

No, I get that you're a real the law is the law guy. I grasp that. I'm just curious as to why it seems to upset you so much when people question that. Is it just a matter of not wanting people to think they know better than the experts? Because I can get behind that.

I just look at it like - the grand jury didn't indict him, therefore it's not that big of a deal to me anymore. In general principle, would I have done the same thing he did? Probably not, but I do think the guy had a reasonable belief that he was in some sort of danger and he went and did work. The grand jury felt the same way and to me that's the end of it. You wanna change the law after the fact? We have a process for that, but as it stands right now, it doesn't bother me that the guy wasn't prosecuted nor do I see it as an argument against civillian gun ownership.

Why, NP, I always thought you were a cynic. You big softie, you.

This changes everything. I think a group hug is in order. :bigeyes:



There is at least one thing that's true, though: trying to judge his frame of mind at the time is pretty much impossible. We can only speculate. And since that job has already been taken, we're just the Monday morning quarterbacks.

A lot of people actually do use AR15s and the civilian AK47 for hunting and target practice. You're not going to perforate a deer or anything, but the bullets are gonna be there, and you don't need to worry about keeping a .50 cal pistol in bear country. They're also very useful when hunting cougars.

What's ridiculous are the people who thing they need an assault rifle for self-defense, since that's really overkill, so much to the point in fact where an assault rifle isn't even close to the best choice. Shotguns sound scary without even needing to be fired, and handguns can be easily used indoors. Buckshot and pistol ammo don't have a penetration issue, either, so there's less danger of hurting your neighbors. Plus you can't exactly keep a rifle in a drawer or under a pillow.

If you're that bad a shot that you need an automatic assault rifle to hit anything, perhaps you should think about getting a new hobby.

Not all assault rifles are fully automatic. The civilian AK is modified for semi-auto only in American markets.

I thought all assault rifles that could be legally owned by civilians in the US had to be restricted to semi-auto. Any models that are capable of burst or auto are illegal to own unless the bolt has been cut to prevent firing. Although... civilians can own full auto machine guns (in Arizona anyway) so perhaps it is a state law.

I actually meant "should NOT have been indicted"; I was trying to say that, according to the law, he was legally justified, and so really the issue is whether or not it should be legal, as was brought up later.

Throw this 'should have' business out the window, the Supreme Court set precedent and you can be separate but equal.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3...democracy2.gif

But we don't elect supreme court justices!

Would you like to know more?

Have you ever been to, like, North Dakota?

Most non-North Americans' understanding of North Dakota probably came from Fargo, so he might have been justified in that statement.

That should just highlight the need to own a gun if your neighbor is running a wood chipper.

I think this law in the usa is not needed beacuse everyone can kill evryone who will enter his property and can say he was protecting himself

It's best that people don't have any guns at all. Look at the UK, they took their guns away and now they have to resort to knifings. Only the criminals should be allowed to have guns, after all they don't follow the rule of law. Ask any criminal where they get their gun so they can take the 5th amendmant...

Oh and goverment officials should not be the only law abiding people to have automatics, sure if your average jow has it, its overkill but the point is its a protected right no matter how silly it looks.