Man Kills Two Teens Robbers

[Valenhil]

What part of the rest of the world? The largest mass murder of people with guns didn't even occur in the US.

What's mass murder got to do with anything here?

[Moadar]

I totally agree that they shouldn't have intruded, but how do we make sure that happens? Hmm, well, like i said before crime prevention>retribution.

I'm all for crime prevention. But I can also empathize with the guy and anyone else that did something crazy while in danger.

[Sealed Shut]

I say kids because i recognize the fact that that young people do stupid things, which is true. And what they did was stupid. I don't however think they deserved to be executed because of that. And like i said, im not promoting home invaders or criminals in general. I think that peaceful crime prevention should be a priority instead of arming a population so that its people kill each other.

Nothing peaceful in my link... now imagine if the family DID have weapons and were able to shoot and kill the home invaders? and 11 and 17 year old innocent girls would be alive as well as their mother. I live very peacefully in my home, with my family, knowing that if some criminal ever broke in, both my wife and I know where the weapons are, know how to use them, and would protect our property and family.

What about the peace of the family who's home has been broken into who will now live in fear that someone will break in when they sleep? There is nothing peaceful about a home invasion, NOTHING. it destroys the safe and secure feeling you deserve to have while being in your home.

[Deleted]

Considering that he used a .22 revolver on the girl, the "execution" shot was a mercy killing, not a finishing blow out of malice. She would have bled to death on his basement floor from multiple gun shot wounds so he gave her a clean death.

[Rukentuts]

I'm all for crime prevention. But I can also empathize with the guy and anyone else that did something crazy while in danger.

I can empathize for maybe the first shots, not the execution style shots to the head however. That crossed the line between self-defense and murder.

[namelessone]

So glad I'm not in the US... Soooo glad I'm not in the US.
You can see the old man's proud of killing 2 people on the flimsiest justification. Defending his home shouldn't have been mentioned not even once on this thread because that's not what he did.

Have your house ever been broken into when you were in it? This experience can scar you for the rest of your life. My house is my fortress. I rely on it for my security and privacy. And I will protect it, guns or no guns.

My opinion is the guy did go overboard with execution - it was unnecessary and inhumane. But I can't feel pity for those 18 year old "kids".

[Rukentuts]

Considering that he used a .22 revolver on the girl, the "execution" shot was a mercy killing, not a finishing blow out of malice. She would have bled to death on his basement floor from multiple gun shot wounds so he gave her a clean death.

It doesn't matter according to MN state law. Once she was down she was no longer a threat and thus use of deadly force is illegal.

People need to stop assuming what our law is and actually read it.

[Sealed Shut]

No, because a gun can kill someone in an instant, if you want to kill someone with a spoon, it will take considerably more effort. Or for that matter a knife, which is a little more realistic. You have to run into range of the intruder, giving them time to escape and entirely avoid violent conflict.

I don't know about you, but i'd rather die from a gun shot then whatever torturous long time it would take to die from a spoon.

[maxalyss]

What's mass murder got to do with anything here?

Uh oh, some kid with Mass Murder on the mind...there go my movie plans for this weekend.

[Alkin]

Nothing peaceful in my link... now imagine if the family DID have weapons and were able to shoot and kill the home invaders? and 11 and 17 year old innocent girls would be alive as well as their mother. I live very peacefully in my home, with my family, knowing that if some criminal ever broke in, both my wife and I know where the weapons are, know how to use them, and would protect our property and family.

What about the peace of the family who's home has been broken into who will now live in fear that someone will break in when they sleep? There is nothing peaceful about a home invasion, NOTHING. it destroys the safe and secure feeling you deserve to have while being in your home.

So PREVENT home invasion rather than kill the people doing it. As i have said numerous times. Then you don't need guns. Once again; prevention>retribution.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Let me tell you a story about a danish guy that doesn't involve any dying.
This elder guy got very unpopular drawing the prophet muhammed with a bomb in his turban some years back. A lot of people that is just like some in here, took great offence and want him dead for it, so the police protected him for a while. That cost money, so after a while they stopped with fulltime manning his house, but gave him an emergency-button he could press if need should ever arise.
They also made a protected room in his house.
So one day some somalian guy with a freaking axe (no kidding) comes in and try to kill him. What does he do? Drag out the arsenal of weapons he could have gottn in the years of waiting for this? No. This guy runs to the safetyroom, and press the button that calls the police.
Very anticlimatic, i know.

Being scared of course, but he's safe in that room, and the police get this clumsy would-be-murderer, and both are still alive today(one is in jail obviously).

My point is you can be safe from harm without killing people. You could even make your bedroom such a room, so you could sleep through all these theives that always want to kill you.
Yes you might lose money, but if your insureanced you get that back. If police is fast enough they might even catch them.
Get some heavey securityalarms, bars for the windows and some good entrance doors if you don't just jump up and down for the experience to kill a friend when she enters some night to check up on you.

