TheSkudDestroyer

That's it. Thats all they tell you about the bill. Was it a rider? Was it a main bill? We'll never know! He might have voted against a rider. We cant even be sure.

__________________
|TG-6th|Skud
BMT Graduate - 320th Training Squadron, Flight 024 - MSgt Romero - "Kids no more!"
30 weeks Keesler AFB, 1W031 - Weather

Judge_Leo

Nobody panic! We WILL know, and we can be SURE. After all we are all able to use the INTERNET to find out - here's how!

His Platform: http://www.borrismiles.com/

The Bill he voted against: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodo...l/HB00284I.htm ( 30.01, Section 2 , a, 1)

His statement after he shot a man stealing copper from his 9200 s.f. home that is under construction: (paragraph 6) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4952393.html

Definition of a hypocrite: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hypocrite

Can it be any more obvious?

ScratchMonkey

This is for Federal law, not any one state, but the principle could be applied by local groups. It's the Read the Bills Act, which compels Congress to read laws before it passes them, and requires a waiting period (like guns) before voting on them.

http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml

__________________

Sirusblk

Ooh ooh, can you direct me to a Fox News article critisizing Dick Cheney for claiming he's not part of the executive branch?

No I'm not derailing this thread, I have a point...

My point is Fox News reports on what it wants to report on, a subversive form of censorship. If you want any credibility with half of the people who troll these forums you're gonna have to present a better, more reliable source than Fox News.

If you're looking for a hypocrite look at everyone involved with Fox News

__________________

CingularDuality

Whoa, there... The news story here did not criticize anyone, it just reported a story. Us folks in this thread criticized him.

And Fox News did report on VicePresident Cheney's outrageous claim that he's not part of the Executive Branch.

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Sirusblk

Ok my fault for using the word criticize I'll give you that. What I'm saying is that they chose to say what they said and it casted him in an unfavorable light. Of course Fox News is not the only news source to be blamed of this but they do have a bad track record.

Naturally I expected to Fox News to shrug off Dick Cheney's whole fiasco. Thus proving my point how Fox News reports on what they want to.

Do you think Fox News accurately reported everything they could about the story? They could have actually told more about what the bill was about, citing sources and such. Instead they flat out said,

I've never heard a bill so dumbed down like that, and find it hard to believe it is that simple.

__________________

Sirusblk

Quite frankly, the article only says he's against stronger legal right to defend themselves, doesn't mean he was completely against citizens arming themselves. But wait what does the article actually have as it's title?

What are you left to assume from that statement alone?

__________________

CingularDuality

How does the story cast anyone in an unfavorable light? Some people here don't think there is an unfavorable light to the story at all, while I think that his actions cast him in an unfavorable light. What exactly is it about the story that you don't like?

"Castle doctrine" laws are all over the news right now. I guess they assume that their readers/viewers will be somewhat educated on current events? Sure they could've made it into a longer story, but they didn't. Are you suggesting that brevity is biased?

But they DIDN'T. Thus proving you wrong. Again.

I guess some people just long for something to hate...

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Judge_Leo

Obviously you didn't follow any of the links. None relate to Fox news that I can see, and the link to the TEXAS law is the actual bill. I guess it's just easier to rail on about Fox news than make an individual judgement related to the subject of this thread.

Tarenth

Glancing through those links and doing a bit of reading I don't see any of the hypocrisy.

In fact, I believe the link to the bill in question was for a change to self defense laws to allow more individual action in self defense. In short, it removes to need for the actor (person involved as a victim or bystander) to retreat and inform authorities before confronting the criminals.

IE: Shoot first, ask questions later, call police eventually so they can pick up the bodies/wounded.

Its not an anti-gun law he voted against, its a pro-vigilante bill he voted against. The bill in question and the original both make mention that you are allowed to act in self defense if your life is threatened. In the article linked by Judge Leo it states that the Rep opened fire after one of the suspects drew a small pocket knife and threw it at him (rofl, right...throwing an unbalanced pocket knife will be real effective). Since he was assaulted first without provocation he was justified under current law.

