6th Grader Shoots Potential Rapist

[iseko]

the funny thing is in my country the girl would be in allot of trouble because she shot him. it is against the law to defend yourself with a gun unless the peep shoots at you first. stupid I know

 

[Keoul]

If a stranger enters your home without your permission and you have a gun, well - basically your front door is for his protection, not yours.
You've got to be able to defend yourself and your family if you have to. Making that decision to actually squeeze that trigger has got to be fucking traumatic, but I've decided I'd rather be prosecuted for using force than have myself or my family harmed because I didn't act.

Allow me to reiterate my paragraph.
Why is he being labelled as a "potential rapist" when he hasn't raped anyone, even if by technicality that title is correct, in truth it applies to everyone.

The lock part was a joke, guns seem to the first and only line of defense for a lot of people and I'm just saying they could try fortifying their house. If they had a stronger door or a security screen the girl wouldn't of had to shoot at all and probably wouldn't be traumatized in the slightest.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go edit that post a bit before more people ask the same thing.

 

[Meatspinner]

Wait I must have missed a post or something.

OP links sensationalist article.
Someone makes the usual pun.
Bunch of other ask for clarification on the rapist part.
...
people are accused of trying to defend the rapist/homeinvader
someone doesn't get an obvious joke again... I mean profit

OT: That girl has bigger balls then me at that age (or now when i think of it)

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

My thoughts are EXCELLENT F***ING JOB. Good on that little girl and good on the person who taught her to use that gun. Some people are sensible enough to have guns. And some of those people are 12-year-olds.

As stated though, but over the top to be crying rapist already. Maybe he just wanted to make sure everyone was asleep before making off with the TV.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

the funny thing is in my country the girl would be in allot of trouble because she shot him. it is against the law to defend yourself with a gun unless the peep shoots at you first. stupid I know

Even in the US it varies enormously. Generally speaking, a person is only allowed to use lethal force (i.e. employ a firearm in any capacity) when they are in imminent danger. The standard for imminent danger varies considerably but, generally speaking, you must be presented with an obvious and grave threat against your person (i.e. a situation most people would assume could lead to death or serious trauma), and you must not have an obvious and easy avenue of retreat. Meeting these requirements is difficult since the final account relies on a jury to determine if the threat was credible and if there was a viable option of retreat. That said, this generally means firearm use in self defense is used at very close range - usually under 7 meters.

At that range, it seems to me that the option of exchanging fire is not an option at all - even an untrained shooter using an unfamiliar weapons likely to connect. This gives rise to a popular saying in certain circles: better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

Of course, in the case of a home intrusion rules differ even further. In many states, (Texas for example) there is the presumption that someone should not have to retreat from their own home. This is known as the "Castle Doctrine". While less a hard and fast rule, generally speaking the conditions required to employ a weapon in defense are less stringent when in one's one home. If someone kicked down my front door, employing a weapon to stop said person would likely not even result in a trial in most situations in spite of the fact that the distance from where I sit to my door is about 15 meters. The simple act of breaking in is often sufficient to justify the use of lethal force.

In short, there are a number of things that conspire to all but ensure the shooter in this case will not see a trial. The age, the gender, and the fact the even took place in her home. The standards for threat are far more loose when dealing with a pre-teen girl than an adult male.

 

[Zantos]

Silly goose! She should have done what Europeans keep telling us to do! Just stay still, call the cops, wait, and hope for the best. /sarcasm again

Silly Americans, we're just saying you need to be more creative. Anyone can defend themselves with a gun. You'd know if my house got broken into because the news report the next day would be "Yorkshireman defeats home invaders with a banjo, a pint glass, a small jar of coppers and a purple triceratops".

Possibly going on to say how they wanted to interview me, but the interviewer being a southerner did not comprehend all 18 of the different uses of the word "Ar".

If she'd have set up some ingenious traps to hit the dude over the head with tins of paint, now that would be a story. But I suppose we can't all be Macaulay Culkin, well done little girl!

