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Joshy

Blade Runner Headshot

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Whoops, sorry if you thought I was talking about Harrison Ford shooting Leon in the head (or was it Rachael, I can't remember). This time, it's Oscar Pistorius and his girlfriend.

SOUTH AFRICAN Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murder after he allegedly shot and killed his model girlfriend.
Local media initially reported that the 26-year-old mistook Reeva Steenkamp for an intruder inside his Pretoria home. South African police said they were unaware of this.
A police spokeswoman said there had been previous incidents at the address, describing them as ‘‘allegations of a domestic nature’’. She said neighbours had been questioned over reports of an argument heard earlier in the night.

The swimsuit-model and law graduate was shot four times, including in the head and arm, and died at the scene at 4am Thursday local time.


One thing I can't seem to grasp; why shoot to kill when an 'intruder' is inside your house? There is no way to morally or ethically justify a headshot. Just overwhelmed by this sheer idiocy. I have no intentions of participating in a gun control debate, just that hearing about how this happened was pretty shocking. Not exactly a nice Valentine's Day gift!

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Joshy said:

Whoops, sorry if you thought I was talking about Harrison Ford shooting Leon in the head (or was it Rachael, I can't remember).


It was Rachael.

RIP Brion James


I am sorely disappointed this isn't a Blade Runner thread.

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Back in high school for mother's day there was a student that found her mother chopped in pieces in a trunk in the garage by her father. My high school had some mega violent crimes to students. There was another student that was stabbed 80 times because she walked in on her neighbor robbing her house.

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Joshy said:

why shoot to kill when an 'intruder' is inside your house? There is no way to morally or ethically justify a headshot.


So that you don't have to discover the intruder's intentions, possibly at the cost of your own health and life? For all you know they would do the same to you, or worse.

Unless there's an intruder's moral code or something, or the intruders in your part of the world come with written guarantees (e.g. "You will receive no more than a light beating, and no anal rapes, however demands to perform forced fellatio on them must be abided to. Also, all intruders are certified to be free of substances and STDs, and shall carry weapons no more powerful than a billyclub, a knife with a blade under 4" and/or a 9x19mm handgun or equivalent revolver with a maximum of 5 units ammunition, plus one in the chamber")

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Joshy said:

One thing I can't seem to grasp; why shoot to kill when an 'intruder' is inside your house?

<Inb4 darkreaver>
It's South Africa. Life is cheap, violence is rampant, home invasions often end in the death of one or more of the occupants and it almost appears to be open season on whites.

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I still wouldn't kill someone. Personally, I would have went the weaponless route: quickly inspected the person from a distance, ring up the police (not when I'm in the house obviously), and go to my neighbours. It is a hypothetical situation though, so it can't be planned accordingly all the time. If I really needed a weapon to fend off potential unwanted sexual activities, wouldn't a taser gun do the trick? A taser gun may have the ability to kill, but its lethality is certainly a lot less than a semi-automatic pistol, and its function a lot more reasonable.

It does appear the shooting may be a crime of passion. Four gunshots to immobilise a 'burglar'? I don't think so. Either way, the guy's an idiot.

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GreyGhost said:

<Inb4 darkreaver>
It's South Africa. Life is cheap, violence is rampant, home invasions often end in the death of one or more of the occupants and it almost appears to be open season on whites.

Yeah, South Africa isn't exactly an ideal country; I can't really have a say in how guns should be used in the country, but I do know that there are much better options than shooting for the kill..

And don't you mean DeathevokatioN? :P

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I'm not sure you understand what it's like to be afraid for your life. I would gauge that most people in these situations don't want to kill anyone, either. They just want to stop them.

So while TASERs are nice, unfortunately they don't yet match the stopping power of bullets.

Aside: leaving your house is statistically the safest option in these cases, though, so you're right on that.

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Joshy said:

I still wouldn't kill someone. Personally, I would have went the weaponless route: quickly inspected the person from a distance, ring up the police (not when I'm in the house obviously), and go to my neighbours. It is a hypothetical situation though, so it can't be planned accordingly all the time. If I really needed a weapon to fend off potential unwanted sexual activities, wouldn't a taser gun do the trick? A taser gun may have the ability to kill, but its lethality is certainly a lot less than a semi-automatic pistol, and its function a lot more reasonable.

I'm pretty strongly in favour of gun control, but I have to admit that a Taser isn't really a viable weapon if you're defending a home, for the simple fact that a home invasion might involve more than one person and most Tasers are single-shot weapons. What you describe might be reasonable in civilized western countries but I'm not so sure for a country like South Africa.

I'd guess his mistake was shooting too quickly before having properly assessed the situation to see who it was. Like you say, he's an idiot. I suspect living with the consequences of his own actions is probably punishment enough for him in this case.

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Joshy said:

One thing I can't seem to grasp; why shoot to kill when an 'intruder' is inside your house? There is no way to morally or ethically justify a headshot

If you're questioning why he didn't opt to go for a 'disabling' shot instead; this is actually 'correct' self-defense theory. You do not shoot someone unless you intend to kill them. Trying to shoot someone in the leg or whatever only works in TV/movies.

The above opinion does not reflect my own. I agree with you that it's unjustifiable to kill someone for entering your house.

