OK, I'm-a be blunt here:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

But if the guy who shoots people dead admits he shot them too many times and more than he needed to and wanted them dead, this is cold-blooded murder. Not self-defense. Defense is not shooting people in the head and multiple times in the chest. If they were in fact breaking and entering, shooting them that many times still makes the killings worse than the original crime. Presumably if someone's shot dead once they don't need to be shot more than that. Once *might* be defense in the right situation. This? Nothing but a scumbag defending the cold-blooded murder of two people and expecting to worm out of it:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/02/minnesota-killings-spark-debate-over-self-defense-laws.html

I do think people have a right to defend themselves from people breaking and entering. I think that this has nothing whatsoever to do with that right and that using this principle to justify these shootings is like saying the Twinkies made you murder someone.

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I read about this a while back. On the one hand, he's a 65 year old living alone who had been victimized by previous burglaries so I can understand his willingness to shoot. But the execution-style way he finished off the second perpetrator went too far.

And he failed to call police, obviously he wasn't in a rational state of mind.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that he was actually hoping to *kill* the perpetrators when he had no evidence these people were armed. The problem is that intent to kill like that should not be overdone, as otherwise it risks the problem that's happening here, namely the question of whether or not this would simply be a pretext for legal murders.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

There are people (one in my extended family) who sincerely hope that someone breaks into their home, so that they can legally kill them. If an intruder is armed, then I can see logic behind shooting them multiple times; otherwise, it's murder.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If an intruder is armed, then I can see logic behind shooting them multiple times; otherwise, it's murder.

^Yep.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The problem with this attitude is that "Armed" is relative.

Murders committed with personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) out number those commited with shotguns or rifles.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

Blunt trauma will kill you just as dead as a bullet.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

i tend to agree, if a threat is still present. In other words, shoot to end the threat, once that threat is neutralized stop shooting.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

If an intruder is armed, then I can see logic behind shooting them multiple times; otherwise, it's murder.

consider: Perp outweighs you by 100 lbs, punching you effectively and repeatedly, your eyes are swelling shut, you cannot think straight between blows, you shoot, it goes through the perps shoulder, he hits your head, you pull the trigger again, unsure if you connected, you pull trigger again, and both went through his neck.

So, one unarmed corpse, three shots. Still murder?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Motive is the key factor. At what point did he go from wanting to defend himself to wanting to kill people? If they can establish that the latter occurred, he's a murderer.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

That's not necessarily the case. Self-defense is a proportionate affirmative defense by its very nature. If I think you're about to slap me, I have no right to strangle you to death. The concern here is that the guy went vastly beyond all the dictates of proportionality by killing one of the kids after effectively disabling them.

I for one hate laws like this that give people the false idea that anything goes so long as they can plausibly claim they were threatened. Stand your ground, make my day, castle doctrine, whatever you want to call it, it's empowering people to use deadly force where it may not be necessary, and the first goal of the law should be to reduce the use of force to those instances where it is necessary.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes, the ole "Mozambique drill" is generally frowned upon in polite societies. But as the article states there's really no "bright line" of deliniation.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

There is no bright line, as there probably shouldn't be. Instead, they're charging him with 2nd degree murder. He will get a chance to explain why shooting an unarmed 17 year old boy in the face, after he's been shot once, fallen down the stairs, and is laying on the ground, along with the "finishing shot" that he inflicted by putting his gun under the chin of an 18 year old girl, was a reasonable use of force. Personally, I expect folks who try to explain such things to spend the rest of their lives in prison. This guy may have started off defending his home, which he has every right to do, but he ended up executing two teenagers... for burglary.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

This doesn't sound like a Mozambique drill. At least not with the 2nd one he killed. If the article is accurate, then I have to conclude it was likely murder. I have my doubts as to the accuracy of the article, though.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

If you kill 2 people under any circumstances, and have a day headstart to come up with an alibi - it should be better than this. It seems like he's lying, but to his disadvantage - which makes no sense.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well I'm a bit skeptical, as I should be with primary sources. Why would this dude admit all that? Was he honestly not worried at all about the ramifications? Did he think there would be no ramifications?

