Renisha McBride crashed her car while intoxicated at a street in Detroit, and then walked to a neighborhood in Dearborn Heights where she knocked on the door of a house. The homeowner, 54 year old Theodore Wafer, shot McBride with a shotgun. Wafer contended that the shooting was accidental and that he thought his home was being broken into after he heard her banging on his door at 4:42 in the morning
The first case like this that received a lot of attention was a white guy on the NYC subway, shooting several black men.
There have been plenty of cases, especially in recent years, of people escalating disputes to gunfights in public, where there is no possible claim of home territory.
Add in government policy that extends your right to protect your home, to every inch of your property. Right or wrong, some people will take that as a green light to shoot trespassers.
But it is most emphatically not a law that authorizes killing people just because theyâre migrants. And not only is a lot of the criticism thatâs being levied against the law outright misinformation, but itâs dangerous misinformation - because it spreads that false belief that killing migrants would be permissible under this law, making it more dangerous for everyone concerned.
âThe only thing that weâre not doing is weâre not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,â Abbott saidâŚ
Itâs reasonable to conclude that the governor would otherwise like to âtake care ofâ persons who come across the border.
And one would logically extrapolate that under a different administration, Texans would have free reign to shoot people coming across the border without federal repercussions.
Certain factions are expert at the use of the âdog whistleâ. Do you understand what a pol it saying when he says âI am for neighborhood schoolsâ? What he is saying is he is for segregated schools. We old phartz, that remember the controversy over kids being bussed around town to integrate all the schools, when bussing started around 71-72, know exactly what is meant by the âneighborhood schoolsâ dog whistle.
A pol saying you have a right to protect every inch of your property with violence, and styling migrants as âinvaders, criminals, mental patients, rapists, and drug dealersâ is declaring migrant hunting season open. It might be necessary to first confront a migrant, and warn him off verbally, to satisfy the law, but the typical goober understands what is being laid out for him. A âthought leaderâ recently advocated shooting migrants on sight, if they thought the migrant had drugs in his backpack.
*âYouâre already on U.S. soil onceâŚyou get through the wall,â he told NBC News. âYou have hostile intent, because youâre obviously running drugs. You absolutely can use deadly force. I mean, think about it. If you were trying to do that â if you were to go to some Texas rancherâs property, break into their house, theyâre going to respond.â *
âOf course you use deadly force,â he said, adding, âIf the cartels are cutting through the border wall, trying to run product into this country, theyâre going to end up stone-cold dead as a result of that bad decision. And if you do that one time, you are not going to see them mess with our wall ever again.â
The new law simplifies the scenario laid out in that snip. The migrant no longer needs to come into your house. Going on the Texas rancherâs property will be enough.
That can all be true and itâs still not the case that the politician is correct. The law doesnât give you the right to protect every inch of your property with violence, and the proposed change to the law doesnât do that, either. You are still never allowed to shoot people unless in response to another person that is using or attempting to use unlawful deadly physical force against you.
If politicians are out there falsely claiming that youâre allowed to âhunt migrants,â then thatâs terrible. But itâs also terrible if critics of the proposed change to the law are falsely claiming that the new law authorizes people to âhunt migrants,â for much the same reason - you create the mistaken impression in people that if the law passes, using deadly physical force against non-threatening people is legal.
Itâs not. Itâs not now, and it wonât be under the new law. The new law will not make it legal to âhunt migrantsâ in Arizona. And people that are claiming that it will are wrong.
The dog whistles have been laid out. The results are entirely predictable.
A sympathetic (racist/xenophobic) jury can excuse the most egregious behavior, like driving dozens of miles, to join a gang of armed vigilantes, and parading around with an assault rifle, instead of leaving the situation to the professionals.
