There are many problems with guns in America. One of them is the underlying belief of many that you are allowed to defend yourself with lethal force. While this is true on VERY rare occasions, those hardly justify our national ideology of self-dependence in self-defense. Forget about the fact that most people are never put in the situation facing the man in this story — for those who are, this story is a great depiction of how having a gun makes it MUCH more likely that someone will be injured or killed during a crime.

The bottom line question that we SHOULD all ask: when do common citizens have the right to invoke the death penalty on other citizens? This is expressed well by the mother of the dead person in her grief. Yes, the 19 year old was involved in a robbery. But the last time I checked, we don’t allow the death penalty for robberies, even when it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s entirely possible the dead person should be doing jail time right now, but that’s no longer an option. Because a home owner with a gun KILLED him.

Please note: the attached story is not incredibly detailed, but I did some extra digging. IF the car was attempting to run down the person with a gun, then I will reluctantly say that self-defense may have been justified. But the details don’t play out on that.

So what went wrong here:
1. there was a potential burglary happening (this is bad)
2. home owner got his gun (not unreasonable if you have a legal gun)
and then the problems arise:
3. the home owner did not call 911 and wait for police to arrive
4 the home owner left his house to confront the potential burglars, choosing to potentially take the law into his own hands. I don’t care if it was on his property, this was STUPID for several reasons:
a. what if they had guns?
b. what if he they point a gun at him and injure/kill him?
c. what if he responds by firing his gun, possibly harming a neighbor (since actually hitting what you are shooting at in that situation is statistically highly unlikely)
d. what if he responds by firing his gun in fear, even when he wasn’t likely to be immediately harmed, but he acted out of stress?
e. and then, a human being died.

I know some gun trainers and advocates, and I’m pretty sure all of them will say that if the home owner was properly trained, he would have called 911 and would not have left his house. The problem is, he was scared (as he should be in that situation!) and when people act out of fear they do stupid things. And when guns are involved, “stupid” significantly increases the chance of harm, and possibly death. And then, if you are a basically decent human being as this home owner appears to be, a lifetime of remorse.

So sure, your gun may make you feel safer. But we know from facts and evidence that it doesn’t actually make you safer. And sometimes, it may make you an executioner.