Change The State Slogan

[Txnrog]

Question, do you have to identify that the assailant is armed before you can defend? Or is breaking & entering enough.

[Eagles1181]

If he is breaking into you house you are allowed to assume he intends to do harm.

Eagle

[Mike D]

Its such a fine line on that... If a crook knows that you have weapons in your house, obviously theyll go after other easier targets. But at some point, don't the bad guys say hey, why dont we just try to steal his gun safe while he is out of town... or when his wife is there...

i dont know.. I'm committed to protecting my family and property, but these idiots out there today really scare me...

What is a fine line? I don't understand what you are talking about.

Question, do you have to identify that the assailant is armed before you can defend? Or is breaking & entering enough.

If someone kicks in your front door, you can be he ain't there for tea and cookies. At my house there will be lead coming that way in a big hurry.

[aironeout]

"The latest incidents followed a year in which San Antonio's justified homicides more than doubled from seven in 2007 to 17 in 2008."

Hello, if the crooks quit braking in they might not be getting shot dead - "justifiably" .

I wonder what the actual B&E numbers did over this same time frame. I'll bet that if these "justified homicides" continue to rise that the B&E numbers will go down.

Score another one for the good dudes club.

>E

[Humper]

Good shooting by the homeowner... To hit both criminals under stress is easier said than done.

[mbfranklin]

I am with uncle Ted. If we have to have offenders, dead ones are the perfect kind!

[Loneaggie]

A LEO here could probably be more specific, but IMHO if they are breaking in the door to come into your house.... their intent is not in question. This is Texas, at that point you shoot them. I believe there used to be language about imminent threat of life and making a reasonable effort to escape, but to my understanding that language has been removed. If they come after you in your home, car, or place of work you can introduce them to a type of 40 they may not want to swallow.

A few months ago I had a police officer field a similar question at our neighborhood association meeting. A man who was new to the state asked what his rights were if someone broke in the door with him home. The officer's response "They're easier to arrest when they're dead sir"

[Ouch]

Homicide (Latin homicidium, homo human being + caedere to cut, kill) refers to the act of killing another human being.

justifiable killing another human is all the term means. Its the media that makes it seem 'bad'.

Agreed. My point is people don't typically analyze the Latin root of a word as they're reading an article. They see "homicide" and automatically think crime. True, that's not the actual definition, but it's what the public associates with the word. What the man did is certainly not a crime, but the term "justifiable homicide" denotes that there is something inherently wrong with what he's done.

You and I are on the same page here, in that the media twists it to their liking.

[Bweger]

For a criminal to assume that my wife won't shoot a hole through him one could throw a honda through would be a grave mistake on his part.

Be a bad thing for a criminal to break in when my wife is there. She scored higher than half the class on the CHL pistol range and there is a loaded 12 gauge by the bed that she is very handy with.

[*DW*]

Short tracking job.