At a criminal trial in Kenosha in November 2021, prosecutors argued that Rittenhouse was seen as an active shooter and had provoked the other participants while defense lawyers argued that he had acted in self-defense stating that he had used force necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself. A jury weighed two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, and two counts of reckless endangerment and found Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges. Public sentiment and media coverage of the shootings was polarized and politicized, with an Economist poll finding that two-thirds of (one faction) thought Rittenhouse should be acquitted while three-quarters of (a different faction) thought he should be convicted.
The people of Arizona are already protected by self-defense laws. Why would politicians propose protections for using deadly force for criminal trespass situations already protected under current law?
Iâm not a lawyer, but it seems like there are a lot of bad politicians, creating bad laws, that will only encourage bad people to do bad things. The lawâs text and itâs potential impact are two very different things.
I generally agree with your comments about misinformation, but we shouldnât give anyone the benefit of doubt.
Under common law and most penal codes, you are allowed to use force to defend yourself from the unlawful use of physical force. You are allowed to use force to defend other people in circumstances where they would be allowed to use force in self-defense against unlawful physical force. But you are almost never allowed to use force to defend property against property crimes. You are almost never allowed to use deadly force (which shooting someone always is) except to defend against serious force against you.
So if you find a stranger has broken into your living room, but he isnât doing anything else, the basic self-defense statutes wouldnât allow you to do much about it (other than call the police). If heâs not presently threatening you with physical force, the general use of force justifications wouldnât let you push him out of your house - or even threaten him with the use of force if he doesnât leave. You typically canât use force or the threat of force in response to property crimes (like trespass).
Arizona, like many states, has modified those starting points - because it seems silly to many people that if someoneâs broken into your house you canât physically throw them out, but have to let them hang out there until the police come. Arizona allows you to use force (but not deadly force) to protect a residence from trespass. They also allow you to use threats of force (even deadly force) to try to get someone to cease trespassing in a residence. IOW, if someoneâs trespassing in your living room, youâre allowed to point a gun at them and tell them to get out, or pick them up and thrown them out, and it wonât be an criminal assault. But you canât shoot them.
The proposed bill extends that defense of residence from the structure to the entire residential property. Under the proposed bill, if someoneâs standing on your front lawn, you can now point a gun at them and order them to leave, or you can pick them up and remove them from your property, without that being assault. But you canât shoot them.
I posted above the sections of the AZ Code, which are referenced in the new legislation, that specify when deadly force can be used. As eldermonio said, the sections are standard self-defense provisions: justified when you are in immediate danger.
That is how I interpret it as well.
What is the use of pointing a gun at someone, if you canât use it?
Thanks for the clarification. A lot peopleâs heads go to the threat to migrants on desolate properties, not me. I think about that curmudgeon who will run out to his porch, gun drawn, to threaten kids crossing his yard.
Even if the intent of the law is to allow property owners to threaten deadly force on their property, outside of their homeâŚitâs not good.
To scare someone into leaving, I guess. You canât use it if they just stand there, but many people will run away if you point a gun at them and threaten to shoot.
Keep in mind, not only the future perps, who will shoot migrants, are receiving the messaging of the âthought leadersâ, so are the future jurors.
Remember the Greensboro Massacre? 1979. Klansmen and Nitsis drove up to a group demonstrating against the Klan, in broad daylight, with a TV news camera filming, opened fire and killed five people. The jury ruled their actions âself defenseâ.
If the future jurors think killing migrants is OK, than it is OK, regardless of what the letter of the law says.
No doubt. Generally, the argument against having these types of laws on the books is that they end up causing more harm (non-lethal conflicts turn into deadly confrontations) than they prevent.
You have to admit, with this bill being proposed right before an Arizona rancher is to go on trial for second degree murder of a migrant on his propertyâŚweâre not talking about implausible hypotheticals here.
The rancher claimed the dude was armed and he felt threatened, even though he was over 100 yards away. The threatening migrant was unarmed, and was shot in the back.
I agree that some of the reporting on this bill is misleading, maybe even irresponsible. But proposing this bill, given the current social climate around migration, is grotesque.