My parents got robbed 1½ year back or so. Those theives had been very very persistent, spending almost an hour trying to get in with tools. My parents wasn't home so they finally managed to get in and stole a computer to around 50 euros value for them at best. If they've been home they could just have turned on the light to make them rum. Or called the police and seen a movie while they tried to get in.

Get a security-room if you think people is going to myrder you. Otherwise live like the rest of the world.

Nice story, but the problem with that is, as some see it, is giving their power to simply live and exist over to someone who can come take it and anything they work for, and their responsibility is simply to run and hide, i understand that frustration, even tho i share it totally.


It's like being caught over board a ship, tide is coming and someone on the ship throws you a float, but it can only hold on of you up, and the waves are literally within minutes of drowning one of you.



Who is to say, who gets to live who gets to die, and what that means? You? See, I don't think so, if someone breaks in your home it isn't up to you to take the moral high ground, perhaps in life it would be better if everybody did, but the one thing no legal system on earth can account for is just how moral people are obligated to be, I mean we do TRY, i know we have laws like Good Samaritan laws and all that, But in reality, the problem with convicting people based on a criteria like that is that WHO is ultimately going to decide those kinds of things.


While we might have many things in common, each of use has to make choices on the kinds of people we want to be, those two kids decided they wanted to Rob this old man, that is where the blame belongs, not this man, because he did perhaps whatever he thought was needed to save his life.

[Deleted]

"According to his friends, Smith said that he had didn’t go to police immediately after the shooting because he panicked about the deaths.
'He was very traumatized by what had occurred and didn’t know who to call or what to do and that is very sad that the whole thing even happened,' Kathy Lange told KSTP-TV.
His brother, Bruce Smith, said that this was the latest of eight burglaries in recent years.
Byron Smith said that he suspected that the two had been responsible for at least some of those past robberies.
Neighbours told the Star Tribune he kept to himself, but they complained that he regularly shot guns on his property and said they were concerned children playing nearby could be hurt"

[damescool]

I don't have a problem with him defending his home, but I do have a problem with him shooting the one in the face after he already shot him and he fell down the stairs. Seems like at that point the kid is no longer a threat and he should have called police.

I believe the police are in the right to charge him because he went too far. At that point he was no longer defending his home but attacking, as the kid was no longer a threat to him.

also, inb4 'dailymail sucks!' blah blah blah

Here is a local(ish) newspaper to Little Falls -> http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/eve...cle/id/250877/

i'm from Duluth, Mn. and it is big news here, they set such a high bail for him, not because he's a flight risk, but to protect him. which is probably the right thing to do, some other crazy person will probably kill him before it ever gets to trial if he is released.

i still cant believe such a terrible thing happened here, this guy is off his rocker. he executed these poor teens, and he's a big fat liar, a girl who gets shot and falls down stairs lying next to her dead 17yr old cousin would not laugh she would be terrified and screaming in pain. then he shoots her under the chin thru the skull, wtf! thats an execution of 2 teens. hell awaits this man, but i hope no one takes him out, as that will just put that person behind bars and buy them another ticket to hell, so keep him in jail, and lets watch this crazy guy goto trial.

[maxalyss]

I don't know about you, but i'd rather die from a gun shot then whatever torturous long time it would take to die from a spoon.

Or a knife? Some people just don't realize the lethality on a knife.

[Alkin]

I don't know about you, but i'd rather die from a gun shot then whatever torturous long time it would take to die from a spoon.

You would probably have the advantage over someone attacking you with a spoon, to be perfectly honest.

[namelessone]

So PREVENT home invasion rather than kill the people doing it. As i have said numerous times. Then you don't need guns. Once again; prevention>retribution.

Protection > retribution.

[Sealed Shut]

So PREVENT home invasion rather than kill the people doing it. As i have said numerous times. Then you don't need guns. Once again; prevention>retribution.

Please, pray tell how you would prevent either the OP's story, or the one i linked???

[Wildtree]

Since he is allowed to use Deadly Force, which suggest he is allowed to kill them I don't see what can be over the top. Killing them is killing them which is allowed, shouldn't matter what he does beyond that point. Though I agree its unfortunate that they died. That doesn't mean the homeowner should be charged with second-degree murder. Think of it like this, you get less pay in your paycheck if you work harder. That is the same thing that happen to him, he got charged because he went over the top (with the top being the teens being dead already). Atleast that is what it sounds to me.

you have a misconception here.

It's legal to use deadly force, means a gun or another deadly weapon/tool.
It is not illegal that if the deadly force is used, and the cause of the use is dead because it happened in affect.
(watch out here, one doesn't automatically include the other)

The ballgame changes if you disabled the threat, and then you continue by executing the - at that point - victim.

[Deleted]

They had robbed him in the past,they got what was coming to them.

[Alkin]

Or a knife? Some people just don't realize the lethality on a knife.

Still not as lethal as a gun though is it? Still have to run into range though don't you? No one said it was hard to kill someone with a knife.