print“Joe Horn of Pasadena, Texas, is a wanted man—wanted in almost every other neighborhood across the US. I suspect Horn would even be welcomed in liberal enclaves. Secretly, every liberal hopes to have a Joe Horn around when his possessions or the people he loves are
threatened.
Mr. Horn is admired by many because he blew away two career criminals who’d burglarized his next-door neighbor’s home. The two illegal aliens were slinking away from the scene of the crime, crowbar and loot in hand, when Horn stopped them dead in their tracks with his 12-gauge shotgun. …
Horn in action was how men sounded and acted BE: Before Emasculation. …”
The complete column is “Joe Horn: Wanted Man…And A Hero.”
Update (July 5): I wrote: “Confronted with a home invader, there’s precious little a homeowner can do to divine the intentions of the intruder.” And “Someone eager to violate another’s inner sanctum will be more than willing to violate the occupant.”
I’m dismayed that on this very blog, people are still whining and crying for the loss of brutes who were probably perfectly prepared to kill if the muse struck them. I’m amazed at the watered-down waffling (with a few commendable exceptions) that has ensued, each writer straining to sound more empathetic about the intruders than the next.
Look at this thug, Hernando Riascos Torres, for heaven’s sake! What about this specimen, Diego Ortiz?
Fancy your little girls lying in their pink cots as these “people with families” roam your home? I have to say that the oozing for evil unfolding on my blog is more twisted than the evil incarnate itself.
Excellent point Ms. Mercer. Obviously the great Mr. Rothbard himself would have agreed wholeheartedly that in situations like these, the man acting in self defense should not be subject to an unreasonable burden in justifying his use of violence against an attacker. I think this passage from “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution” supports your view, and is worth quoting at length:
“How much force may a victim use to defend either his person or his property against invasion? Here we must reject as hopelessly inadequate the current legal doctrine that he may use only “reasonable” force, which in most cases has reduced the victim’s right to defend himself virtually to a nullity.[26] In current law, a victim is only allowed to use maximal, or “deadly” force, (a) in his own home, and then only if he is under direct personal attack; or (b) if there is no way that he can retreat when he is personally under attack. All this is dangerous nonsense. Any personal attack might turn out to be a murderous one; the victim has no way of knowing whether or not the aggressor is going to stop short of inflicting a grave injury upon him. The victim should be entitled to proceed on the assumption that any attack is implicitly a deadly one, and therefore to use deadly force in return.
In current law, the victim is in even worse straits when it comes to defending the integrity of his own land or movable property. For there, he is not even allowed to use deadly force in defending his own home, much less other land or properties. The reasoning seems to be that since a victim would not be allowed to kill a thief who steals his watch, he should therefore not be able to shoot the thief in the process of stealing the watch or in pursuing him. But punishment and defense of person or property are not the same, and must be treated differently. Punishment is an act of retribution after the crime has been committed and the criminal apprehended, tried, and convicted. Defense while the crime is being committed, or until property is recovered and the criminal apprehended, is a very different story. The victim should be entitled to use any force, including deadly force, to defend or to recover his property so long as the crime is in the process of commission — that is, until the criminal is apprehended and duly tried by legal process. In other words, he should be able to shoot looters.”
I am glad that ILana has written this article on Joe Horn. It strikes a nerve with me personally, because my family and I were recipients of a home invasion when we were living in a very remote region of the Mojave Desert.
I am still here obviously to write this, thank God. The Castle Doctrine is a great doctrine. It should be in every state in this country. After all, wasn’t this country founded on Judeo-Christian doctrine? What Joe Horn did was nothing more than being obedient to sound Biblical principles. We need more men like this.The liberal preoccupation with all of the rights of criminals commands way too much attention in the media. Rather, they should be expounding the virtues of a real man. But we can’t excpect this when we have people like Allen Combs on Fox News running his mouth. People like Combs spend all their energy picking fly poop out of pepper trying their best to benefit criminals. My comments on this article would be incomplete if I failed to mention the heroism of Moshe Klessner in Jerusalem the other day with the terrorist bulldozer driver. This was on a larger scale obviously than what happened in Joe Horn’s neighborhood, However, TERRORISM is still TERRORISM regardless of how large or small the scale of it is. I would also like to comment on Moshe Klessner’s brother-inlaw David Shapira. David Shapira in March was the “MAN” who was the only one who would go in and confront the spineless terrorists with automatic weapons slaughtering Rabbinical students in Yesheva. All of the other law enforcement and even soldiers were afraid to go in to rescue the helpless students. Rescue them he did! I consider Joe Horn, Moshe Klessner, and David Shapira true heroes. I would be proud to have all three of them be my neighbors, and I would like to think that they would be proud to have me as their neighbor’s as well. Martin Berrow
[Thanks for this comment. Please post another note with a link to the story of Moshe’s heroics.–IM]
I always liked the quote from Ayn Rand, “If a person has no property rights, they have no human rights.” Joe is lucky he was in Texas, in California he would be doing life in prison. Need more like him!
