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Texas 'Self Defense' Shooting - Was It Worth Two Lives?
Blackvoices.com ^ | 2 July, 2008 | Madison J. Gray

Posted on 07/03/2008 5:15:19 AM PDT by marktwain

Not even a week after the Supreme Court decided that gun bans are unconstitutional, a man accused of shooting to death two burglars who were robbing his neighbor's home has been set free despite the viciousness of his act.

If you'll remember the story, Joe Horn, a 61-year-old Pasadena, Tex., resident spotted two burglars breaking into his neighbor's home in Nov. 2007. He dialed 911, but despite being warned to stay in his home, he declared that he has a right to use deadly force to defend his neighbor's property and that he was going to confront the robbers.

He does just that and then shoots them in their backs, killing them. A huge controversy ensued over whether he should stand trial in the deaths of do RiascosDiego Ortiz, 30, and Hernan Torres, 38, both Columbian immigrants.

Yesterday, a grand jury cleared him of all wrongdoing. Score another one for the gun nuts.

On Tuesday, family and activists called the killing "premeditated murder." ...

I'm not defending the two men who robbed the neighbor's home of about $2,000 in jewelry and cash. But was this worth their lives? These men were not armed, and they posed no threat to Horn, although he claims that they came into his yard.

But if you hear the 911 tapes, Horn was warned to stay in his home and let the police handle the issue. He ignored the dispatcher's orders and if you listen to the tapes you'll see that he had every intention of killing those men.

Even though Horn has expressed regret over the incident, there are supporters who swear Horn should have sawed the men's heads off and impaled them on a lamppost at the edge of his driveway. These are the people who I lose sleep over.

These are the people who love guns far more than they love anything else and are waiting for their chance to kill someone, and far too often they are looking for a nonwhite in order to get their chance. For example, the 1992 killing of Yoshihiro Hattori, a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in Baton Rouge, La., who simply rang the wrong doorbell when looking for a Halloween party. The homeowner, Rodney Peairs, opened fire on Hattori, mortally wounding him. Peairs was later acquitted under a Louisiana law, similar to one in Texas that allows people to shoot burglars if they feel threatened.

Here's my question: If people like Horn and Peairs -- who are white -- can shoot people they feel threatened by, why is it that John White, a Long Island, N.Y., man -- who is black -- gets a jail term for defending his home when he thought a mob was coming to harm his son, which also resulted in a death.

None of the losses of life are right. The deaths are senseless, and could have been avoided if cooler heads had prevailed. But in Horn's case, he had no intention of calming down. He took the law into his own hands and now, with a Supreme Court gun decision having just passed, every firearm freak in the country will feel emboldened.

Well, here's what I have to say to them: a person who would shoot someone because they feel a gun empowers them is a sociopath with a murderous mentality. It has nothing to do with self defense, it is the mark of a weak person who would feel castrated without having a gun somewhere in their vicinity.

Point blank: If you actually love your gun, you're a punk. It takes a man to preserve life. It takes a weakling to snuff it out.

Horn, by his own admission, is an eternal victim of his weak moment.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: banglist; barfalert; horn; shooting; texas
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To: woollyone

She seems to be arguing that it was OK for White to get thrown in jail. But I bet if White hadn’t had a gun, and the teens had broken in his house and beaten his kid, she’d be calling for the death penalty for the racist youth.


101 posted on 07/03/2008 7:14:36 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: marktwain

Well where was their driver? There’s a third man who should have been shot.


102 posted on 07/03/2008 7:17:31 AM PDT by Paleo Conservative (Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.)
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
Someone has to help me out here. In New York, a few years ago, there was a case where a robbery victim (I think he was a store owner.) shot a fleeing robber. The case hinged on the fact that the victim testified that the robber reached into his pocket when he was running and the victim thought that the robber was going to pull a pistol out.

The victim was subsequently not charged. I believe the analysis of the case was posted on the FR. Newspaper articles generally don't have details like that in them. So we really don't know what happened. My hat in off to Mr. Horn.