You do have some a small amount of discrepancy though.

If he was a FIRM supporter of his stance he would've retreated and informed authorities before confronting the suspects. The simple act of going back upstairs and using a (cell)phone to call 911 before confrontation would've held true to his stance against the bill.

He did claim in the article that he would've called police sooner if he had the time, but the very act of not calling the police and confronting the suspects is what escalated the situation to the point where he had to draw a gun.

Now if he drew his gun, opened fire first without being threatened or confronting the suspects, then called the police later to pick up the bodies with the excuse "They tried to rob me" then he would've held to the intent of the bill he voted against and been a hypocrite.

__________________
My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

CingularDuality

You're off a bit. The Castle Doctrine eliminates the duty to retreat, regardless of whether or not you're threatened.

For instance, in this case, he's at his house that is under construction. There's someone there trying to steal some copper. The thief draws a knife and says, "Get out of here before you get hurt". Without the Castle Doctrine, a reasonable person would believe that leaving the situation would be the best course of action, and the law in most places would say that he has a legal DUTY to retreat, since that would be safest for everyone. The Castle Doctrine says that your home is your castle and that you never have a duty to retreat from it, some stronger versions of the Castle Doctrine eliminate the duty to retreat from anyplace that you legally are at (if you're on public street, you have no duty to retreat before using force, while if you're on someone elses property and they tell you to leave, so you're now trespassing, you have a duty to retreat before you can use force...).

Now, we certainly don't know the whole situation, but it certainly appears that he failed to retreat, and instead decided to use deadly force to protect himself. Which is exactly the type of situation that the Castle Doctrine would protect. Thus, he's a hypocrite. And, since the Castle Doctrine law hasn't taken effect yet, potentially a criminal. Luckily, in Texas, I believe that he was justified under other laws.

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

TheFeniX

Yes, because all forms of self-defense involve the use of a firearm.....

Yea, it would help if you understood the definition of vigilante.

Further, these self-defense bills rarely even mention the term "firearm." They usually center around the term "deadly-force," which is not restricted to firearms. Please do some research before thinking this law will turn all people interested in self-preservation into Batman.

Hey, guess what: throwing a knife at someone actually does have a good chance of killing them. And it is considered "deadly force."

I'm sure if someone was throwing a knife at you, you'd just laugh at them and claim "Ha! That won't be effective at all!"

So, someone just tried to kill you by tossing a knife at you and you want to then turn your back on that person to try run upstairs?

No. What escalated the situation was someone attempting to rob him, then threaten him, then actually try to kill him.

And you act like everyone in these situations has some form of omniscience. It's easy to sit here and say "well, they did have or do X."

He couldn't have known the noise downstairs was two men trying to rob him until he got down there. Then they threaten him and throw a bladed object in his direction. Intent was made and you also can't assume the knife was the only weapon they had. You might know that after the fact, but a reasonable person would have to make a life or death decision without having the time to cherry-pick through all these details.

That's why laws that make it easier for a person to defend themselves are a good thing. A person should never be forced by law to retreat when their life is threatened. They should have the option of retreating.

The more discretion a person can use when determining how to defend themselves, the safer they are and the less likely they are to be accosted in the first place. A person should never be afraid of using force to protect themselves.

And the "vigilante" misconception doesn't help your case because there has been no upswings in self-defense violence since many other states have passed these laws.

__________________

Tarenth

Nope, but in this particular case we are talking about guns and his use of a gun in his self defense. Since we are talking about guns and the use of guns in self defense it only made sense to me to talk about guns in self defense. Now if he jumped down the stairs and gave him the vulcan death grip then we'd be talking about something completely different. But heck, the title of this thread is "Anti Gun Rights Lawmaker Shoots Thief" so I assumed we would be limiting ourselves to his use of guns.

Good enough?

