Somehow I knew Lisa Falkenberg wasn't going to like much the fact that the Harris County grand jury no-billed Pasadena resident Joe Horn for shooting two burglars who broke into his neighbor's unoccupied home last October....
These are good times for gun owners.
Between the U.S. Supreme Court striking the D.C. gun ban and the clearing of Pasadena vigilante Joe Horn, I'm halfway expecting Gov. Rick Perry to issue an executive order this afternoon granting the long-held wish of open-carry petitioners to grant their right to sport handguns in hip holsters.
I read that and seriously got so caught up in what she said about the open-carry executive order that I thought she actually wrote that Perry WAS going to sign that order, and thought, "Oh, HELL yeah!" But then I went back and read it again and got what she was actually saying. Huh. She was saying that she was halfway EXPECTING Perry to sign that order. And with her typical air of condescension, no less. Oh, and she's saying that like it's a BAD thing...
...deadly force is justified if the shooter "reasonably believes" it's immediately necessary to stop the burglars from escaping with the stolen property. It's also justified if the shooter "reasonably believes" that "the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means."
Now, Texas law isn't known for its progressive trend-setting. Ours is the same state that had to be told recently by the nation's highest court that we can't wait until indictment to give poor people attorneys to defend themselves. But this statute appears to be particularly antiquated.
George Dix, a law professor at the University of Texas, located its predecessor in criminal code from the mid-1850s. The statute, very similar to the modern one, was found in the "Chapter of Justifiable Homicide," which also included an article explaining the circumstances under which it's justified to kill a slave.
Oh, nice work, Lisa. I'm sure your leftist professors are incredibly proud of you this morning, finding a way to link Joe Horn helping his neighbor out with killing slaves. Works really well with the "RACIST!" angle that's being covered by the professional race-baiters and grievance-mongers at LULAC. Really, though, what's that provision have to do with the one Joe Horn was no-billed under?
...(Horn) seemed to realize early on that needlessly shooting two men — regardless of their criminal behavior and illegal immigrant status, of which Horn was unaware at the time — would weigh heavily on him.
If I didn't know better, I'd say Lisa, who was mercilessly flogging Horn in her assigned space six months ago, is almost trying to sound like she feels sorry for him now. But I'm guessing that what she's really trying to do is make it sound like deep down he knew he shouldn't have shot those bastards. The fact is, though, that pretty much everyone who is forced to pull the trigger in self-defense feels pangs of regret for that decision and never really gets over it 100 percent. I'm betting Horn knew this. Still, he did what he thought to be the right thing. And yeah, I'd still be honored to have him or someone like him for my next door neighbor.
This case has never been about gun rights, or self-defense.
Perhaps not, but it is very closely related. Part of the rationale behind the whole concept of carrying a weapon is that those who carry them can not only protect and defend themselves from harm -- or deprivation of property -- but that they can do the same for others as well, thus producing a net benefit for society. It's that protective instinct that brings forth the warriors, the sheepdogs, if you will -- and if it were suppressed as I'm guessing people like Lisa Falkenberg think it should be, the consequences would be dire, not just for our society, but for Western civilization. We are our own best protectors -- and those for our neighbors as well, quite literally.
The little old man from Pasadena gunned down two men like dogs. For a bag of loot.Wow. Just...wow. I am absolutely flabbergasted here. I guess she thinks Joe Horn should have just let those two thugs make off with his neighbor's stuff, stuff that man busted his ass for, stuff that it took that man no telling how long to get. I guess this is just an offshoot of that pernicious "just give them what they want" outlook, but still it's no less infuriating. I bet you that if it was HER stuff it wouldn't have been just "a bag of loot." If there is any justice in the world, sooner or later people who talk shit like this are going to come home one day and find their houses ransacked and looted, and everything they've worked for, GONE. And they will bloody well fucking deserve it.
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