Must we debate the 2nd Amendment Right?

September 5th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Heroes– through and through.

BLUE MOUND, Texas — When two gunmen smashed through the glass front door of her suburban Fort Worth home, Kellie Hoehn didn’t think twice.

The 34-year-old mother of two grabbed a shotgun that had been pointed at her face early Wednesday, starting a struggle that ended with one intruder killed with his own weapon and another in the hospital.

“I wasn’t going to let them get to my babies,” she said, recalling the moment when she pushed up the muzzle of the shotgun, pointing it away from her children’s rooms.

Although the intruders told her to keep quiet, she screamed for her husband. She told her 12-year-old son, who was awakened by the sound of the shattering glass front door, to get his 5-year-old sister and hide.

“It was like a horror movie,” her husband, 32-year-old Keith Hoehn, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I thought I was a dead man. We’re fighting for our lives.”

With Kellie Hoehn clinging to the weapon’s muzzle, her husband tackled the man who held the shotgun. She knocked the intruder in the head with a jar candle, giving her husband a chance to wrest the shotgun.

By then the tussle had spilled out onto the front lawn. Keith Hoehn shot one of the men who had a pistol, police said. Wounded, that man ran away.

Then the intruder who initially had the shotgun charged Keith Hoehn.

Kellie Hoehn told The Dallas Morning News that she screamed at her husband, “Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.”

Her husband fired the shotgun and the man fell to the ground. Then the shot man lunged a second time.

“Well, I shot him again, and I guess that was it,” Keith Hoehn said.

Dakota Scott Benoit, 20, of Richland Hills, was pronounced dead at a hospital. John Garland Pierson, 25, of Haltom City, was in critical condition and in police custody at the hospital.

“I am not happy that someone is dead,” Kellie Hoehn said. “But I am glad that my family is alive.”

Police said Pierson was shot in the left arm and the bullet pierced his diaphragm and other organs but his condition was improving. He will face charges of burglary of habitation with intent to commit another felony, police said.

Investigators say the couple were just defending their family and probably won’t be charged.

(Source: Associated Press)

There Are 6 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Cooper on 5 September 2008:

    Not unless we are ready to debate the 1st amendment. Both speak to the individual and both are as explicit as the english language can afford to be.

  2. Comment by Ridiculous on 6 September 2008:

    Yes we should! You miss the forest for the trees. If we didn’t have guns as in no industry, no market, and no sales there would be no guns!! What a concept!

    Firearms kill far too many people accidental or otherwise. Take the guns off the streets and criminals like these won’t be so brazen as to rob people’s houses.

    Or we can continue to use right wing thinking and read the news about a three year old blowing his head off while his beer drinking dad sleeps off his hangover.

  3. Comment by Loozianajay on 6 September 2008:

    That is the most thoughtless and short sighted response I believe I’ve ever read on here. Your thought process is saturated with naivete.

    I don’t usually post from work but this actually aggravated me from its sheer stupidity.

    Let’s start with the first one. You being an obviously raging liberal probably know this one. Since protesting and having grievances is a liberal past time. So we’ll start there.

    First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    The 2nd Amendment like the other nine (did you know there were 10 now?)included in the Bill of Rights were written for the individual, and addresses the individual. The Bill of Rights spells out individual rights that the government cannot take away, and the right to bear arms is just as specific and clear as free speech and other rights. That is why the Supreme Court (until just recently) and scholars have not cared to visit it. You won’t find volumes filled with opinions on it in law books. There have only been a few court decisions on the 2nd Amendment in federal courts.

    I’m not a lawyer or a legal scholar, far from it — but I can see that there are two clauses mentioned in the Amendment. The Militia Clause and the Right to Arms clause.

    “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state {COMMA} the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

    – The framers were clear, both in their intent and language. Guaranteed right to have guns for self defense, the government cannot take that away.

    – Guarantees the right of citizens to own guns in order to participate in militias to defend their states or national government

    – The framers distrusted government, especially one that will not trust its citizens to own guns

    It is from either idiocy or hypocrosy that you respect the Bill of Rights and see it as a guarantee to the individual but yet ignore the 2nd Amendment as part of the same Bill of Rights. The duplicity of these kind of arguments are ridiculous.

    Go read a book…

  4. Comment by Special K on 6 September 2008:

    I agree.

    Back to the article. It appears the part that aggravated you in the arcticle was, “Investigators say the couple were just defending their family and PROBABLY won’t be charged.” I’m guessing that you think that it should even be a consideration.

    I don’t personally feel the 2nd amendment is at issue here, the issue is whether it was self-defense. The laws vary from state, but most say something all the lines that if you or someone else is in threat of death or serious bodily injury lethal force is allowed. The reason cautionary language like “probably” must be used is because the husband’s testimony could be false. For instance if the burglar didnt lunge at him a second time, but the husband shot him again just to make sure he was dead, he could easily be charged with murder.

  5. Comment by Loozianajay on 6 September 2008:

    No what aggravated me was “Ridiculous’s” response to the article. He or she is in favor of removing fire-arms, i.e., revoking 2nd amendment rights and that will keep famlies like this one safe. The response was just asking for it.

    K, he may or may not have lunged that second time. We’ll never know. Important part here is that the men had guns with intent and the ability to do harm or kill. He was in survival mode and protecting his family. Had they not come to is house, armed, and looking to rob and/or possibly killing his family, the one suspect wouldn’t be dead and the other wouldn’t be injured facing jail time.

    So the fact that he murdered or killed him in self defense doesn’t matter to me. It’s one in the same at that point. He wasn’t out in his yard or standing in the street hunting burgulars. No what I mean? They brought the situation on theirselves and it all quickly backfired when a motivated man wishing to keep his family safe decided not to take prisoners.

    “We the jury find the defendant innocent on all charges.” — All day long.

  6. Comment by Special K on 6 September 2008:

    I agree with everthing you said except for the part about it being justified even if it was an execution. Reminds me of that infamous scene from American History X.

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