I have commented about Texas and their home protection laws. I just found this story about a Texas lawmaker that shot a man that was trying to seal copper wire from his house.
Check out the story at CNN.
The story is interesting in a number of ways..
Let me comment on a few of them. One the Texas state lawmaker opposed a new law that would allow a person to shoot a thief.
He shot a thief.
Common law in the United States states that you can only use deadly force in protection of your life or the life of someone else. You are not allowed to use deadly force to keep someone from stealing from you.
In this case one of the men tossed a "pocketknife" at him. It sounds like he shot after the man tossed the knife at him. Your not allowed, by common law, to do that...if they guy WAS getting ready to toss it or in the act of tossing it would be OK. But if he TOSSED it (after the act) you would not be defending your life.
They talk about a new "castle doctrine" that is going into effect September 1st. I was thinking that Texas already had such a law.
What I see here is the old Republican trick of "law and order." You come out for "law and order" and you increase the jail time or you support something like the "castle doctrine" but you don't offer any fixes for the problems of America. They pass a law that you can kill someone that comes in your yard but they don't work on the problem of the homeless or of help for mental patients. They build more jails but spend less on help for the sick, old and homeless. They increase jail time but don't fix education. One way to fix the problem of the homeless is to kill more of them and put them in jail for longer.
If your in Texas after September 1st do not go door to door selling anything. Do not go over to welcome the new people to the area. Do not go into the yard of someone to ask directions. Your going to be in a free kill zone.
Common law has been with us for over 231 years. We got common law from England. It has served us well. Texas now feels it needs to adjust the common law and make it more easy to kill someone. Texas wants it to be OK to kill someone for stealing the newspaper out of their yard.
