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As a store clerk I wouldn't have shot the shoplifter. Simply because the personal legal hassle wouldn't be worth the loss - a loss to the store and not myself.

ON a side note, but somewhat related, and I suspect many people haven't thought of this: if you blast someone inside your home, you are burdened with the clean up costs which run as high as $600 an hour unless you are willing to do it yourself (there's a reason they charge that much). If they are already hightailing it out the door like Jessie Owens, why shoot?

Secondary to actual protection of myself and my loved ones are the financial losses and legal complications that can go with a shooting. I don't weigh the life of a criminal against those losses. I weigh the potential losses against the legality and purpose of my action. (To be clear, I do value human life - very much so - but I take care of myself and my own first).

LedJedi wrote: While on some level I do feel the absurdity of shooting someone over a 12 pack of beer or for the sake of argument, a stick of gum, it's the principle of the matter that becomes the defining line for me. It's that imaginary line as 72 said. That line will be different for almost everyone reading this thread. Some people will shoot over a stick of gum, some over a 12 pack, some not unless it's a car, or a piece of equipment used to provide for your family (welding rig) and yet others won't shoot unless it's a home invasion or car jacking and still others won't shoot unless their or another's life is directly threatened.

To moan about someone using deadly force to defend X amount of dollars in property is to imply that the law should be changed to not allow that which would deprive you and others of the choice of what is worth defending. That would be a mistake imo. We each should be able to choose for ourselves what amount of property is worth defending, or not to consider the monetary value of the property at all if we so choose. I believe that's probably why the law is written the way it currently is, so that we, as the defenders have the choice. To whine about the value of the property being defended is a slap in the face of that personal choice imo.

Philosophically I agree with you 100%. However, the point I was trying to make is that whatever your personal opinion is, the LAW actually does not specify any required threshold of monetary value for stolen property for it to justify protecting it with deadly force, and therefore we should not try and convict someone of a crime when in fact no crime was committed according to the law.

IF we want there to be some value threshold, then lobby to change the law, then you can convict store clerks for shooting beer thieves in the nighttime. At the present time, there is no such legal threshold. The threshold is a moral threshold, but fortunately for us all, individuals' morality in this case is not reflected in the law.

The slippery slope is when we attempt to apply some moral threshold like this in the law, by changing the law. But we are well on that slippery slope, but not in this case. So-called "hate crimes" is one example, where a moral standard is added onto the technicality of the law. Marriage is another example (although not criminal law). The libertarian in me says we need to strip all of these moral vagaries from the law, and in this specific case of the store clerk and the beer thief, the law is already void of moral vagary.

I wouldn't shoot the guy, but I wouldn't work at a convenience store either. Both of those are my choices. However for me to have the freedom to choose, just as LJ said, I have to allow for someone else to have a differing moral standard and make a different choice. That's the cost of freedom. We have to allow others to have the same freedom.

I think if we allow ourselves to go down this road of legislating the morality of self-defense using deadly force, we will begin the process of stripping ourselves of that right altogether. At some point a moral argument will be made that shooting someone over ANY property is not worth it, and then that depriving one person of their life is not a good trade to POTENTIALLY save another life, and then further that since we all have different moral standards then we cannot be trusted to make the RIGHT call and therefore we should be deprived of the means to apply our standard (that is, we should be deprived of our guns in the first place). Contact the Brady Center for more detail on these arguments, because if the "value of the item stolen" argument is valid, then so is every other argument of the Bradys, since they all are contingent on setting aside reason and responding only based on emotion.

LedJedi wrote:... moan ... whine ...

Nice little digs, there, amigo.

Texas is the only state where you can legally use deadly force for a simple property crime. The legislature giveth and the legislature taketh away. Enough incidents like this, and that is what will happen.

