TexasCHLforum.com

Excaliber wrote:There are no hard and fast answers here.

The simplest cases are holding a compliant suspect in place (definitely not bringing him closer to home and family), and allowing someone who is determined to flee to do so if he doesn't present a deadly threat during his actions. I'm not a proponent of using deadly force to recover property, even if that course of action is authorized by law.

One has to consider that a BG who may still be armed and / or may have accomplices nearby may use an opportunity to leave to flank the GG or otherwise reposition himself to initiate a secondary attack. This possibility can be addressed with repositioning by the GG as well, but it's something that should be kept in mind.

rm9792 wrote:

03Lightningrocks wrote:

Aggie_engr wrote:......If they are of the cowardly type that drops to ground like a girl screaming don't shoot me,......

....I don't know why, but the visual makes me laugh.

Remember that trick from Diehard (movie)? The head baddie dropped and started crying when Bruce Willis confronted him. It worked for awhile till Bruce figured it out.

Also, a lot of posters mention they dont have the training to handcuff someone. So what? toss the cuffs to the BG and make him cuff his hand to his ankle or something. Cuff his own wrist to a burglar bar, bedpost, whatever. You can see from a safe distance whether it is done or not. Even if they are loose it will still slow him down considerably. Better solution than hoping he complies and doesnt change his mind 5 minutes later.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Purplehood wrote:I see a lot of folks mentioning how they "won't have it" and that they will immediately go to the press and scream bloody-murder if prosecuted for home-defense actions.

A) I don't see that as impressing prosecutors or law-enforcement.

B) Since when does the press show any kind of favorable bias to homeowners wielding guns?

If I'm being unfairly prosecuted for a legitimate home defense and citizen's arrest, then I don't give a rip about impressing a prosecutor. I'm interested in punishment through political consequences. I live in Grapevine, which is in Tarrant county. For sure, the Houston Chronicle will misrepresent the story, but they have no influence over local elections here, so they can publish whatever rot they like. The Dallas Morning News will be ambivalent, which I can accept; the Forth Worth Star Telegram will likely tell it more or less accurately; and my LOCAL papers, which matter most to local voters, will report it favorably (to me). Where I live, local law enforcement are friendly to homeowners, and they really dislike criminals. If a local prosecutor or judge were imprudent enough to make it hard on me, I would make sure that, come election time, the public would be repeatedly reminded that this DA, or this judge cannot be trusted with the public welfare - and why. I would tell my firsthand story in the local press (DFW area) - the ones read by local voters - and see to it that the individual lost and could no longer harm the interests of the people who pay their salaries. I would tell my firsthand story at political gatherings wherever possible. At the candidate's gatherings, I would quietly circulate and tell my story to anyone who would listen. I'm a member of the local chamber of commerce, and I would spread the word through that channel at every opportunity. In short, I would do everything I could possibly do, through every possible legal channel, including the press, as is my right as a citizen, to make sure that this person would be relegated to obscurity and never serve in an elected office in this area again.

You can poo-poo the idea, but the truth is that local political activity at the grassroots level is very effective. Just ask Obama and his buddies at ACORN what they think about that. And there is nothing so effective at the local level as a compelling story - especially if it is true.

I'm not denying that there are some gray areas in the law here that are open to interpretation, like whether or not you can hold an intruder against his will, but the reality is that most rational LEOs, prosecutors, and judges do have some discretion in determining the applicability of the law with regard to the relevance of background facts, and use that discretion to guide their decision making. So even if a homeowner holding a burglar at bay is a legal gray area, most LEOs, prosecutors, and judges (at least in my area) are going to focus their attention on why the perp came to be held at bay - which is that he got caught in the commission of a felony by the homeowner - not on whether or not the homeowner was skirting with the edge of legal definitions in detaining the felon. And by the way, I'm talking about an intruder inside my home. If I catch an intruder in my backyard and he tries to run, I'm going to let him go. But anyone bold enough to enter a home, particularly when the resident is home, is to be considered a dangerous person, and they need to be taken off the street. Letting him go just makes him the next guy's problem, and maybe he kills a homeowner the next time.

Like I said, I'm not having it.

Liberty wrote:

Purplehood wrote:The bad guy is. But you are when the BG files a civil suit.

Are we legally better off shooting him then?