Here is another hero, the professor from Israel who blocked the door to his classroom at Virginia Tech during the massacre last year, allowing his students to escape:
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-04/2007-04-20-voa30.cfm
There are too few like him and the others mentioned above.
So these two robbers were leaving the scene of the crime, had not physically harmed any one, and were not even robbing this man’s home? And yet today two mothers, two fathers, perhaps siblings, perhaps children, perhaps nephews and nieces have lost family members because an American “hero” felt it necessary to shoot two petty thieves in the back? And you people are trying to justify this?
Wow. Robbery is wrong. Murder is worse.
[In future, posting is not permitted without a name and a valid e-mail address. See instructions here.–IM]
I of course agree with you about murder being worse than robbery. If someone were leaving my house with possessions and I tried to shoot them, I would try very hard not to hit them in the head or some other vital place. I wouldn’t want their deaths on me for the rest of my life. However, if the life of my offspring or any other family members was in danger, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. The problem with robbery is that it rightly terrifies people and when people are scared for their lives, they act aggressively; what Joe did was natural defense. From what I read in the article, it sounded like he wasn’t even sure if his neighbors were home, then he saw these men with a crowbar leaving the house? For all he knew, they could have easily just murdered his neighbors and were moving on to end another’s life.
Thank God for men like Joe Horn, Moshe Klessner, and David Shapiro. To “Horn Hater”, perhaps if those two poor victims had stayed in their own countries, and not violated our immigration laws, they’d still be alive today.
The link for Moshe Klessner is found on WND’s Jerusalem Bureau.
Key in “Hero was rejected from military for protesting Gaza retreat“.
Martin Berrow
I need to correct that previous post. I just read the transcript of the 911 call, and he appears to have warned the thieves to stop or they we’re dead. They didn’t stop and it appears Horn was a man of his word. I may very well have done the same thing.
To name-less “HORN HATER” :
A far more fundamental question you may wish to ponder is,
“How would YOUR two mothers, two fathers, perhaps siblings,
perhaps children . . . (etc., bla, bla)” feel if the next “job” these
two dregs of humanity decided to pull had resulted in …
YOUR DEATH.
( … or your children’s, or your mother’s, or your father’s,
perhaps siblings’ … (etc., bla, bla)
Rather than wait for unknown and obvious neer-do-wells to
spin around and open up on him with a weapon, Joe did it right.
End-of-Story. (A good ending, at that.)
Szasz
To “Horn Hater”, I sympathize with your distress at the loss of life in this incident. However, it’s time you looked inward and realized that this came about due to the decades-long support of the criminal element to the detriment of the law abiding citizen.
It’s come to a tipping point and unless you decide you will support the rights of decent folk to be safe, it is inevitable that there will be more of the same. I suggest you begin by voting into office only those who are strict law and order advocates and enforcers. Maybe if you and lots of others like you do this, one day we’ll have a society in which the criminal will be restrained and the rest of us can go about our business.
“Murder is the unlawful killing of a human person with malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries. Murder is generally distinguished from other forms of homicide by the elements of malice aforethought and the lack of lawful justification.”
Horn murdered no one. There was plenty of justification. He defended property, which is allowed under the law. [Why forget the natural law?–IM]
Anyone wanna put money on how distressed these two “petty thieves” (that’s supposition at best and blindness to their past crimes at worst) families are? I’m betting there’s a general sense of sadness but relief that it’s finally over.
Here’s my take on it: A lot of “petty thieves,” if not stopped in their tracks, will escalate their crimes up to and including murder… in my view, Mr. Horn ended up making sure that these particular “petty thieves” won’t be escalating to anything worse.
I might have done the same thing. If some “petty thieves” invaded my house, I would not spend any time at all reminiscing about our respective bad childhoods. I’d surely attempt to plug their asses before they plugged mine.