- Jim

mr.72 wrote:
I think if we allow ourselves to go down this road of legislating the morality of self-defense using deadly force, we will begin the process of stripping ourselves of that right altogether. At some point a moral argument will be made that shooting someone over ANY property is not worth it, and then that depriving one person of their life is not a good trade to POTENTIALLY save another life, and then further that since we all have different moral standards then we cannot be trusted to make the RIGHT call and therefore we should be deprived of the means to apply our standard (that is, we should be deprived of our guns in the first place). Contact the Brady Center for more detail on these arguments, because if the "value of the item stolen" argument is valid, then so is every other argument of the Bradys, since they all are contingent on setting aside reason and responding only based on emotion.

I think we're actually agreeing with eachother... we both seem to have adopted a confrontational tone though which is kind of funny. :) I agree with everything you said above 100%.

seamusTX wrote:

LedJedi wrote:... moan ... whine ...

Nice little digs, there, amigo.

Texas is the only state where you can legally use deadly force for a simple property crime. The legislature giveth and the legislature taketh away. Enough incidents like this, and that is what will happen.

- Jim

You caught that did ya?

Ya, i agree. that kinda thing starts happening on a regular basis and I think the law will change for the worse real quick. That would be a bad thing, imo. but it's just that... an opinion :)

LedJedi wrote: I think we're actually agreeing with eachother... we both seem to have adopted a confrontational tone though which is kind of funny. :) I agree with everything you said above 100%.

Oh, I definitely agree with you 100%, and I am not being confrontational at all

I think that the point you make is very important and valid. However, the law today should be what is used to prosecute the clerk, not an imaginary, maybe-it-could-be-the-law, law.

So there are two points: #1, the current law does not have a standard for value of an item, fleeing or not, etc. to suggest that, given the facts as reported by the news stories, that this was not a justified shooting; and #2, we do not want to long for such a change in the law, considering the slippery slope we would be on in terms of losing our freedoms.

Now there may very well be other facts not reported in this story that make a difference in whether this shooting was justified, such as surveillance video shows the guy was not actually stealing the beer but had paid for it or the shooter had some motive for shooting the perp besides the theft of the beer.

Probabally not in Austin, the San Francisco of Texas.

salty

Mr. 72 and LedJedi, you both make very valid compelling points. I have a hard time disagreeing with either of you.

But, libertarianism can also be a slippery slope. If we were to remove our "morals" from all law, then we'd have no law at all (think "Lord of the Flies"). The key is to write the law in a way that reflects the moral values of the majority. By defending the shooting of a thief over a pack of gum, you risk alienating the vast majority in this country who probably think that is the incorrect moral choice. How do we legislate that choice properly? Good question with an almost impossible-to-determine answer. The current status quo would seem to be the best solution society has found at this point in time - everyone makes that decision for themselves, and it is the THIEF, not the VICTIM, who is held accountable for forcing that victim to make that decision. I like this scenario, except for the potential end results - which is a human life ending over a pack of gum or a case of beer.

I don't know what is the solution. But I greatly appreciate the opportunity to read everyone's thoughts on the matter.

Mr. 72, the value of the property is not the legal issue in this case. The legal issue is whether the use of deadly force was immediately necessary to recover the property.

That said, probably grand jurors get a lecture from a judge when they are sworn in, telling them to leave their emotions and prejudices out of their deliberations. But there is no way to assure that they do that. If a majority of the grand jurors think it's morally reprehensible to kill someone over a case of beer (which the guy then threw away), he's getting indicted.

I think he's also going to be hit with an obstruction of justice charge. There is no question about that, and there's no defense to it.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:I think he's also going to be hit with an obstruction of justice charge. There is no question about that, and there's no defense to it.

I would like to see the grand jury indict on 37.09 (felony of the third degree, 2-10 years) and not murder. Like you say, if the facts are as reported, it should be a slam dunk prosecution.

More people have gone down for lying to investigators than for whatever crime they were suspected of. As Richard Nixon or somebody else said, "it's not the crime that gets you; it's the cover-up."

- Jim