 

[surg3n]

That's awesome, it sends a message to any fucktard who thinks about doing something similar. I had the misfortune of being attacked in a sort of home invasion... 2 nut cases broke into my house because they got the address wrong, beat me up while I slept. Luckily my brother was in the next room, or I could well be pan bread right now. If I had a weapon, then to be completely honest, I'm not sure if I could get to it and use it - it's quite a shock to be woken up with a punch to the mouth. If it was a member of my family, then I could easily shoot someone, stab someone, whatever is required really - that little girl knew she was protecting her family as well as herself, she deserves a medal.

Frankly, you break into someones home, it's fair game IMO, if you do that and end up shot then you deserve everything you get, and probably more. I'm not sure how things work in the US, but in the UK - the prison guards will tell everyone exactly what this guy did, and let whatever happens, happen. It's just the way it is, and nobody wants it any other way. Justice is served in jail, not in court.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It concerns me that the girl was able to so easily access a loaded firearm.

 

[Sansha]

If a stranger enters your home without your permission and you have a gun, well - basically your front door is for his protection, not yours.
You've got to be able to defend yourself and your family if you have to. Making that decision to actually squeeze that trigger has got to be fucking traumatic, but I've decided I'd rather be prosecuted for using force than have myself or my family harmed because I didn't act.

Allow me to reiterate my paragraph.
Why is he being labelled as a "potential rapist" when he hasn't raped anyone, even if by technicality that title is correct, in truth it applies to everyone.

The lock part was a joke, guns seem to the first and only line of defense for a lot of people and I'm just saying they could try fortifying their house. If they had a stronger door or a security screen the girl wouldn't of had to shoot at all and probably wouldn't be traumatized in the slightest.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go edit that post a bit before more people ask the same thing.

Both valid points.

I agree that the intruder shouldn't be labelled as a rapist without information, but the point stands that he was in her bedroom under very illegal and potentially dangerous circumstances, and the girl obviously responded in the way she'd been raised and trained to, to protect herself from scum criminals and potential predators by any means. She should be standing by her decision.

And yes, fortifying one's house should indeed be the first line of defense, but there's only so far a deadbolt and solid oak, which is also classy as hell, front door can get you from someone determined enough to enter your home to loot it and hurt you.

A few years ago somebody broke into my house while I was home, and I chased him half a mile down the road with a machete, screaming that I was going to 'beat him like a runaway slave'. So maybe I'm biased by my own personal feelings of rage and hatred towards people like this.

Thieves and rapists aren't just criminals, they're grossly disrespectful. Someone who steals your camera is not only stealing its face value, but photos you might have in it, and the time it took you to earn the several hundred dollars it cost, and a rapist will take a few minutes of, to him, a forgettable experience to get his rocks off, while causing permanent and horrendous emotional damage to his victim.

I've gone terribly off-topic, but I apologize for nothing. I needed to let this out anyway.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Is there any proof on the whole rapist thing? Because all we seem to know is this guy broke into her house. To me that makes him a burglar, not a rapist. I'm also concerned about how a 12 year old girl had such easy access to a firearm.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I thinks we're all jumping the gun by assuming the intruder is a rapist when the only crime they committed so far was home invasion.
Also damn, America needs better locks.

EDIT: Due to a severe case of misunderstandings allow me to reiterate.
1. The bold means it's a joke -nudge nudge wink wink-
2. I'm pointing out that he shouldn't be labelled as a rapist at all, just a burglar.
3. The Lock part is also a joke, that most Americans see their guns as the first and only line of defence, perhaps investment into a stronger door and security screens would have saved this girls from a traumatic experience.

I completely agree with you, what with the massive stigma against rapists and pedophiles (not unwarranted, mind you), people shouldn't be labelled in that way, even "potentially" unless that was very clearly their intent. It extends beyond prison, there's no chance a sex offender or someone publicly labelled as one would ever be able to hold a decent job after released.

