NAACP and community members gather to call for an investigation into the bond

NAACP and community members gather to call for an investigation into the bond given to Merritt Landry Wednesday, July 31, 2013 in New Orleans.

We don’t shoot people for breaking curfew.

And in fact, curfew is a very anti-conservative concept. Telling americans what times they are allowed to move freely about, and what times they cannot. Usurping a parent’s authority to decide what their child can do.

I am a fan of punishing people for committing crimes, not punishing people to keep them from getting the opportunity to commit crimes.

It is that “preventative” mindset that drives the anti-gun crowd.

If a shooting is justified, it is because the defendant was truly threatened with the loss of life or severe harm. Not because some kid was “violating curfew”.

Frankly, I think a man’s home is his castle, but I still don’t think we should kill people for trespassing.

Frankly, I think a man’s home is his castle, but I still don’t think we should kill people for trespassing.

If they scale your fence at 2 AM and are wandering around your back yard, they're not just "violating curfew" or "trespassing."

New Orleans has had some horrific crimes since Katrina. Innocent people murdered for merely being in their own homes. I don't know how you can tell at 2 AM in the dark that somebody wandering around your back yard is just "violating curfew" or "trespassing." All those murders of innocent people by home invaders and "professional thieves" would be heavy on my mind.

First of all, wandering around your backyard is exactly “trespassing”.

Breaking and Entering is rarely applicable to an outside area, even if that area has some sort of fence. You might be able to charge with breaking and entering if the outside area was a courtyard surrounded by building, but not a backyard.

Of course, you have no idea why someone is in your backyard at 2am. They could well mean to murder you. But you also have no idea why someone is walking up behind you in a dark alley at night at 2am, they could also be wanting to murder you. The probabilities change, but there is always a chance someone who you meet wants to murder you. You cannot kill people in “self-defense” simply because there is some possibility that they might have been wanting to kill you.

The question is, what level of “probability” of physical harm is enough to justify murdering another human being. Legally, I don’t know what that percent is, but I’m betting it is well over 50%. And I’m betting that if you compared the number of times people are caught in a back yard, and the times people are murdered, you would find that the number of physical assaults, much less murders, is an extremely small percentage of the number of trespassers, even at 2am.

In fact, I would argue that we have no evidence, even after the fact, that this homeowner was ever in physical danger from the 14-year-old in the back yard. This is not at all like Zimmerman, where there was a 100% probability of physical assault, since it had already happened.

As a pro-life person, I additionally oppose killing people when it is not absolutely necessary. That is not the legal definition, just my own philosophy. Life is sacred, and should be treasured even if the other person doesn’t treat their own life that way. I simply do not think we should encourage in any way people using deadly force on trespassers when there is no evidence of danger.

Note that I am not now condemning the man, or saying the shooting was wrong. I do NOT have knowledge of whether there was a reasonable perception of harm. He may have thought the boy was breaking in, and that the boy was going for a weapon. My point in this thread is limited to saying that I don’t think we should allow or encourage homeowners to shoot people for being on their property.

Note that in our country, we do have a history of allowing people to be shot if they climb a fence onto property. I’m not saying I abhor that history. I’m saying I wish we wouldn’t do that today.

And I know that a liberal in DC once shot a boy this age who was trespassing in his back yard without a fence, and even though owning a gun was illegal, and the kid was not armed, the reporter Carl Rowan was not arrested or charged in the shooting. Of course, he did not harm the boy in his back yard, much less kill him.

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