For the sake of being arguementative I'll say Batman doesn't use firearms or deadly force. His whole thing was to scare the crap out of criminals. The "scare them straight" approach as it were. But point taken. I do believe I mentioned that the only information provided so far about the bill in question was that 1 link in the thread. As such my information was based on that 1 link and the information contained therein because my access to the internet is somewhat...restricted at the moment.

Yes it is considered deadly force and a threatening action I think I covered that as well, so glad you agree with me that such an action was the justification he took for drawing his gun. I just found it amusing that the suspect threw a pocket knife and not a throwing knife or a dagger (or the article clipping misnamed the weapon thrown). The former, in most cases, tend to be rather unbalanced and unsuitable for throwing to my experience while the later are deadly in skilled hands. If you've ever tried to throw a knife without practice you will notice it tends to wobble in the air quite a bit and be inaccurate. Its actually even odds of getting hit with the blade or the hilt or if the blade will twist and you'll just get smacked with the flat. Of course since the suspect is unnamed and no information is provided we don't know if he was someone who you'd half expect to wave the blade around and almost cut himself in the process or kill people through force of will and a pair of paperclips.

On a related note someone did come at me with a pocket knife before. Twice actually. I laughed both times. The first time he almost cut his fingers off when the blade started to close and the second I just hit him with the butt of my decommisioned M1A1 rifle. Good times in highschool NJROTC drill.

The wonderful thing about the world we live in is that things are not always black and white, but can be considered various shades of grey...and three dimensional. What if, lets suppose, he was sneaky about it. Now, if you wanted to do Recon in real life would you sneak down a hall then open the door on the opfor and yell "Who's there?" Do we catch terrorists by standing on street corners and yelling "Would all terrorists please give themselves up to the nearest police officer. Thank you". What has this got to do with your statement?

Well the series of events as put forward by the article was:

1. Rep came down stairs
2. Rep spotted 2 suspicious characters
3. Rep yelled at 2 suspicious characters
4. Suspect drew pocket knife and threw at Rep
5. Rep drew gun
6. Rep fired gun at suspect

Now if between numbers 2 and 3 he stopped and did the whole 'retreating' bit then there would've been no knife thrown and no gun fired. Instead he probably would've gotten to the room upstairs (where he was before without being noticed) and able to inform the authorities. This isn't a simple equation of "If you see them, then they see you" but it is totally possible for the Rep to see them without being seen and thus able to get away without incident. He could also, you know, 'back away' which would not involve turning around and running. Especially since I find the 'turn and run' approach to be rather noisy at best and a bad idea when you want to avoid notice.

Refer to above list. The act of the Rep yelling at the 2 suspicious characters brought attention on him and forced a conflict. Since he was upstairs when they attempted the robbery, and thus we assume unnoticed by the robbers, then there was no conflict in the actual robbery. They also did not threaten him, unless he's leaving that part out of the statement and skipped straight to the 'they threw a pocket knife at me'. Then again, that's entirely possible for him to gloss on facts like an actual verbalized threat.

Yes, its called being an arm-chair general. We can talk about the actions of others and either condemn or commend them, but we cannot experience it for ourselves. That being said, yes, it does swing both ways. For as many people who say "he could've" there are those that say "he shouldn't've" and it still doesn't change the "he did". Its equally possible for people to read into his motives and put reasons on actions that may have never crossed his mind. The world will never know...unless he writes a book or something.

He actually yelled at them and got their attention first, that point was already stated before and its in his statement as well. After they threw the knife at him then all bets were off and he had the right to defend himself and took that right.

From what I read from the bill the act of retreating is an option before the threat is made. After the threat on life is made then free reign is given to defend onself because the intention to harm is clearly established.

True. However I'm also an idealist and I feel that more thought should go into the act of protecting yourself beyond "I pull the trigger and the threat is gone". There is always the threat of escalation when you try to counter something. If people stop thinking before they fire, than criminals will stop finding reasons to hesitate before firing themselves. Its a very slipery slope of an arguement though.

Good to know. I did not know that since, you know, all my information at work is limited to those links. I also fail to see how this fits in with the whole 'he's a hypocrite' thing, but any information is better than no information.