You kids stay off my lawn!Follow

Kinda hard to keep your lawn looking nice when punk kids are all over it!

Taken From This Link




AND.......





In short, dont fu[Antiquewhite][/Antiquewhite]ck with a Texan!

Edited, Wed Mar 22 13:07:40 2006 by Katie

Okay, so according to that if the kid were running across the lawn with a lit torch, the nutjob might have been justified.

Well, you know, I think we already agreed with that. A person wielding fire is a credible threat.

Child is accurate, under the law if not biologically. He was a minor, below the age of 18. Biologically speaking, he was neither physically or emotionally mature.


Edited, Wed Mar 22 16:35:33 2006 by Atomicflea

You mean, like using words to state that property owners have a right to commit murder in order to prevent or punish a trespasser, who is committing a misdemeanor crime or (in some jurisdictions) a civil tort?

Yes, I see where that sort of inaccuracy might be vexing.

Well... The guy did say he'd been "harassed for 5 years" by this kid and his family. You and I don't know exactly what that entailed. For all you know, this kid was regularly running around this guy's yard and tearing it apart for fun and taunting him about it. Or the guy could have been a bit mental and the voices in his head made him think that some kid just walking along was somehow harassing him. We wont know that until there are more details of the case available.

you still havent answered my question on how much you thought the comparison of the prices of a shotgun shell to that of defense lawyers and a great possibility of losing ones freedom is

Lol. That was a joke... mostly.

Besides. I was comparing the price of shotgun shells to the cost of building a fence. Different issue...


The point is still valid IMO. You're trying to argue that the owner of some property is somehow required to spend significant amounts of money to protect it, not because that's the most cost effective way, but because that's a way that doesn't get someone else potentially hurt or killed. So, it's more important to protect someone who's violating my property rights, then my rights as a property owner. After all the *only* reason for someone to argue that he should have built a fence is if you assume that it's the property owners responsiblity to pay money to prevent someone else from violating his property. My counter was that shotgun shells did the job just as well and cost a heck of a lot less.

In the absense of laws to the contrary, is it not true that me shooting anyone who walked onto my property uninvited would be a far cheaper way of keeping them off that property then me building a fence? It's only because of layers of law attempting to protect those violating other's rights that we're even having this conversation.

I'm not saying those laws are wrong. I *am* saying that those laws do put an undue burden on the property owner in cases like this. It's entirely possible that this guy "snapped" specifically because the law protected the tresspasser more then the property owner. It is clear from his original 911 call that he felt he'd been harassed for 5 years by the teen in question. While it could certainly be that this guy just went nuts one day, I suspect if he felt there was an easier way to keep this kid off his lawn, that didn't require him to spend thousands of dollars, he probably would have taken it instead.


Again. I'm just looking at what we know, and the huge amounts we *don't* know, and playing a bit of devils advocate. We can't jump to conclusions here.

Yes, that is exactly right. That's the same reason we are required to carry insurance, or drive on the right side of the road, or all of the things we are required to do that are not the most beneficial or convenient for ourselves or our property, but yet allow us to function as a society. In a society we make sacrifices for the greater good, in return we recieve the benefits of living in a society.

I need to accept that sometimes people might cut across my lawn, in return I don't have to worry about scraping my kid's guts off of the sidewalk if he veers off course on his bigwheel.

I need to obey traffic laws, in return I don't have to worry about someone going 150 MPH down the wrong side of the expressway plowing into me because he feels that his car runs better in that lane and it's his car so it's his right to drive whereever he wants.

I need to follow zoning ordinances, I can't build a 1000 foot tall tower of spikes in my front yard, in return I don't have to worry about being impaled walking down to the park, by someone who felt it was his right to build whatever he wanted, however he wanted on his property.

I can't run a jet engine all night long in my garage, in return I know that I can count on getting a good nights sleep before work every day.

This man had plenty of ways to go about solving his problem. Did he sit down and discuss his concerns with the family in a polite and constructive manner? Did he actually go out and talk to the kid while he was cutting across his lawn? If that didn't work he could have taken pictures with a $3 disposable camera, or videotaped the kid cutting across the lawn and called the police every time it happened, or taken the kid's parents to court, or just lived with the kid cutting across the lawn, or even just moved away.

Taking the kids life was irrational, I hope they put him away for the rest of his life, obviously he is unable to function as a member of society.

In any event, the police weren't convinced that his property rights extended to firing multiples rounds into passing teenagers to protect his lawn seeing as how they charged him with murder. There will, of course, be a court trial but if Mr. Martin was fully and clearly in his rights, you'd expect him to be released from custody after the initial questioning.

I know what happened. There the man was, minding is own business on his front lawn.. all of sudden he hears the kid shouting "lerroooyyyyyy jenkinsssssssssss"!

Wow did you just see that? I think you e-peen just grew a litttttle bit bigger!


Edited, Mon Mar 27 00:55:23 2006 by TWA