 

[Sansha]

It concerns me that the girl was able to so easily access a loaded firearm.

Is there any proof on the whole rapist thing? Because all we seem to know is this guy broke into her house. To me that makes him a burglar, not a rapist. I'm also concerned about how a 12 year old girl had such easy access to a firearm.

Clearly her parents saw fit to trust her with access to the pistol, and that she was able to retrieve it from wherever it was, hide, cock it, know when to aim and fire under extreme pressue, and hit her target to injure, not kill, tells me that she's obviously been well trained in its mechanical and sensible use.

 

[Sandjube]

That's crazy. People never do this to me when I walk into their homes and take all their belongings from them while they watch.

'Course I usually do that in games, so...

 

[Legion]

Sometimes I feel that this site should change it's name to "The Judgementalist". Or the forums at least should come under that title.

Anyway, I agree that the 'potential rapist' part is just sensationalism. If a person breaks into somebodies home and finds it occupied then the logical trail of thought is going to be to either run in case they call for help, or find them and stop them from doing so.

The fact that he went looking for her does not indicate a sexual motive.

 

[Sansha]

Sometimes I feel that this site should change it's name to "The Judgementalist". Or the forums at least should come under that title.

Anyway, I agree that the 'potential rapist' part is just sensationalism. If a person breaks into somebodies home and finds it occupied then the logical trail of thought is going to be to either run in case they call for help, or find them and stop them from doing so.

The fact that he went looking for her does not indicate a sexual motive.

People like you are why people get fair trials and are considered innocent until proven guilty. Don't ever lose that attitude.

 

[Vegosiux]

Last time I checked, people don't get sanctioned for what they might do, only for what they have done. But hey, whatever makes people sleep eaiser at night, I'm honestly too weary to go though a discussion like this again.

Let people shoot each other's heads off over there for all I care, as long as I know what country not to visit.

 

[Loonyyy]

It concerns me that the girl was able to so easily access a loaded firearm.

Is there any proof on the whole rapist thing? Because all we seem to know is this guy broke into her house. To me that makes him a burglar, not a rapist. I'm also concerned about how a 12 year old girl had such easy access to a firearm.

Clearly her parents saw fit to trust her with access to the pistol, and that she was able to retrieve it from wherever it was, hide, cock it, know when to aim and fire under extreme pressue, and hit her target to injure, not kill, tells me that she's obviously been well trained in its mechanical and sensible use.

Or the pistol was kept loaded, and cocked, or she knew where it was, or she knew how to cock it and/or load it from other sources. There's no reason to decide she was trained in undestanding the mechanisms of the pistol. She was told to get it by her mother, and it says in one of the articles she'd never fired it before in her life.

I've had zero firearms training, just hours of FPS's. I went to a naval display last year and they had a large amount of weapons on display, they let the public handle them. I scared them all by cocking first what I think was a Benelli M3, and then later a FN Five-Seven. It's easy. You pull the slide back. A round will slide into the chamber if it's in the magazine, which you can see as it loads into the breach. Fire selectors are clearly labelled.

Turns out they were rather paranoid about it. I mean, they probably should have removed the firing pins and there wasn't any amunition, so I've no idea why they were scared but yeah. Movies and videogames can teach you the basics of handling a weapon.

As for aim, guns are relatively easy to aim, especially at close range. I'm not deriding her efforts, but it's entirely plausible an untrained person firing blindly at a door can hit someone on the other side. I mean, it's not as if she was doing a lot of thinking about it if she fired at the door. Her intent to injure seems irrelevant-she fired blindly through a door. That says nothing about her training or anything of the sort.

