“The incident highlights the potential for fatal mistakes when private citizens exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.”
No - the incident highlights the need for visitors to identify themselves and, if the door is not opened to them, to then GO AWAY.
Cops make mistakes all the time.
There is a local cop in a town near here who is on trial right now for blowing a lady’s head off as she sat in the drivers seat of her car. She wasn’t armed, she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she didn’t appear to pose any threat to the officer. He shot her several times with his service pistol in the head at close range. He made a mistake.
I understand that the officer had recently returned from duty overseas. There has been some discussion that PTSD may have had some influence. Still, he made a mistake.
If you choose to keep a firearm in your home, and I have lots and lots of them, you should be aware of your responsibility in the way those weapons are used and stored.
If you shoot someone on your property, you better have a really good, iron clad, reason for doing so. If you kill them, you will still be investigated for the shooting. All of your firearms will be confiscated, not just the one involved, until the inquest is over. The law will toss the rest of your house while they are at it, just to make sure. You will probably get most of your guns back, someday.
If you don’t kill the person you shot at, all of the above is still going to happen except now you are going to be sued to the extent that a cardboard box beside a dumpster somewhere will look pretty good in the near future.
If you shoot and kill what you were certain was a burglar and it turns out to be your drunk brother-in-law, you are going to jail. You must be able to ID your target BEFORE you use deadly force. Those aren’t just noble sounding words, it’s the law.
I don’t want to live next door to anyone who starts blazing away with a .357 Magnum. I own two of them currently and I will attest to the power of this cartridge. It has the velocity and energy to penetrate the outside walls of the shooter’s house as well as those of the neighbor’s.
I will be happy to do whatever I can to try to get this lady’s gun gun back for her under the condition that she trade it to me for a 20 gauge, single barreled shotgun and a lifetime supply of self defense shells which won’t take out the burglar, the cat, and the neighbor sitting in his kitchen.
That way, the next time a stupid cop tries to break in her door without announcing himself, he won’t walk away so lucky.