“Make my day” gun laws

Guns are back in the news, or perhaps more correctly, still in the news, this time in Colorado.  A 22-year-old man drove home with a blood alcohol of 0.26, three times the legal limit.  He drove to the wrong house, beat on the front door hollering obscenities when he could not get in, went to the back door beating on it while hollering more obscenities, and then broke a window, reaching in to unlock the deadbolt.  At that point, the homeowner, who had been on the phone with police the entire time, shot him twice, killing him.

The laws allowing you to use lethal force to protect your home and family have various names; in Colorado, it is the “make my day” law.  Although the term plays nicely into the anti-gun lobby, it is entirely inaccurate, insinuating that people who lawfully own guns are hoping for the opportunity to shoot and kill someone.  Nothing could be further from the truth, regardless of the absurdities propagated.

Gun critics falsely claim Colorado’s law lessens the accountability and responsibility of gun owners, claiming they use these laws as “get out of jail free cards.”  The critics refer to these laws as “shoot to kill” laws and claim this case is a classic example of a fatal shooting that the homeowner should have avoided by escaping out the front door of his home.  Instead, the law allowed him to “make his day” by legally “shooting to kill” the intruder. 

People who understand guns and home safety know it would have been dangerous for the homeowner to flee out the front door with no idea of whether he was fleeing to safety or fleeing to his death into the line of fire of other criminals.  Although fearing for his safety and life in his home, he had a “controlled” situation, knowing where the confrontation was coming from and how to deal with it.

This is an unfortunate death and an avoidable death; but the critics’ opinions on how this could have been avoided are illogical and irrational.  The only way to have avoided this death would have been for this young man not to have gotten mind-numbing drunk.  He is responsible for his choices and he alone.  Colorado is just fortunate this irresponsible young man did not kill innocent people with his car while driving in a drunken stupor.  Did he deserve to die?  No, but his choices dictated the outcome.

Perhaps, as critics suggest, the homeowner should have cared enough to shoot to wound him.  A statement like this comes from someone with no knowledge or training in firearms.  Only in the movies do they shoot to wound; in real life if you must fire your weapon, you fire two rounds to center mass body to stop the person.  The sole intent is to stop the threat. 

The real victim in this sad incident?  The homeowner who must now live with the knowledge that he killed a fellow human being.  Yes, he is the victim, an innocent person forced into a situation he had no wish to be in.

Moreover, legal gun owners are not hoping to find themselves in a situation where they can shoot and kill someone.  To the contrary, defensive gun classes stress trying to see a bad situation before it escalates and, if safely possible, flee the situation, the key word “safely.”

Civilians, police personnel, and military personnel live with life-long pain when they are forced to take a human life.  I have yet to meet a gun owner who feels any differently.  I have yet to meet a gun owner who hopes for the opportunity to kill a fellow human being.  I have yet to meet a gun owner who takes lightly gun ownership, gun safety, and gun responsibility.  I have yet to meet a gun owner who takes lightly their constitutional right to gun ownership.  Although exceptions probably exist, the exceptions cannot guide the rule.

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