No charges filed against homeowner accused of shooting Bo Morrison

[krispos42]

51. No, I wasn't in the "in" crowd.

I didn't get to go to any drinking parties until I was 20, at my college dorm. My childhood wasn't particularly social after 5th grade.

Doubtless you're going to play amateur psychotherapist with my response just now, but whatever.


And I don't care if the homeowner didn't have a scratch on him. He shouldn't have to sustain a single pinprick as a precondition to being able to defend himself if the situation warranted it.

Once the situation is such that lethal force is a reasonable response to a perceived threat, waiting until your attacker is in a position to harm you before being allowed to use force is just crazy.

This isn't a game. There isn't an audience, or TV ratings, or the spirit of competition and good sportsmanship. Pretty much any room in a house is small enough that a person can quickly charge forward towards a person with a gun and do serious harm before the armed person can shoot. Remember, high stress destroys fine motor skills, like aiming, and darkness makes shooting much more by guess than by sight. Especially if the defender is distracted (perhaps by a wife asking if everything is okay) or if the attacker is moving around.

The attacker ducks, left, ducks right, and charges towards you with his head lowered. Maybe he flings a book or a lamp or a knickknack at you first. Can you aim the handgun and fire in the two seconds that elapsed between his first duck and his tackle? Even if you land a hit before you go crashing to the floor with him on top of you, how long can the fight go on before the bullet wound takes effect? How long will you have to wrestle around on the floor before blood loss becomes an issue that works to your advantage? 30 seconds? 30 minutes?

I'm all for gathering up the family and barricading everybody in a "safe room" in the house if you KNOW there's somebody in the house and you have the luxury of doing so. Throw the deadbolts on the reinforced bedroom door, break out the guns, and call the cops. Have a house key on a glowstick, so you can throw it down to the responding officers.


But the guy didn't know the teen was there until he was going to check to make sure the back door was locked. And in a furnished room there's tons of stuff to grab and throw as a distraction for an assault. And let's not forget (as is implied in your reply) teens do stupid stuff... like try to rush past a guy with a handgun so they don't get busted for underage drinking.