[A home invader is never a “petty thief”; your scare quotes are appropriate here.–IM]
It is an interesting contrast between Joe Horn, Moshe Klessner, and David Shapira who are defending the peace and rights of their neighbors with the “troops” who get sent off into Iraq to serve as IED/sniper-“bait”. Not only have I used the word “bait” but several soldiers and Marines have used that exact word (in conversations where I was NOT present) and others said it slightly differently that their mission was to go out on patrol in order to “engage the enemy”.
Joe Horn and the other heroes did not travel halfway around the world seeking “monsters to destroy” (words of John Quincy Adams) but were peaceful people defending their natural rights. Much of the mainstream will denounce them while supporting the concept of sending mercenaries into foreign lands to provoke dubious engagements with local thugs. Rather sad sense of the lack of perspective in modern America.
Likewise, on Independence Day weekend – contrast the farmers/militia who showed up defending Bennington and Saratoga against invading Hessians and Mohawks vs. “National Guard” members ordered to go on HMMWV patrols from the Green Zone of Baghdad 8,000 miles from home. Joe Horn is a true American.
[Related: “The Real War Is At Home.”]
It’s troubling that some believe “Petty thieves” are benign. They are not benign! For those of you who are willing to accept that they have a right to live, please put your chips down and advertise that you feel this way. A large sign on your front and back doors would be most helpful.
Ilana, you’ve done well in often referring to evil in your writings; but so many today reject the concept of absolute evil entirely, considering it antiquated at best, dangerous to social “progress” at worst. Look no further than the morally bankrupt “New Age” movement for the spiritual underpinnings of a guilt-free, blame-free approach to doing whatever horrible thing an individual cares to do, because after all, he will have to work out the consequences during his subsequent “incarnations.”
It is no coincidence that the desire to sidestep the issue of evil correlates with the decline of Judeo-Christian values in this country. As America becomes increasingly a country of people who do not share those values (including those who trash their own western traditions) look for even greater sympathies for thugs like those named above.
Does Mr. Horn Hater understand that in a civilized society crime does not pay? Why does he want to reduce the risk for criminals? If he and his wife found themselves alone in an alley with the kind of thugs Mr. Horn dispatched, would he still be feeling all warm and fuzzy towards them when they put a knife against his throat, demanded his money, and started checking out his wife?
Mr. Horn didn’t run out of his house shooting, he gave those career criminals a choice. Not for the first time, they chose badly.
When William Rasberry, a nationally known columnist who claimed to be against guns, heard drunken college kids fooling around in his pool one night, he ran out of his house shooting one of those guns he disapproved of. He did not give those students a choice, he panicked.
If Mr. Horn Hater was in a plane about to crash in the Andes, I’d give odds he’d be the one screaming, “We’re all gonna die!”
I find it interesting that, here in South Africa at least, a murder case is opened against you straight away if you kill an armed attacker inside your house. It is then up to you to prove your innocence… A stark contrast to the more logical viewpoint of the state having to prove you guilty.
[In some states in the US, this is also he case. Please send link to the story in SA.–IM]
In South Africa a man came home to find his family tied up, being robbed. Whilst being stabbed 4 times in the neck, he managed to shoot and kill the robbers. He is now charged with murder. What is this? A world gone mad!
Keep writing!
Tamara
“so many today reject the concept of absolute evil entirely, considering it antiquated at best, dangerous to social “progress” at worst”
Quite right, Barbara. Have you read “Conversations with God”? I’ve never seen such trash in my life; the joke of an author says that everyone goes to heaven (Hitler included) and that no one harms another person with malicious intent (my personal favorite). What is this world coming to?
As usual, what happens in the US happens here in the UK 10 years or so later. From personal experience, I’ve seen that the more “liberal” (i.e. Politically Correct) we are to so called “non violent crimes” such as burglary, the more violence, disorder and “petty crime” we end up with. UK Citizen Tony Martin did much the same as your man Joe Horn: there’s a sizable minority who would make him Prime Minister for not only defying the low-lives, but the forces of stupidity, gullibility and damned “the victim is worth less than the criminal”.
Jennifer, no, I’ve not read “Conversations with God.” Could you please name the author, or provide a link to the work?
So many of our own American churches are also choosing deliberate ignorance of evil in these times.
Hi Barbara. The full title of the book is “Conversations with God: An uncommon Dialogue” and the author is Neale Donald Walsch. You can find it and read parts of it on Amazon. This book is now a series and I can’t believe how many buy into it. The god Walsch believes in is an utterly passive, useless god who loves and allows everything with no punishment or consequences. That’s apparently how some would like our country to be too.