103 posted on 07/03/2008 7:20:09 AM PDT by Citizen Tom Paine (Swift as the wind; Calmly majestic as a forest; Steady as the mountains.)
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To: marktwain
If you actually love your gun, you're a punk.

I wonder if this clown would like to go home and tell his mother that this "punk" whipped his ass.

104 posted on 07/03/2008 7:24:02 AM PDT by Retired COB (Still mad about Campaign Finance Reform)
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To: marktwain

Well, you know, the answer to that kind of question always depends on what liberal cause is being discussed.

For example, I’ve heard it said that forcing Americans to drive paper mache cars to get the weight down to improve MPG all those years ago, costs about 4,000 more lives a year than it needs to.

(Oh, and the latest round of hysteria that will be putting egg shell cars on the road is estimated at 2,000 more lives a year. Of course I’ve never seen any mention of either of those two figures or their causes in the lsm - just on FR.)


105 posted on 07/03/2008 7:26:47 AM PDT by Let's Roll (As usual, following a shooting spree, libs want to take guns away from those who DIDN'T do it.)
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To: marktwain

Texas ‘Self Defense’ Shooting - Was It Worth Two Lives?

It saved the taxpayers millions, and maybe taught a few thugs a lesson they don’t want repeated.


106 posted on 07/03/2008 7:27:53 AM PDT by chainsaw ( No racist radical Muslims in the WH)
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To: marktwain

Home invasion is a violent crime and these two will not invade another home and hopefully the story will affect some other would be home invaders.


107 posted on 07/03/2008 7:28:57 AM PDT by Free Descendant
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To: Let's Roll

“green space” laws and restrictions on building housing in cities also contributes to many highway deaths as people have to move out further and commute more.

Granted, some move because they want to, and not due to lack of housing, but it is a factor.


108 posted on 07/03/2008 7:30:48 AM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing — New York is NOT Texas, or Louisiana.

If you want to commit a crime go to New York. Stay out of Texas it could be unhealthy for ya.


109 posted on 07/03/2008 7:32:05 AM PDT by chainsaw ( No racist radical Muslims in the WH)
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To: meyer
The dispatcher does not give "orders" to the general population.

You're right. The last time I checked my organization chart, there was no person called a dispatcher in my chain of command.

110 posted on 07/03/2008 7:47:45 AM PDT by Retired COB (Still mad about Campaign Finance Reform)
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To: marktwain; Allegra; big'ol_freeper; Lil'freeper; TrueKnightGalahad; blackie; Larry Lucido; ...
Sounds to me like nObama saying "If you own a gun, you are a racist!" Then nObama will be following that reasoning to call for appointing Supreme Court justices that will do away with the 2nd Amendment rather than take that long road of Amending the Constitution.


111 posted on 07/03/2008 8:00:23 AM PDT by Bender2 ("I've got a twisted sense of humor, and everything amuses me." RAH Beyond this Horizon)
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To: meyer

“He ignored the dispatcher’s orders...”

“The dispatcher does not give “orders” to the general population.”


Exactly. Excellent point. A dispatcher may give “suggestions” or at best “advise”.


112 posted on 07/03/2008 8:34:50 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: Resolute Conservative

“If you are unarmed and confront someone who is you woke up the wrong dog.”

Tagline in the making!


113 posted on 07/03/2008 8:35:28 AM PDT by RasterMaster (Rudy McRomneyson = KENNEDY wing of the Republican Party)
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Yes. One cannot overlook what would have had happened had these career criminals escaped. It is virtually certain that they would have continued to live as predators. Eventually they very likely would have confronted and injured or killed some innocent person or persons. Better that the guilty die than the innocent become their victims. Society owes a real debt of gratitude to valiant senior citizen Horn.
114 posted on 07/03/2008 8:51:32 AM PDT by Godwin1
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch

Yes. If they were running towards him or had pointed something at him, I’d have done what he did. Running away, it’s much less a life threatening thing.

The other thing is the thrid party defense issue - it needs to be explicit, not implicit. The guy’s neighbor has to explicitly ask the guy to shoot someone to save his life.

