Candle light vigil for....nope, sorry, thanks for playing.

In any business decision there is risk. If someone makes the business decision to break into someone's home they are accepting the risk of meeting an owner who is armed and willing to defend their life and property.

WTF? A violent thief who LIES? No fucking way. Well this is a first!

Good point. Robbery is how these people wet their beak. Not having everybody roll over and take a beating and give you all their stuff is an occupational hazard. It's nothing personal, just business.

And did you know that venomous snake handlers in crazy Southern churches get bit by venomous snakes a lot?
It could be a coincidence.

The proper way to catch a burglar is to put them in a fucking chokehold until the police arrive.

And presumably acquitting a violent criminal of cold blooded murder is your solution to this problem.

Murder is generally premeditated. That aside, everybody deserves a second chance. Maybe the 80 year old can turn his life around. Looks like the criminals had a few chances, but kept committing crimes. Would you feel better if he shot her in the front, possibly after getting beaten even more?
Not a perfect solution no doubt, but if this happened hundreds of times a day (robbers getting smoked)
some criminals would get the hint. If not, we have X amount less violent career criminals.
We have several shootings a week in an area of 100,000 people. Sadly not too many are citizens shooting home invaders, most are criminal-on-criminal. Most of these are not fatal.

You keep using the word "criminal" in a selective, perjorative sense to describe people who you don't like while omitting it for the vigilante's who commit more serious crimes that you happen to condone. I think you should be more consistent. Once you shoot a fleeing criminal in the back, that is criminal-on-criminal, not some sort of concerned citizens action program.

Wow. Okay let me try to explain this more clearly. Up until the second he pulled the trigger the 80 year old was not a criminal. He doesn't break into houses and rob and beat people REPEATEDLY with no respect for the law or humanity in general. If you're poor and starving, rob a grocery store when nobody is there.
That 80 year old was not a threat to anybody in his neighborhood except two violent career criminals, unless he had a prior criminal record, but there's no mention of that.
So most of us would rather have an 80 old with a gun in the neighborhood versus scum who rob and beat people.
That 80 year old is safe IF YOU DON'T ROB AND BEAT HIM ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION.
He is not obviously safe to be around if you rob and beat him. Unless you don't plan on robbing and beating 80 year olds you have nothing to worry about. I'm sure you can wrap your mind around this.

And that's the moment he became one. So Rick is correct, that he should now be referred to as a criminal.

No, because this entire mess could have been prevented had the criminals not broken into this man's home. The only people at fault here were the robbers. In this case they chose poorly.

But that's okay if we all get robbed and beaten everyday. It's a small price to pay if one more robber lives to rob again. Every human life is special - from Hitler to Mother Theresa. And nobody should have a better life than anyone else. We should all open our doors and leave our keys in our cars, then nobody will have to steal. They can just take all our stuff and fuck our family members. All crime would stop because everything would belong to everybody. Has any society ever tried this? It sounds crazy but it just might work.

I understand perfectly, and I don't care. He isn't Judge Dredd. Vigilante murder is a more serious crime than breaking and entering, and when you condone it you are taking a stand in favour of criminality, not against it, so you can cut that pretense out.

WTF? It's not just breaking and entering - it's physical battery and attempted robbery. And this couple had done this before! Of course they can't be tried for prior crimes, because it's not what you know, it's what you can prove.

So you would in effect condone robbing beating the elderly (thus enabling them) versus the elderly killing one of them? What if that was your 80 year old father or grandfather? What if that was YOU someday? Maybe
this old man got sick and tired of being a victim after all the years he put in on this planet as a mild mannered citizen. In many states it would be difficult to find a jury who don't already have their minds made up to aquit. They might find him guilty IF (big if) he will get a minimum sentence. But since they have no control over
the sentencing, they will not risk it, so they will aquit. Just my prediction.

BTW the old guy NEVER should have said shit! Not one fucking word. His own words are definitely going to be used against him in a court of law. Let the system figure out what happened - they are the ones who will try him. It's The State Of California versus old geezer, not public opinion versus old geezer.
But - if he was stupid enough to run his mouth, maybe he's senile too. Food for thought!

