Artificial Devide

If you haven't seen it, there was a case in Texas where a man saw two men robbing his neighbors house, called 911, and offered to take his shotgun and stop them. The dispatcher told him not to do this, as many as eleven times according to news reports. On the other hand, Mr. Horn, the 911 caller, said that the men were looking at his house, and that he was scared, and that he had the right to defend himself. This went on for quite some time, and most, if not all of the 911 call is available online, if you wish to hear it for yourself. Ultimately Mr. Horn did go outside, and can be heard on the tape firing his shotgun several times, both of the robbers died of their wounds, and both were, apparently, in Mr. Horns yard when he shot them.

First, there is an understandable dispute over how Mr. Horn handled this situation, in that, perhaps he shouldn't have gone outside. Of course, I wasn't there, so I can't be sure of all the circumstances, so I don't know if he should have shot these men or not. If he really shot them out of a vigilante spirit, taking the law into his own hands, then that is wrong. There was a time in history when that was the way things were, and people had no choice but to take the law into their own hands, but in this day and age, it cannot be allowed. If, on the other hand, he honestly felt threatened, and thought that his life, or his property were in danger, that they were indeed coming to his house next, then he was well within his rights to shoot them. So far Mr. Horn has not been charged, though he still could be, but that is being left up to a Grand Jury.

Where things get ridiculous in the whole thing is that people are trying to play the race card. You see, Mr. Horn is white, and the two men, total thugs with long criminal histories as it turns out, were black. Of course, the tape gives absolutely no indications whatsoever that this shooting was in any way racially motivated. The entire issue is either about vigilantism, or self protection, and the debate should rest there. Yet the Black Panthers are out marching, calling for his head on a platter because he shot two black men. My problem here is that the race issue should not be brought up without serious evidence that it was a causal factor in the situation, and in this situation, there is no such evidence.

People have the right to protest, and it makes sense if they honestly don't believe he should have shot the two men at all, regardless of race. Where I take issue is that if these two men had been white, all else being equal, those who are protesting now would be strangely silent.

All of this being said, if it came out someday down the road (which I doubt it will, as it likely would have already) that Mr. Horn was a white supremacist, and had been talking about how much he'd like to kill a black (or any generic non-white) person, then this would be a very different scenario, and it would be understandable for black groups (and I would hope a lot of non-black persons as well) to be calling for his conviction and punishment, but, as I said before, there is no indication of that in this case, at this point.

On another point, I also just read a story where a 29 year old man took his ex-girlfriend (30) and her 7 year old daughter, as well as one of the mothers friends, hostage and making the mothers friend drive the car. They stopped for gas, and the friend took the opportunity to call 911, the first 911 operator hung up on her, according to her statement, then, when she called back, she was told that there was no-one available to come to their aide. The gas station attendant noticed that the woman was crying, and she told him what was going on, and he also called 911, while he was on the phone, he heard gunshots. The 29 year old man shot his ex girlfriend twice, at which time her seven year old daughter jumped over the seat to protect her mother and begged the man to stop, he proceeded to shoot the girl six times. Miraculously, both survived, and are expected to fully recover, and the police did come and arrest the man.

It's hard to believe that this kind of thing happens. There are so many wildly unreal things about this story, and it is such a sad commentary on where our culture is, that people think so much of themselves that a man would even attempt to kill a child out of his selfish anger. And yet it is also a marvelous story of God's mercy that both the mother and her child survived the ordeal. What does this say about our world?