Homeowner arrested for firing warning shot – Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston. A listener asked us about this on Facebook today. So, I thought I’d post my answer…
“On the warning shot arrest, I can see both sides of that incident and frankly, I think the woman from Crime Stoppers was talking out of her butt. She was right however, when she said that standards of reasonableness are (or should be) applied when police believe an offense has occurred. I quite honestly think the police might have been right on this one based on their explanation that the homeowner did not express a belief he was in immediate danger of bodily harm when he discharged that round.
One must keep in mind that simply displaying a firearm in public, or in front of another person, qualifies as aggravated assault (we don’t have a “brandishing” law in Texas). So the rule of thumb is that if you’re not justified in shooting someone, you aren’t often justified in pointing a gun at them either. At the very least, you must be justified in using force. In this case, the homeowner could argue he was justified in using force (but not deadly force) to prevent a burglary or theft in the nighttime but, discharging the firearm is in fact deadly force (even though he fired into ground) and that’s where he steps beyond the standards of reasonableness applied by the investigating officers.”
– Gary
I have to agree with you Gary. You should never ever point your gun at someone unless you are justified in doing so.
I will say this though, had that homeowner been smart, he would have said that he was afraid for his life and shot, but missed…. though not sure that would go over well either.
I hope that I never had to draw my weapon, but if I ever do, rest assured it won’t be to make a threat or warn someone off… it will be because I intend on pulling the trigger and I am justified in doing so.
When your land and property is being threaten and damaged then I don’t care what means are use to keep the bad guys away.
No one is arguing the homeowner in this case didn’t have the right to defend himself or his property. At issue is question of whether or not it was necessary and reasonable to use deadly force in this situation. No one will say he wasn’t justified in telling the burglars to leave and telling them that he had a gun as a threat of deadly force. But, based on his statements to the responding officers, it was determined that he stepped over the line and committed an offense of his own by discharging a round into the ground as a “warning.” The fact he was simply charged with a misdemeanor local ordinance violation (discharging a firearms in city limits) indicates to me that they were going easy on him. They could have handled it more like they did in Florida with Melissa Alexander.