Looking for Controversy

Greetings from New York.  Skyscrapers and everything.
So I’m here with my fiancee.  Yesterday morning, we watched the news and heard something about a “controversial” shooting in Houston.  Here’s the 911 transcript of the shooting.
I just wanna know one thing–where’s the controversy?
First, it should be noted, for those unaware, that I’m from Houston.  Lived there from when I was 7 until I graduated from high school.  As a result, I’m very aware of the law as it relates to shooting people in the dark.  In Texas, deadly force is allowable if someone is threatening your property in the dark.  The law’s a bit wild-wild-West for some, but I get it.  I mean, it’s highly unlikely someone’s breaking into your house with only his fists as a contingency plan.  That’s not the time to give people the benefit of the doubt on not having a gun.
However, the rub in this case that makes things “controversial,” I suppose, is that the shooter is the neighbor of a man who had his house broken into.  The shooter wasn’t protecting his property but, instead, someone else’s.
To me, that would make things controversial if he were shooting into the house to stop the burglary.  Nope.  He shot these dudes while they were getting away.  Shotgun blasts, no less, all while on the line with a 911 dispatcher that was telling him, repeatedly, not to go outside with a gun.  Instead of taking heed, dude went out and said, “I’m going to kill them.”
Again, I ask you–where’s the controversy?
Texans like guns.  And they don’t just like having them.  They like shooting them and want you to know, at all times, that they’re quite comfortable with turning that gun on you and letting you know who really runs things.  That’s how they’re wired.
It’s disturbing, but that’s how it is.  And, again, I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with allowing deadly force when someone’s breaking into your house.  I went to high school with a dude that got killed breaking into someone’s house.  He jumped into a bedroom window and was greeted with a shotgun.  I felt bad for his family and found it tragic a young, promising life ended so soon.  However, I was fully aware that those are the breaks when you break into someone’s house, and I harbored no malice toward the shooter.
But this dude?  Put him under the jail.  Deadly force can be used in the name of self-defense.  This was not self-defense.  This was murder.
Controversy?  Please.

9 Comments

  • Posted November 20, 2007 1:27 pm 0Likes
    by Susan Repka

    He is actually claiming self-defense. His claim is that the two individuals came at him once he went outside.
    It will be interesting to see if he gets more than just a slap on the wrist.

  • Posted November 20, 2007 1:42 pm 0Likes
    by Iris

    I watched this on the news with my jaw on the floor. But then, I’m not from Texas (been there, though).
    Anyway, I think he hadn’t fired his gun in a while, and really really really wanted an excuse. Also, he got to play the hero by “saving” his neighbor’s property.
    Gun culture. I just don’t get it. And I live in Brooklyn, where we’re just as strapped as Texans.

  • Posted November 20, 2007 1:43 pm 0Likes
    by Iris

    Oh, by the way: don’t carry a hairbrush while you’re out here.

  • Posted November 21, 2007 2:55 am 0Likes
    by Internet Guy

    If you’re going to shoot someone its probably best not to announce beforehand on a recorded phone call that you’re going to kill them.

  • Posted November 21, 2007 12:54 pm 0Likes
    by Mark

    At some point in time the criminal has to realize that there is a consequence to his actions. More and more, people want to just trivalize the criminal action, as in this case, and focus on the horiffic act that the neighbor commited. I find what the neighbor did to be reprehensible, as he clearly seemed intent on doing more than making only a citizens arrest. Maybe we should make it a law and require “crazy old people with guns” to put signs in their lawns so that hard working criminals don’t become victims of their own actions.

  • Posted November 22, 2007 11:57 pm 0Likes
    by souldecirce

    Funny, Mark. But the cops were on the scene and the shooter was repeatedly warned not to go outside. If there were no cops and dude needed his cock-off of the year, I’d be willing to meet your sarcasm halfway.
    Unless you’re advocating that we all become vigilantes and do away with the police.
    ‘d Like to hear the details of that plan.

  • Posted November 23, 2007 9:45 pm 0Likes
    by Ashley

    I agree with Mark completely on this one. You know the saying..”You live a life of crime……….”

  • Posted November 23, 2007 10:09 pm 0Likes
    by Kirk

    Ashley, as your father has told you a thousand times over – don’t talk, it fucks up the mood.

  • Posted November 23, 2007 10:32 pm 0Likes
    by souldecirce

    Ashley, I don’t know that saying…care to finish it?
    Even if you want to resort to Old Testament laws, stealing a pillowcase of hundred dollar bills (strange, that) does not warrant two-in-the-back.
    Ridic.

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