Posted on 06/28/2004 9:09:55 AM PDT by ijcr
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:42:32 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
BOWLING GREEN, Va. -- Lawyer and part-time cattle farmer John F. Ames got off on the wrong foot with his new neighbors in the 1980s when he invoked a 17th-century law to compel them to pay for part of the fence around his 675-acre estate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
People involved in shootings often wind up pulling the trigger for several seconds on an empty gun. Adrenaline messes up time perception, hearing, and eyesight. Heck, even a simunition training drill can have people puking from adrenaline overload.
I do not feel the shooting was justified from I can glean from published circumstance. You apparently do.
It is quite possible the shooting was not justified. That would depend on exactly what victim's actions were, and exactly what he was carrying. How many times he was shot isn't so important, except that it is just as likely someone who unloads a gun genuinely feared for his life as it is he wanted to be sure to kill the guy.
If I was on a jury (not in this lifetime) whether or not I convicted would depend on whether I believed from the facts that the victim provoked a flight-or-fight response in the shooter.
Just from reading your tagline, you have a good chance of becoming a Mr. Oliver Perry Brooks.
Mr. Ames apparently fired one shot (which presumably ended the incident), then realized a few seconds later that he'd better empty the gun to show that he was in "mortal fear." Funny that Mr. Ames can't say whether Brooks had a stick or a cattle prod...
I am starting to wonder who knocked over the fence this time out.
Thanks for the info on the fencing laws RE big ranches. I had no idea the properties were so large.
I can see your and Ames' point of view much better now.
Bad deal all around.
I don't think the author knows to much about why those laws are so old either.
Keep your cows out of my garden or I'll kill it was probably a common threat before the laws were made.
"Sheesh, there are a bunch of freepers here who just don't read the articles, I guess. It's easy to see how rumors ant lynchmobs get started."
Yeah, it seems that they don't realize that just because a law is old it deserves to be ignored. If the laws on the books, the judge is supposed to enforce it. If it's a stupid law, the legislature should change it.
They have laws like this in a few states; this law is not exactly novel.
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