Eturnalshift wrote:
It doesn't matter who they are. They broke into her house brandishing a weapon and she killed one of them.
It absolutely matters. We don't know what their intention was or what brought them there. All we know for a fact is that this woman shot them. For all we know, she could have invited them to establish a pretext, or she could have stolen something of theirs, or engaged in some sort of extremely instigatory behavior.
When you establish a legitimate excuse to kill people, people who want to kill people will exploit that excuse. So any such usage of that excuse must be subject to the closest scrutiny.
Until the motivations of the other party can be established, leaping to judgement is premature. And the absence of those motivations is a serious question.
Why don't we know?EDIT: There are other things that don't quite make sense.
The article says he came at her with a hunting knife. Did the two sides know the other was armed before the door came down? If so, why did they risk an engagement against someone with a gun? If not, why didn't she tell them? If she knew one had a knife before he came in, how did she know? Also, was only one man armed, or were both of them? If both, what was the other man armed with? Who does the knife actually belong to?
She was on the phone with the cops. Did the intruders know that? If so, why did they continue the attempt given it would be highly unlikely they would get away with it?
She barricaded the door with a couch - why didn't she just lock it? It takes a very strong man to knock a door off its hinges. And if that's what they did, again, why did they do it? What was the motive? Why not just leave and come back later when she's less wary? Why not knock out a window or assault the back door or something, especially since they outnumber her and thus could attack two points of entry simultaneously?
Why did they risk an engagement at all? Why did they not just attack her in her sleep, or slip in when she wasn't there? If they were just plain crazy, is there evidence to that effect?
The man was charged with burglary (implying his intent wasn't homicide by way of insanity). Was there something specific he was looking to steal? If so, how did he know it was there? If not, then why did he choose that target? And why do it when the resident is clearly present and alert?
If the guy was just insane, then why were there
two of them? One crazy guy I can imagine. Two, though? What's their shared goal? If they're a gang of two out for loot then why go for such a problematic target?