In any case, young children, even if shown how to use a firearm, and taught to respect it, should not be allowed to use it in the absence of a licensed adult. It might end in that child successfully defending themself, as here. Or it might end in the child causing harm to themselves or others. Granted, the mother told her to get the gun, so it may have been locked up or hidden, the story doesn't elaborate. But it's still not something we should be encouraging. A girl did what she was told to do with a firearm by her mother and by the police dispatch. She did not demonstrate that we should be training and arming children to be able to fight of home invaders.

A bit early to judge their firearms training, especially in light of your lack of understanding of the OP, no?

 

[JoJo]

That's pretty awesome, congratulations to the kid, although I disagree with the idea of people keeping guns in their houses (or on their person). For every rare case of a person possibly saved like this, there's accidents and the use of guns for crime to consider. I understand it may be different for our American friends since they have a large border with a poor crime-ridden country (no offence any Mexicans) which guns can leak over into the hands of criminals but I stand by my position in theory at-least.

TL;DR: Please flame me

Self defense cases aren't rare, they outnumber crimes, suicides and accidental deaths using firearms by a substantial ratio, as in multiplicative. http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Thanks for linking that to me, I'll definitely have to do some more research into this topic, however I'm not entirely sold on those particular statistics. 0.5% of the population reporting an incident where they "would have almost certainly been killed if not for a firearm" seems an unrealistically high number and could well include a lot of people exaggerating past events in their own minds. I will have to look for some official statistics some time as I might have to reconsider my position.

Alright, that is really fucking ignorant. As a Mexican I've never EVER been mugged (mind you, I still use public transportation most of the time since I don't like driving in the city because it takes longer than the metro) and have not even witnessed a crime in my 20 years of life. Get your ignorant ideas of how a foreign country works and shove it, it's offensive and would be like saying everyone in South Africa fights lions on a daily basis, just overall ignorant.

EDIT: Also double whammy if you think Americans like and keep guns in their house because of Mexicans.

Woah, chill dude, the "please flame me" bit was a joke. I've never been to Mexico but the statistics speak for themselves:

Spoiler: Homicide stats by country

You've got about 3 times the homicide rate of the U.S. and about 8 times the rate of my native England. Sure, some parts of Mexico may be more dangerous than others but you can't deny there isn't a problem. I never said every Mexican was a criminal.

 

[Sansha]

It concerns me that the girl was able to so easily access a loaded firearm.

Is there any proof on the whole rapist thing? Because all we seem to know is this guy broke into her house. To me that makes him a burglar, not a rapist. I'm also concerned about how a 12 year old girl had such easy access to a firearm.

Clearly her parents saw fit to trust her with access to the pistol, and that she was able to retrieve it from wherever it was, hide, cock it, know when to aim and fire under extreme pressure, and hit her target to injure, not kill, tells me that she's obviously been well trained in its mechanical and sensible use.

A bit early to judge their firearms training, especially in light of your lack of understanding of the OP, no? A bit Judgementalist?

Just as much as you are for the assumption that the gun is kept loaded and live out in the open where children can pick them up like toys. Yeah, I saw that bit of snark before you sneaked it out.

And you don't just do that. You don't just pick up a firearm and cock it like that, even if it's lying on display like that. A gun club will kick your ass out for doing that. It's irresponsible, and your idea of them 'being paranoid' is a bit disturbing. You treat every firearm like it's loaded and live. I agree with you in that children should be entirely supervised when handling firearms, but I'm going to contradict myself a little, given the extreme circumstances she was in, and I personally wouldn't classify a twelve year old as a 'young child'.

I've had very little firearms training, living in a country that grossly suppresses firearm possession, but I can tell you the process of preparing, holding, aiming, firing and reloaded does indeed require some time and practice to get used to, and I can't imagine the mental pressure on you when you're in that very real situation of aiming at and firing on a person who is a potential life-threat. And it's not like they fitted her with a gun and told her to go shoot him, they sent her back to her room to hide with a defensive tool, he came looking, she responded.

Yeah I'm glad this guy wasn't shot and killed, for his sake and the girl's, but for fuck's sake - how hard is it to not invade somebody's home?