Samurai Defense

CNN: “Johns Hopkins student kills apparent burglar with sword

Authorities are determining whether the student will face criminal charges, Guglielmi said.

Naturally, there should be some investigation of the nature of the incident, but if someone breaks into your home and you confront him with a sword and he attacks you….just what should he expect? (And yes, it’s logically possible that the college students kidnapped a burglar who was recently released from prison, trapped him in the garage, and then attacked him for fun. But not likely. So ask questions and determine what happened, but if the student was defending himself, he’s not the one who’s legally or morally responsible for the death of the intruder.)

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2 Responses to “Samurai Defense”

  1. Whether the burglar attacked the student or not. As SOON as you enter someone else’s house with the intent to steal or do harm. You have lost your right to humanity, and to be treated humanely.
    PERIOD.

    For the police to have the audacity to even comment “Authorities are determining whether the student will face criminal charges”, those police should be shot. On the spot.

    Hand gun or sword. If you break into someone’s house, you better be prepared to lose your life. How much more simple can you make this clear?

  2. Tom G. Palmer

    That strikes me as a regrettable overstatement. The police should not “be shot,” on the spot or not. They should make an investigation regarding what happened and the students should enjoy the presumption of innocence, magnified by the fact that they were in their own home. But it’s the business of law enforcement to investigate in order to determine the facts of the case. The wording “determining whether the student will face criminal charge” is bizarre, to be sure, because there should be a presumption that self-defense is entirely legitimate. But the first question is to determine that the dead man had, indeed, broken in, that is, that the account as given by the students is correct, or at least the most likely account.

    In any case, if you break into a person’s house, you certainly should not be surprised if you are met with deadly force.

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