I know the guy who shot probably felt these guys may eventually come after him and his house, as there had been a bunch of robberies in the area, apparently. But you need to be in actual danger. At least have the guys actually trying to run at you than run away from you.


115 posted on 07/03/2008 9:35:59 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: marktwain

IIRC, Laura Ingraham said there was a police officer at the scene and said one of the men was going toward Horn.


116 posted on 07/03/2008 10:44:47 AM PDT by PghBaldy (Obama is hiding something about his birth- but what?)
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To: marktwain

Point blank: If you actually love your gun, you're a punk. It takes a man to preserve life. It takes a weakling to snuff it out.

And you, Madison, if that IS your name are an anti-American, unpatriotic dumbass. No one, I think other than criminals "snuff out" lives. A criminal shot by a cop, or a citizen doing his duty to protect others, is the offender. The Criminal is the creep, the punk and NOT a man.

It is the criminal who is responsible for their own death, in this case especially. Authors like this might be saying people are sick of being victimized, but sideways swipes at heroes like Mr. Horn are wrong and uncalled for.
117 posted on 07/03/2008 10:51:07 AM PDT by Rick.Donaldson (http://www.transasianaxis.com - Please visit for latest on DPRK/Russia/China/et al.)
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To: marktwain

“Pasadena police have said a detective in plainclothes had parked in front of Horn’s house in response to the 911 call, and saw the two men before they crossed into Horn’s front yard.

Police believe that neither Horn nor the burglars knew an officer was present.

When Horn confronted the men in his yard, he raised his shotgun to his shoulder, police have said. However, the men ignored his order to freeze.

Authorities have said one man ran toward Horn but had angled away toward the street when he was shot in the back just before reaching the curb.

Ortiz and Torres died a short distance from Horn’s house.” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5864151.html


118 posted on 07/03/2008 10:57:12 AM PDT by PghBaldy (Obama is hiding something about his birth- but what?)
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To: marktwain

Shoot first, ask questions later.


119 posted on 07/03/2008 11:07:26 AM PDT by blackie (Be Well~Be Armed~Be Safe~Molon Labe!)
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To: marktwain
I'm not defending the two men who robbed the neighbor's home of about $2,000 in jewelry and cash. But was this worth their lives? These men were not armed, and they posed no threat to Horn, although he claims that they came into his yard.

This statement is full of *crap*! I've been one one very bad situation and it didn't happen overnight.

It began with mild vandalism, then some petty thievery, then a little bit of property destruction... then we moved on to breaking in when my husband and I weren't home, and finally he broke in when my husband was away and I was alone. The cops had been called at least a dozen times up to that point and we lived ONE BLOCK from the police department. It was a single-action .357 that saved me that night.

These people "test" and poke and prod at their targets, slowly escalating to see how far they can take it. They have NO empathy, no compassion, no sense of guilt over the damage they do. They actually think *your* fear is funny. And they escalate. This time it was $2,000. Next time it's a car. After that it's armed robbery of a gas station. Eventually somebody's kid/mother/father/son is taking a bullet to the face.

And, yes. I believe that every one of these punks should be put down like dogs while they're committing the crime in question. This saves the taxpayers a long, expensive trial and the money for their care and feeding.

I will also point out, *most of these people are never caught*. When they are incarcerated, it's only for a short time, then they're crapped back into the streets by the penal system, free to keep acting like animals.

If my own son developed a severe case of "Stupid" and was shot and killed for breaking into a neighbor's garage, I wouldn't blame my neighbor. I'd blame my son for being an idiot and myself for not raising him correctly. Then I would thank my neighbor of removing my defective genetic material from society before he could inflict further damage.

Criminals weigh consequences and risk. "Castle Law" dramatically increases both. IMHO, this man just changed the rules of the game for the entire state of Texas and made it a safer place for law-abiding citizens to live.

120 posted on 07/03/2008 11:12:06 AM PDT by Marie (Why is it that some people believe everything that happens is the will of G-d - except Israel?)
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