In college, there was a showing of Bowling for Columbine with an open discussion afterwards relating to gun, societal violence, etc. It was really eye-opening to see the differences in opinion. An argument came up about home intrusion (there's a Canadian women in the movie who refuses to lock her door, even when local teens occasionally steal minor things), and the pro-gun people seemed to take it for granted that someone entering your residence has forfeited their life. Obviously your possessions are worth more than a stranger's life! Duh!

In SA things might be different; I don't know if home intruders there often murder the residents or something, but it still seems absurd.

I also wonder what this will do for paralympians. Pistorius was a pretty big deal on US TV, but now there will be an enormous asterix next to his name in all the history books.

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Those that claim that "they will pull out a taser" clearly have no idea how an actual physical assault (and not a karate match at the Olympics) usually works out: it's VERY short, it's brutal, and it's definitively not "played by the rules". There's no "respect bow" nor "time to gauge" your adversary. Everything is judged in a blink of an eye and before you know it you have received a blow or you're pinned to the ground by your adversaries' body weight.

Under these circumstances, using a taser vs a physically superior assailant might be impossible, even if you have it on-hand and readied all of the time, for the simple reason that they might simply surprise you with a backswing, a kick or whole-body slam or there will be often more than one assailant.

If it's a contact model, forget it: it needs several seconds of UNINTERRUPTED CONTACT with an attacker's SKIN (not clothes) to be effective. Forget "hit and sting" tactics: they'll just irritate the assailant and have them shove the taser up your ass. If they are drunk or on coke, they might even shun off the effects of a taser.

If you have a law-enforcement-grade one (with shootable barbs) you have a bit better chances, but not against multiple assailants.

david_a said:

If you're questioning why he didn't opt to go for a 'disabling' shot instead; this is actually 'correct' self-defense theory. You do not shoot someone unless you intend to kill them.


Even police training manuals don't bother making this distinction anymore: the technical term used is often "stopping" or "disabling" someone. The exact mechanism and medical/legal consequences of doing so are often handwaved, but let's say that it's better to be wearing a badge/uniform and be on the right side of the "legitimate monopoly of violence" (the one ADMINISTERING it) if you're forced to shoot someone.

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The SA police have said there's no evidence this was a case of mistaken identity. It appears to have been a deliberate homicide, one that follows on from previous domestic incidents, so the discussion around tactics for dealing with home invasions appears to be moot in this case.

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fraggle said:

I'd guess his mistake was shooting too quickly before having properly assessed the situation to see who it was. Like you say, he's an idiot. I suspect living with the consequences of his own actions is probably punishment enough for him in this case.

Honestly, with the latest gun craze, this situation seems entirely understandable if you live in the U.S.

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Kind of ironic. Dude would be stuck in a wheelchair unable to hurt anybody if it wasn't for modern medicine, and now he's killing people. I remember reading his story a few months back and finding it inspiring. Quite the reminder progress goes both ways.

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Phml said:

Dude would be stuck in a wheelchair unable to hurt anybody if it wasn't for modern medicine, and now he's killing people.

You can still shoot people from a wheelchair.

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Real life isn't exactly a binary switch. Ease of use and window of opportunity are important, even more so in life and death situations.

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Technician said:

You can still shoot people from a wheelchair.

he wouldn't date that model though.

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Maes said:

So that you don't have to discover the intruder's intentions, possibly at the cost of your own health and life? For all you know they would do the same to you, or worse.

What about, instead of shooting at the target, shoot elsewhere, just to warn the intruder? Does everything have to be killing?

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I can clearly detect so many people that have not been in this situation before.

EDIT: And no, I am not supporting the blade runner's story to be clear. Like how he fired multiple shots through the bathroom door...even though I'm all for shooting silent, middle of the night intruders (why the fuck are you in my home like this if you don't want trouble), what he did was pretty malicious it seems to me.

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printz said:

What about, instead of shooting at the target, shoot elsewhere, just to warn the intruder? Does everything have to be killing?

Sounds like a good way of getting yourself killed to me.

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printz said:

What about, instead of shooting at the target, shoot elsewhere, just to warn the intruder? Does everything have to be killing?


In principle, it sounds like a good idea, as it might scare the attacker shitless and show them you're not fucking around. 50% of them, at least. The other 50% will get pissed off and not hesitate to assault you right there and then, seeing that they -literally- have nothing to lose.

However it's not without risks. First off, you might hit something/someone else (even OUTSIDE your house), depending on the weapon's power. Are you sure you will be able to aim considerately and coldly when selecting a "warning shot" target? Then there's always the risk of ricocheting, which means that, without a target to stop the bullets' force, you might catch lead too (and the attacker, despite your intentions not to (yet)).

You can minimize this risk if you use a shotgun loaded with medium-sized pellets or even birdshot (this also decreases the chances of mortally wounding someone, though they might have to remove a few hundred pellets from his body one by one after you pepper him, and at close range a swarm of a few hundred birdshots are capable of sawing trees in half).

Also, unless you use a semi-auto weapon, firing a warning shot will leave you with one shot less (and possibly a discharged/unarmed weapon). You DON'T want that to happen if the attacker is merely pissed off by your "intimidation" attempt.

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