And, of course, can anything he said even be believed? Have the forsenics come in on what has happened to confirm his side of the story? Could it actually have been worse, or more in his favor?

After the Trayvon Martin thing, I'm just gonna rest on my laurels until after this debacle is settled.

Wasn't there also a shooting where some dude shot up a couple kids like 9 times recently?

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

The "original crime" is breaking into an old man's house with the intention of robbing him, possibly beating or even killing him. On the other hand, we have a man inside his own house defending himself and his property. It is interesting to see where people's sympathies lie.
According to the article, Minnesota statute 609.065 allows “the intentional taking of the life of another”. So wanting them dead in these circumstances isn't a crime. Anyway, there is an inherent contradiction in declaring that shooting someone is dandy, as long as you don't want to, you know, hurt the person you are shooting. In addition, the guy was in his place of abode, apparently trying to prevent burglary and possibly assault, both felonies. The law seems to be on his side.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There's defending yourself and there's shooting someone in the chest multiple times. And without Killer CDs of death, even. Presumably, too, one shot to the chest is all it takes to kill someone.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Keep reading the statute. You can only intentionally take their life "when necessary in resisting or preventing an offense which the actor reasonably believes exposes the actor or another to great bodily harm or death, or preventing the commission of a felony in the actor's place of abode." By the time he'd shot them each once, they were not going to be committing any felonies in his home, and he lost the right to continue using deadly force. But he executed them, firing more times than he needed to - by his own admission.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Are you glossing over the part where he kills the people after they're disabled? I'm pretty lenient about Castle Doctrine, but the dude straight-up admitted to murder. Regardless of the legal circumstances, this guy is fucked up in the head.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

He approached her, got right up close enough to put the gun under her chin and pull the trigger. In no way can that be self defense.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

I'm a liberal and an old lady but if someone comes at me with a weapon and I have a gun, I'm going to shoot till they stop moving.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The people he shot were not armed.

[404.livejournal.com]

How do you know he actually knew he hit them in the chest to begin with before shooting again?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

“Smith acknowledged this made him upset,” according to the complaint. “Smith told (the investigator) ‘If you’re trying to shoot somebody and they laugh at you, you go again.’” So he reached for the .22 caliber revolver strapped to his chest, aimed it at the girl, and shot her in the chest “several times,” with “more shots than I needed to,” according to what he told police.

Then, as Kifer lay gasping for air, Smith put his handgun under her chin and shot her—his words—“under the chin up into the cranium… a good clean finishing shot” to end her suffering.

From the article. I'd say he knew he got her in the chest when he put his gun under her chin, wouldn't you?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

May be willing to kill over Twinkees, after all they do have an expiration date.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

I feel sorry for that man... No more twinkees....

[elephantus45.livejournal.com]

I think this guy crossed the line- he shot the girl under the chin, into her head as a kill shot, and he put the body (s?) on a freaking tarp.

If I had been a victim of previous breaking and entering, robbery, theft, whatever, and two people broke into my house and came down the stairs at me I would defend myself. They are breaking into my house with the intent to do harm- myself, my children, my property it doesn't matter what it is. Don't break into someone's house if you don't want to get shot.

[elephantus45.livejournal.com]

Also, I don't think you can put a limit on how many shots are appropriate. Someone untrained in shooting to kill while people are coming at you might not have great aim (being scared, recoil, whatever)


That widowed teen girl with a baby who shot a "robber" (some guy broke into her trailer, she was alone with her 3 month old baby) no one made a big deal about how many shots she fired.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

With a good lawyer Bubba could do some time stewed in brain damaging pharmaceuticals before being released back into the general population. By the sound of the man's mental abilities portrayed in the article, the drugs would not make much of a dent in his mental capacities.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

And with a great lawyer, he can probably get a book deal and a rifle that doesn't jam after 3 shots.