"Smith stated at this point he placed the handgun under the woman's chin and shot her ... up into the cranium ... a good clean finishing shot." Wow...that's just crazy.
A perfect example of why people are given the right to remain silent. Granted the way he shot them pretty much ruled out self defense but his statements to police are gonna hang him.
If for whatever reason the intruder makes it past my German Shepherd, I would consider him/her a threat and would shoot them until they could not harm my fiance or I. I do agree though, this guy just straight up wanted to kill these people and took it to a whole different level. Murder no doubt. Life can be so cruel though. I look back at my teenage years and wonder how the heck I survived sometimes. I'm only 26, but I did some stupid things in my younger years that could have turned out real ugly. These kids would have probably looked back one day and wondered why they did something so dumb and careless. It could have be something they regretted immediately. Like Matt said though you can't take a bullet back. In this case the ultimate price was paid and now both sides have to suffer the losses of family members.
Let that be a lesson to this country's criminal element. The people who's rights or property your going after my be crazier than you. I'd like to hear more of this kind of stuff. If every time some thug pulled out a 38 to rob somebody he found at 45 in his face it just my deter a few crimes being committed. I wouldn't do time for someone robbing me or assaulting my friends or family but if I catch them before the cops arrive that person never be the same. ie. missing eye. Busted up hand. Crushed foot. Etc.
This is a crazy story and like others have said he went way over the top. I think the way I would handle that situation would depend on if my children were home or not. If it was just me I think I would try and warn them like Vito said, but if my kids were home I dont think I would take any chances of them getting past me. That being said I wouldnt give them a good finishing shot.
Just because they are shot DOES NOT mean they are incapacitated. there are thousands of stories of people at war being shot and mortaly wounded and still then killing the person who shot them before they die look at a deer that gets shot through and through in the lungs and runs hundreds and hundreds of yards away. it would be much much easier then that for them to pull a handgun out of their clothing and shooting him right between the eyes.even a shot directly in the heart and a person is not incapacitated until the brain runs out of oxygen. you are still in danger until they are dead...period. If you don't want to get shot don't break into peoples houses. these people are not victims. in my eyes anyone desperate enough to do a home invasion with someone inside is desperate enough to kill you to get away.
Wow. While I think he took it too far by finishing them off as he did, I do think the situation called for deadly force. He may not have announced his presence and intent to the first guy coming down the stairs, but the second intruder had to have known that a) someone was in the basement, b) they were armed and willing to defend themselves, and c) that multiple shots had already been fired. If I were in that situation, I would make myself known, and the fact that I am armed and going to shoot anybody coming down the stairs. If I then still had to shoot, it would be multiple rounds fired quickly, per intruder, and I would be shooting to kill. I could never put a person "out of their misery" though, if they were incapacitated. And I definitely would not be cleaning up the bodies and moving them around on tarps.
