“You have to understand… how he going to get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point-of-view.”

Over at the site, Bearing Arms, is a report on a mother of a robber who is mad because an armed employee of the Pizza Hut store her son was robbing killed him with his own concealed carry gun.  The son, and two others attempted to commit armed robbery.  This mom uses the tired argument that I was first offered by a prosecutor back in the 1970s, that robbery isn't a capital crime, and therefore the robber should not be shot.  You can find the story by Tom Knighton here.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that if a man is willing to point a pistol at you, and demand your money (with the implied threat of deadly force for failure to accede to his demand) then what prevents him for going ahead and shooting you anyway? Can someone read a person's mind and know what he is thinking? I certainly can not, and I suspect nobody else can either.  If the prosecuting attorney can read peoples minds, then is he not complicit in the commission of a crime, of which he had foreknowledge?  If a person decides to rob another person at gun point, he should be considered an outlaw, which term used to  mean that a robber is no longer under the protection of the law.  When did we begin to protect the law breaker rather than the law abiding?

Knighton:   

This, of course, is standard operating procedure after some criminal scumbag is killed committing a crime. Invariably, they begin to lash out and claim the shooter was out of line. Perhaps the most famous example was the cousin of Trevon Johnson, who was shot and killed after breaking into a woman’s home, who famously said, “You have to understand… how he going to get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point-of-view.”

No, we don’t.

I get that people are upset that their loved one is dead. I get that. I also get the frustration that they are dead because of the actions of another human being who apparently won’t be punished. However, it’s also important to understand why that person won’t be punished. Self-defense is a basic human right. No one is required to accept being hurt by criminals, which means they get to fight back. Sometimes, the good guys are better or faster than the bad guys, and we get a case like this one.

Of course, I understand why the editors of newspapers allow such tripe to be reported in their pages. Most editors have a bias against guns, at least other peoples guns, and believe the general reader won't be able to see the illogical arguments on display.

For the record, I do believe that one should give up stuff rather than risk taking a life if that is possible.  But one doesn't always, or even unusually have that ability.  That is why we carry guns.