Self defense or murder.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... 04083.html

He shot him FIVE more times?

I guess I would have to see the video...

murder. He had the moral high ground up until he reloads or switches guns and pumps five more into the kid. He didn't have to do that.

Scroll down Inquisitor, the video is at the bottom

It looks like a casual murder, not fear-based overshooting.

After he chased the other guy away, it was clear the threat was over... looking at his demeanor, the casual way he walked back inside, looked at the kid, then again casually swapping guns, going to the kid and calmly shooting him 5 more times. That's no longer self-defense.

rolandson wrote: He had the moral high ground up until he reloads or switches guns and pumps five more into the kid. He didn't have to do that.

I agree, he was absolutely in the wrong. I think that under the circumstances however, manslaughter would have been more appropriate. He didn't lock the guy up in the back room and kill him a couple of hours later, he did it while his blood was WAAAAAY hot. Yes, he walked out of the room and back in, but the adrenaline was still being introduced to his system at that point. I'm still not saying he should just getaway with it, but the circumstances were extremely heated.

The action in question took place off camera, for all I know the guy on the floor was reaching for the gun he dropped...

One thing I do know is that the posters to the comments section of this article don't make gun owners look very good.

I saw it first time it happened two years ago. I'm glad he got the murder sentence because he deserve it. There is no way in hell anybody can convince me that pumping five more rounds into a kid on the floor an accident so his sentence will be a manslaughter. I can see how some of his friends/followers think it is, but only because they think of black kid as something less than they are (I'm not calling them racist, but...).

I think this was a prime example of white, middle-age (or beyond that mark) man who finally gets to fulfill his dream and that is to shoot a black punk! It's kind of a underlying message (wish) that I can read between the lines in many posts on some of the right-wing sites. Well, this guy got his chance and he blew it! Serves him right!

I thought the video would be the last word but it's hard to make out exactly what he did. Until right now I didn't know one of the robbers was black. It looks like maybe something had been building up in that guy and he finally lost it. As someone who's lost a lot of money to scumbags like those two, I can imagine how he probably felt.

Oldskool wrote:I thought the video would be the last word but it's hard to make out exactly what he did. Until right now I didn't know one of the robbers was black. It looks like maybe something had been building up in that guy and he finally lost it. As someone who's lost a lot of money to scumbags like those two, I can imagine how he probably felt.

Reading through a couple of related news articles informed me that the kid had been hit in the head with the first shot, was unconscious at the time Ersland came back and finished him, and was unarmed.

Not that it's really relevant to this circumstance, because this guy had a lot of time to consider what he was doing before he did it...training that includes when to stop shooting is as important as when to start.

rolandson wrote:Reading through a couple of related news articles informed me that the kid had been hit in the head with the first shot, was unconscious at the time Ersland came back and finished him, and was unarmed.

Not that it's really relevant to this circumstance, because this guy had a lot of time to consider what he was doing before he did it...training that includes when to stop shooting is as important as when to start.

He probably wishes he hadn't gone back and shot the guy for the pure joy of it but who knows how many times he'd been robbed already. There was a story on 60 Minutes years ago about a jewelry store owner who shot about a dozen gangbangers over the course of several years and he never served a day in jail.

mvelimir wrote:I think this was a prime example of white, middle-age (or beyond that mark) man who finally gets to fulfill his dream and that is to shoot a black punk! It's kind of a underlying message (wish) that I can read between the lines in many posts on some of the right-wing sites. Well, this guy got his chance and he blew it! Serves him right!

+1 It was murder.

It wasn't a dozen and it wasn't 60 Minutes but still, a tough old bird.

[youtube]http://youtube/pkWgp2abM2w[/youtube]

They jury got it right. It was definitely murder. It was self defense until he returned. There have been quite a few comment in the local paper about this. Quite a few people believe that he should be let go and given a medal. They do not consider what he did as murder. The local anti gun bigots are using this as a reason to ban all firearms like in the U.K and Australia.

So the kid with the gun was the one who ran. I didn't see if the other kid had anything, it doesn't look like he did. Still, it happened off camera and I could see the argument going that the owner thought the kid was going for a weapon. But 5 times is excessive.

I wonder, would anyone feel differently if the kid had died immediately after the first shot? Would it have made a difference if the guy just kicked the body a few times instead of shooting it? Just curious, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it.

stickman wrote:So the kid with the gun was the one who ran. I didn't see if the other kid had anything, it doesn't look like he did. Still, it happened off camera and I could see the argument going that the owner thought the kid was going for a weapon. But 5 times is excessive.

I wonder, would anyone feel differently if the kid had died immediately after the first shot? Would it have made a difference if the guy just kicked the body a few times instead of shooting it? Just curious, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it.

Well yeah, it would be entirely different...abuse of a corpse maybe, not not murder. It's kind of hard to murder somebody who is already dead.

I wonder how the prosecution established that the kid was alive at the time of the subsequent five shots? Given the problems the coroner in this case faces...
http://newsok.com/medical-examiners-woe ... le/3437273.

I always heard after a certain number of shots it was temporary insanity. That's kind of how it sounds, like he was in a state of rage. Either way, he did the rest of us a favor.

I agree, the first shots were to protect himself and his employees, using the second weapon put it into the criminal category. And pursuing the gunman outside instead of locking the door and waiting for police was additional evidence against him. Even without the tape, there was the evidence of the second gun. Off it goes to the appellate courts after he is sentenced.

Oldskool wrote:I always heard after a certain number of shots it was temporary insanity. That's kind of how it sounds, like he was in a state of rage. Either way, he did the rest of us a favor.

Nope, he screwed us. The argument again and again against gun ownership is that ordinary people cannot be trusted to use a gun rationally. Every time a gun owner does something irrational, that does us no good, and makes the anti's arguments sound more reasonable.

Reminds me a few years ago in Orlando, a guy had a case of road rage, pulled up next to a pickup, emptied a revolver through his passenger side window into the pickup. No one was hurt, but the guy goes to his job as an engineer in a Patriot missile plant, parks his car and goes to work. Which is where the FHP found him.

I think every armed robber should be shot dead which is why he did the rest of us a favor. If it happened every time, we'd save a ton of money on prisons that could be spent on schools.

The shooting should not only be justified but it should be executed righteously. I have a very bad feeling about this shooting and have since I first saw it last year. You never shoot to kill you shoot to stop the threat, a head shot stops the threat and rarely requires five torso shots rapid fire after the fact.