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03Lightningrocks wrote:... We have a video of the guy dropping a tire iron that he had his hands all over. We have video of every spot he touched with no gloves on the truck he destroyed to move it out of the way of the trailer. My cost... after insurance... about 3 grand. Yep....Ihave had just about enough! The cops are worthless, by the way. It is up to the citizens to stop this rampant crime. Even with all the evidence the Plano police completely bungled the whole case. The attitude from them seems to be, "let insurance handle it". Maybe they would be willing to cover what my insurance didn't.

... the guy spent two hours stealing my trailer and machine. He didn't seem to have a worry in the world. These guys are confident they are not going to get caught and even when they do, they get set free so the jail can house some dude for smoking pot. Pure crappola in my humble opinion. We need to put the fear of god in these crooks. They sure aren't worried about the cops.

duns wrote:

baldeagle wrote:Where do we find the moral code that says BGs should be dealt with using as little force as possible?

In oneself.

LarryH wrote:

duns wrote:

tacticool wrote:

duns wrote:It's been a long time since stealing was a capital offense.

Sexual assault isn't a capital offense but I have no problems with anyone shooting a rapist to prevent the crime.

Your point is thought-provoking. My take on it is this. A person committing a sexual assault needs to be stopped as does a person committing a physical assault but from a moral and legal point of view the level of force should not be excessive so shooting will not always be necessary, probably rarely necessary. Theft is different to physical attack on a person in that it is often a reasonable option just to be a good witness and hope the person can be arrested later. In other words, I don't see use of lethal force as an imperative when someone is making off with property (even if the letter of the law allows it). If you saw a man snatch a lady's handbag and come running in your direction, would you shoot him down? I wouldn't. I might use force (if I felt I was capable of overwhelming him) but I would not use lethal force.

The case in question was the theft of an A/C condenser, which apparently was already in the back of the thieves' truck. Unless the thieves were attacking me, I would not have shot them. I would have told them to unload the truck. If they jumped in to drive off, I would have used my shotgun against the truck to try to deflate a tire or put some nice identifying marks on the bodywork.

Firing a shotgun at the truck is still considered use of lethal force, regardless of the fact that you're trying to hit the truck and not the people inside.