Posted on 07/03/2008 5:15:19 AM PDT by marktwain
Not even a week after the Supreme Court decided that gun bans are unconstitutional, a man accused of shooting to death two burglars who were robbing his neighbor's home has been set free despite the viciousness of his act.
If you'll remember the story, Joe Horn, a 61-year-old Pasadena, Tex., resident spotted two burglars breaking into his neighbor's home in Nov. 2007. He dialed 911, but despite being warned to stay in his home, he declared that he has a right to use deadly force to defend his neighbor's property and that he was going to confront the robbers.
He does just that and then shoots them in their backs, killing them. A huge controversy ensued over whether he should stand trial in the deaths of do RiascosDiego Ortiz, 30, and Hernan Torres, 38, both Columbian immigrants.
Yesterday, a grand jury cleared him of all wrongdoing. Score another one for the gun nuts.
On Tuesday, family and activists called the killing "premeditated murder." ...
I'm not defending the two men who robbed the neighbor's home of about $2,000 in jewelry and cash. But was this worth their lives? These men were not armed, and they posed no threat to Horn, although he claims that they came into his yard.
But if you hear the 911 tapes, Horn was warned to stay in his home and let the police handle the issue. He ignored the dispatcher's orders and if you listen to the tapes you'll see that he had every intention of killing those men.
Even though Horn has expressed regret over the incident, there are supporters who swear Horn should have sawed the men's heads off and impaled them on a lamppost at the edge of his driveway. These are the people who I lose sleep over.
These are the people who love guns far more than they love anything else and are waiting for their chance to kill someone, and far too often they are looking for a nonwhite in order to get their chance. For example, the 1992 killing of Yoshihiro Hattori, a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in Baton Rouge, La., who simply rang the wrong doorbell when looking for a Halloween party. The homeowner, Rodney Peairs, opened fire on Hattori, mortally wounding him. Peairs was later acquitted under a Louisiana law, similar to one in Texas that allows people to shoot burglars if they feel threatened.
Here's my question: If people like Horn and Peairs -- who are white -- can shoot people they feel threatened by, why is it that John White, a Long Island, N.Y., man -- who is black -- gets a jail term for defending his home when he thought a mob was coming to harm his son, which also resulted in a death.
None of the losses of life are right. The deaths are senseless, and could have been avoided if cooler heads had prevailed. But in Horn's case, he had no intention of calming down. He took the law into his own hands and now, with a Supreme Court gun decision having just passed, every firearm freak in the country will feel emboldened.
Well, here's what I have to say to them: a person who would shoot someone because they feel a gun empowers them is a sociopath with a murderous mentality. It has nothing to do with self defense, it is the mark of a weak person who would feel castrated without having a gun somewhere in their vicinity.
Point blank: If you actually love your gun, you're a punk. It takes a man to preserve life. It takes a weakling to snuff it out.
Horn, by his own admission, is an eternal victim of his weak moment.
I don't know all the details of this case but did see a quick synopsis just this morning....1) The kids weren't armed...2)the back guy made *no* attempt to call the cops even though he had a good bit of advanced warning...3) the shooter showed substantial anger and contempt...anger of a type that might suggest that he was out to get whitey for 200 years of lynchings.
Because Horn and Peairs live in southern states, while White lives in New York - next question?
A gun is a tool - nothing more and nothing less. So is the author of this tripe.
if you commit a felony, you have to prepare to get shot and killed. That is one of the risks you take along with jail time to reap their rewards.
My point was about John White
It was laws passed by people like this stupid cow
that denined him the right of self defence and got him sent to jail
***I’m not defending the two men who robbed the neighbor’s home of about $2,000 in jewelry and cash. But was this worth their lives? ***
If you are a burglar will you put YOUR life on the line to steal $2,000 in jewelry and cash?
Is stealing another man’s livelyhood which he has honestly worked for is worth giving your life for?
How about a barf alert on this racist garbage.
Here’s a good question for congressman Billy Bob or other lawyers on FR. Could someone like White sue for a new trial? His only “crime” is something the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional. I would think anyone like John White or Hale DeMar from Wilmette could have their convictions overturned.
That would be WONDERFUL!
I would like to see them go free.
Y A W N
It’s like I tell my kids when they get in trouble...”What could you have done to avoid this?...Just follow the rules.” Same thing goes here:
-First, don’t flaunt our immigration laws and be here in the country illegally.
-Second, don’t break, enter, and steal...especially in Texas. That behavior is often self-critiquing down South...as these two quickly found out.
Yes, it was worth their lives. The lives of two home-invading thieves are worth far less that $2000 in my opinion.
.....I wouldn’t shoot someone running away....
I would........
Right in the “Buttocks” (a la Forest Gump).
The dispatcher does not give "orders" to the general population.
Was not self defense was simple vermin eradication.
Need more of it!
Texas ‘Self Defense’ Shooting - Was It Worth Two Lives?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
YUP, it was.
I wanted to agree with that regarding White. However, there are differences, some of which are meaningless to me, others more meaningful.
In the meaningless category but probably causing his conviction, the gun White shot the boy with he owned illegally. And they don’t have a castle doctrine law in New York.
In the more meaningful category, at the time Daniel was shot by White, he had not yet committed any crime. He had walked onto someone’s property, but the property was not posted “no trespassing”. He had made a ruckus in the yard, but there was no indication that ruckus itself broke any laws. He had not broken into anybody’s house.
Still, he may have threatened to harm the man’s son, and a man should have the right to defend his son — but that particular charge was one of those in dispute, and given that White’s gun was illegal for him, that may have made his side of the story less believable.
Congressman Billybob
What I mean is every I hope kid read about what happened to the two thieves.
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