🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 27 May 1999 13:59:38 GMT, ReadyTexan wrote:

>I once had a Texas cop tell me "if you shoot someone breaking and
>entering your house and he happens to fall outside please drag him
>inside before we get there. It reduces our paperwork".

Absolute and complete nonsense.

First, as others have pointed out, modern forensics would not
only be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you had
shot him outside and then dragged him back in, the forensics
lab would probably also be able to show what hand you used,
what brand of watch you were wearing at the time, and
how much change you had in your pocket.

You'd be astounded at what the forensics guys can do these
days -- personally, I think that the amazing advances in
forensics may well be one of the unrecognized factors driving
the recent nationwide crime drop.  (Others may be the increased
numbers of cellular phones and surveillance cameras.)

Second, in most states, and in Texas ESPECIALLY, there's absolutely
no distinction between "in home" and "out of home" self defense acts.
In Texas law, there's not a word in the penal code making shootings
in your home any different from shootings outside your home.  The
law doesn't give a damn if the criminal is in your house or not.
You either had the right to shoot him, or you didn't, wherever you
might have been at the time.  Location is no consideration in
Texas deadly force laws.

Furthermore, Texas has what is probably the most liberal deadly
force laws in the country.  Seldom do you ever have to worry about
such minor distinctions as "just inside your door or just outside
your door".  Hell, in Texas you're even allowed to shoot a burglar
to protect nothing but property (but read the law before you try
it -- not every conceivable instance is allowable).

My favorite example was reported about ten years ago now.  A
Texas woman stepped into her garage and found a man trying to
steal her bicycle.  She pointed a gun at him, and told him to
desist.  What happened next is best described in her own words,
as reported in the news coverage:  "He told me to go ahead and
shoot him, so I did."  The woman was not charged (because she
was well within the law), and the idiot criminal survived his
hospital stay.


--
   "How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the 
plain Meaning of Words!"
   --Samuel Adams (1722-1803), letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776