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July 01, 2008

People's homes still their castle

Ethel C. Fenig
Yesterday's refusal to indict Joe Horn who shot and killed two men who were burglarizing his neighbor's home has already been noted for the media response it provoked. But the decision itself reaffirmed a right akin to the Second Amendment.

The case gained notoriety because Horn did his deed while on the phone with a 911 operator who cautioned him not to shoot, police were on the way. 

"I've got a shotgun; you want me to stop him?" Horn asked the dispatcher.

"Nope. Don't do that," the dispatcher replied. "Ain't no property worth shooting somebody over, OK?"

Horn was clearly upset by the dispatcher's response.

"I'm not gonna let them get away with it," he said. "I can't take a chance getting killed over this, OK."

Despite the dispatcher's protects, Horn said, "I'm gonna shoot! I'm gonna shoot!"

The 911 dispatcher warned Horn to stay inside at least a dozen separate times, telling him, "An officer is coming out there. I don't want you to go outside that house."

Then Horn sounding angrier by the moment cited the new Texas law.

"OK, but I have a right to protect myself too, sir," he said. "And you understand that. And the laws have been changed in this country since September the first, and you know it and I know it."

The laws Horn referred to

centered on a Texas state law based on the old idea that "a man's home is his castle." The "castle law" gives Texans unprecedented legal authority to use deadly force in their homes, vehicles and workplaces. And no longer do they have an obligation to retreat, if possible, before they shoot.

So despite the dispatcher's warnings Horn went out, confronted the escaping burglars and shot them both to death.  All of this was caught on the 911 tape.

The deceased?  Two illegal immigrants with long rap sheets who died surrounded by their bulging bags of ill gotten gains. 

In  perfect liberal inverted reasoning one of the deceased burglar's fiancee whined

"This man took the law into his own hands," she said. "He shot two individuals in the back after having been told over and over to stay inside. It was his choice to go outside and his choice to take two lives."

Wrong!  The burglars took the law into their own hands after being told over and over again to stay away from other people's property.  It was their choice to go inside someone's else's home and their choice to take a chance on their two lives. 

From now on, in Texas at least, being a criminal is now a lot more hazardous to one's health.

Posted at 01:22 PM | Email | |

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