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