Quote Originally Posted by Hax View Post
Philippus and Meneldil are right. If you kill a burglar, you will have to face the consequences (legal, moral and physical)
But you have to have some discernment.

If a guy cuts through my lawn to save time and I plug him in the back, obviously there are a good many consequences I should face. If a guy enters my garage and I rush in there and plug him in the back, there should be some consequences I should potentially face.

However, the man in question went into his garage to investigate, not to mutilate the guy. And when you have a legitimate reason to investigate (i.e. you really think someone's in your house), you should bring along some means of protection if you have any brains at all.

So he brought what was handy, I suppose. In any case, the next point it that he confronted the criminal, but he was CERTAINLY passive as far as the actual homicide went.

The burglar jumped him, right? Therefore, the only thing you can blame the homeowner for is that he went into his own garage.

Basically, you're saying, "Well, if the guy hadn't gone into the garage, the burglar wouldn't have died."

Revoltingly faulty logic. That's like T-boning someone in a busy intersection and blaming it on them.

"I wouldn't have hit his car if he hadn't been driving today!!!"

Come on. How far will you take this? You remind me of an actual case where a guy broke into someone's house while they were on vacation. He came in through the house and went into the garage, not knowing that their garage door was a security door (unlocked on the inside, locked on the outside). So he got himself stuck in the garage, and had nothing but pop to live on until they found him when they came home.

He sued them on account he was stuck in their garage. I'm serious; this happened. You're applying very similar "logic" to this case.

Furthermore, it's easy for you to scream that he should have called the police, thanks to the glorious benefit of hindsight.

But do you call the cops every time you hear a noise in your garage? Obviously the guy had more than general concern that somebody was in his garage, but it's not as if he could have divined that the burglar would charge him while he was holding a great big sword.

He was simply going into his garage to check. I know I've done that; I know a number of people who have done that with a firearm. One acquaintance of mine checked out his garage with a replica blackpowder revolver, because he figured the noise and smoke would scare the living daylights out of any criminal if he fired a warning shot.

Anyways, people feel the need to check out a suspicious noise all the time, and more often than not they bring something with them, just in case. Well, this time it so happened that someone really was in there.