Houston made the TX news again (high crime, house, buy)

[elnina]

Originally Posted by txdemo

... shooting someone that's running away with your flat screen is just crazy.

Shooting someone who is running away with a handful of change, or a plant from your porch is crazy, but shooting someone who is running away with a box of your jewelry or rare coins does not sounds so crazy to me...
I guess everyone has to make their own judgments on these things and be prepared to live with the moral consequences.

[txdemo]

Originally Posted by elnina

Shooting someone who is running away with a handful of change, or a plant from your porch is crazy, but shooting someone who is running away with a box of your jewelry or rare coins does not sounds so crazy to me...
I guess everyone has to make their own judgments on these things and be prepared to live with the moral consequences.

Dang, I had a great plan to smash and grab your rare coins but now I think I'll just settle for that bougainvillea from your porch.

[MobileDave]

I don't think anyone in this world should be shot and killed for stealing. No too long ago a thief stole my vehicle and I could have sworn up and down that if I was outside I would have lit his coward butt up with bullets. Would I have done it? No. Not one possession of mine no matter how great the cost is worth someones life.

If a person breaks into my home and I meet them with a pistol and can see their hands are clear of anything deadly I will give them a chance to surrender. If at ANY moment I cant see their hands and I feel my life is in danger I will shoot them on the spot. At night this is intensified of course because it is darker.

I have strict rules because I almost killed someone when I was in college. I had just rented an apartment and had heard after I moved in that the guy that lived there before me was a black guy and some type of drug dealer or something. About a couple of weeks into my stay a black man started banging on my door calling for this guy and started saying I had seconds to open the door or he was going to kick it in. I had my gun in my hand and kept looking out the peephole to see if this person's hands were free. When I found out they were was right when the guy backed all the way up and started to position himself to kick down my door and started to charge. In a split second I decided to open the door and ask him what was going on and tell him that guy no longer lived there. I had the gun behind the door and once he saw that I was white and wasn't the guy and apologized and left. If I would have let the guy kick in my door or tried calling the police with the seconds I had to react this guy would have been dead. The entire encounter lasted about 15 seconds.

One could probably ask why I didn't immediately open the door and confront him and I would say because I didn't know until the last second if this guy had anything in his hands and if I opened the door whether a gun battle would ensue. You really don't know what you will do until it happens.

[ethanw]

Absolutely, spot on mate. I won't kill anyone if he stole my $10, my car or my wife jewelry. Nothing material in this world can justify killing someone for it. Yes is wrong to steal but killing someone over that is even more wrong and I don't care what the law say. I rather live without the that stuff was stolen (which most likely is covered by insurance) than having this guy on my conscience

But yes when it comes to my personal and family safety I won't think twice about it. Is just a question how quick and acurarately we react. Some training in this matter really helps if not sure how and when to react in defense.

I have a similar story with a roadrage lunatic. He actually run his truck into me and pushed me off the road. He got off his car trying to break my window even after I show him my 9mm Beretta. He was clearly disturbed and willing to loose his life, but I decided to call the cops and flee the scene in safety as the cops advised me. The guy did not follow. I could very easily put a bullet in his head, no questions asked. If the guy was going to break the window and touch me, that would've been the end of his life.

Originally Posted by MobileDave

I don't think anyone in this world should be shot and killed for stealing. No too long ago a thief stole my vehicle and I could have sworn up and down that if I was outside I would have lit his coward butt up with bullets. Would I have done it? No. Not one possession of mine no matter how great the cost is worth someones life.

If a person breaks into my home and I meet them with a pistol and can see their hands are clear of anything deadly I will give them a chance to surrender. If at ANY moment I cant see their hands and I feel my life is in danger I will shoot them on the spot. At night this is intensified of course because it is darker.

I have strict rules because I almost killed someone when I was in college. I had just rented an apartment and had heard after I moved in that the guy that lived there before me was a black guy and some type of drug dealer or something. About a couple of weeks into my stay a black man started banging on my door calling for this guy and started saying I had seconds to open the door or he was going to kick it in. I had my gun in my hand and kept looking out the peephole to see if this person's hands were free. When I found out they were was right when the guy backed all the way up and started to position himself to kick down my door and started to charge. In a split second I decided to open the door and ask him what was going on and tell him that guy no longer lived there. I had the gun behind the door and once he saw that I was white and wasn't the guy and apologized and left. If I would have let the guy kick in my door or tried calling the police with the seconds I had to react this guy would have been dead. The entire encounter lasted about 15 seconds.

One could probably ask why I didn't immediately open the door and confront him and I would say because I didn't know until the last second if this guy had anything in his hands and if I opened the door whether a gun battle would ensue. You really don't know what you will do until it happens.

[piyf]

Cut their hands off so they can't steal. But if they break into my house I'll kill them without stealing anything. So I guess I'm worse than killing someone over 10 bucks.

[savanite]

Originally Posted by crbcrbrgv

Desperate times call for desperate measures. People will do things they wouldn't normally out of desperation.

To me, what's most interesting is the fact that this state is run by evangelicals yet we have laws on the books that enable you to kill a kid over 10 bucks.

We have kids that will kill YOU over 10 bucks.

Maybe the law means there will be fewer and fewer of them.

Thank you, Charles Darwin!

[savanite]

They say that capital punishment doesn't deter crime.

I know.

That pesky kid keeps coming back from the dead and robbing me.

[TVC15]

Isn't the human race just wonderful!

[elnina]

I live by myself. If someone kick the door to my house - day or night, and I am inside, he will die or get severely wounded. I am not going to engage in a conversation.
If they know the risk and that we are armed, maybe the crime will cease a bit.

[Zhang Fei]

The Castle Doctrine is mainly a boon for law-abiding people who live in poor areas. On the one hand, it deters gangsters from threatening violence. On the other, it gives someone who kills another person in the course of being attacked a shield from civil liability. As the Chron article notes, the majority of the cases (under 50 a year) in Houston are minority-on-minority. For the most part, I would imagine these are people who live in crime-ridden areas and don't have any choice in the matter because of their economic circumstances. Given the small size of Houston's police force relative to other PD's in large cities and the area it needs to cover, I'd say Stand-Your-Ground is a reasonable response to high crime rates combined with their inability to be everywhere at once.

The OP's response is that of the typical wealthy suburbanite. He's got so much put away that his possessions mean nothing to him. He can always buy more. For a law-abiding person in a poor area, losing an item to theft may mean going without for a long time. In addition, the OP probably lives in an area where the odds of having things stolen are remote. And if they became any less remote, he'd move somewhere else more upscale and be able to afford to. Someone from a poor area can't afford to move, and the odds of getting ripped off again are probably pretty high, given where he lives.