I'm siding with Mr. White on this one. My yard is my first defense zone, and when I have a gun standing defending my yard and some smart ass kid smacks my hand holding that gun, well I will be on trial too.
Screw hiding in the house, to damn scared to face the enemy face to face on my own property. I'm ashamed of some FReepers today.
#1 -- make sure you can legally shoot people on your property
#2 -- like some of the posters said, make sure you say, "I intentionally shot the guy because I feared for my life."
Mr. White did neither. He admitted to accidentally shooting the kid. In short, he admitted to manslaughter which is the felony that he was convicted of.
It doesn't matter what the extenuating circumstances are. He pretty much admitted that he carelessly took a life of a man due to his mishandling of the illegal gun.
Speaking as somebody who has actually been in the situation of having to draw a gun on a crackhead in self-defense, there is a time and place for everything.
Pointing a gun at somebody is something you only do as a last resort to protect yourself or your family from violent harm. A person who would draw on unarmed people who at the moment are doing nothing more than mouthing off, and has not yet suffered any damage except to ego, has no business owning a firearm
Yeah, me, too. I would have thought that murdering someone who has done nothing except yell at you and then claiming they were out to lynch you except essentially you did the lynching would have struck a thoughtful person as perversely racist.