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.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