Yeah, that's it exactly.

The difference here is that I'm against criminality all of the time, you're the one picking and choosing. Stop presenting a false choice. Stop it now.

Some crimes are worse than others. In your world a known violent thief beating an elderly person is no worse than an elderly person killing a known violent thief. I tend to disagree - violent thieves are a bigger threat to me and mine, so
there is a huge difference in degree of criminality. That and the most important thing is this could have been prevented by not robbing and beating people. Bottom line is a thief's luck ran out, as it always does. And there's a good chance that the killer will walk. I think that's what upsets you - that the average juror doesn't think the way you do.
Sorry, the tide seems to be turning toward a "fuck recidivist shit-bags" attitude across our nation. I guess your best bet is to curl up in the fetal position and thank goodness you live on your side of the pond, where robbers are robbers and victims are nervous.

Or what, you'll send some goons over to kick my ass while you sit in your apartment? You fucking hypocrite.

Geez....criminals would love your house. No guns and no retaliation? You were the kid that had his lunch money stolen on a regular basis weren't you?

Well these days he couldn't fight back - that would make him a criminal here in American schools.
There's a "zero tolerance" for "fighting." You do not defend yourself - you drag your beaten ass through the proper channels
and the school handles it. This imprints the Liberal, pacifist, victim mindset at an early age.

It imprints letting authorities (police, etc) handle issues concerning violence as opposed to raising tons of little Batmans who love self-justice.

Notice also how he conflates multiple things he doesn't like. Liberal <> pacifist <> victimization fetish.

Ironically, he is very much guilty of the victim mind set throughout this thread.

The school setup now has less to do with pacifism and more to do with lawsuit happy parents. But I'll save that for another time.

As far as this case goes, yes he's gonna get some shit. If they're retreating already, then the threat is neutralized. Just like that case with the Stand Your Ground woman from last year firing off warning shots at her unarmed estranged husband where many here supported her arrest.

Perfect timing! I just came across this funny pic a few minutes ago and this thread comes up.
BTW how is a child defending his or her self equal vigilante justice? Do you not have mean kids who physically assault other kids just because they think they can in your country/city?

Funny?

I'm sure you meant to say "arousing".
Can you even still sit at a table when looking at that picture?

Is "gun boner" a term?

It might be! Maybe it's in a slang dictionary somewhere.

And now we're wheeling out the straw men. This was a guy who shot a woman in the back while she was fleeing, after pleading for her life. Representing it as self-defense is dishonest.

You appear unable to deal with reality so much as the fantasy world you inhabit.

BTW the male robber was just arrested as an accomplice to murder since he was involved with a crime that led to her death.
WTF? Well how could this be? Are there others who think that this couple brought this on themselves by breaking into a home with intent to rob and physically assaulting a senior citizen?
Apparently cooler heads prevailed. I think the shooter will get off with a fine for discharging a weapon within city limits.
This will be an interesting trial. There won't be huge media coverage because there's no racial factor involved, so it will soon be forgotten, but local news will still cover it I imagine.

"But he shot somebody in the back!"
Yes he did - a career criminal (sure to come at the trial) who just demonstrated a propensity to violence, and could have been attempting to retrieve a weapon, get more accomplices, etc. She lied about being pregnant so know knows what else was up her sleeve? The 80 year old couldn't read their minds. They picked the wrong home, and one person paid the ultimate price. Once the full laundry list of prior arrests/convictions is shown the jury will probably that the couple were indeed dangerous people. Factor in the fact that the shooter had been robbed before and there's almost no chance he'll do time. Maybe the surviving robber will pack up and move to your country where he can rob with impunity with no fear of getting shot and killed.

When somebody dies as a result of committing a crime, the person who commits it is culpable, whether or not he pulled the trigger. That's a well known concept.

The male accomplice is guilty of second degree murder, as is the 80 year old man.

So does that mean that if someone had been killed when Rick sent his goons on the attack that he would have been an accomplice to murder?